Manage subscribers

A subscriber is one contact’s membership in one audience. This page shows how to add subscribers, change them, unsubscribe or resubscribe them, and remove them, and what each change does to the contact behind them.

Before you begin

• Create the audience first. See Audiences.
• Check how much room the audience has. The limit counts every subscriber, including unsubscribed ones. See Limits.
• For the API, use an API key with Full Access.

Add a subscriber

curl https://api.emailit.com/v2/audiences/aud_5hJ2kL8mNp4Qr/subscribers \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMAILIT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "email": "ada@example.com",
    "first_name": "Ada",
    "last_name": "Lovelace",
    "custom_fields": { "company": "Acme" }
  }'

{
  "object": "subscriber",
  "id": "sub_7Rt2vX9kLm3Qp",
  "audience_id": "aud_5hJ2kL8mNp4Qr",
  "contact_id": "con_2kq8Vt4xLm7Rz",
  "email": "ada@example.com",
  "first_name": "Ada",
  "last_name": "Lovelace",
  "custom_fields": { "company": "Acme" },
  "subscribed": true,
  "subscribed_at": "2026-10-01T09:30:00Z",
  "unsubscribed_at": null,
  "created_at": "2026-10-01T09:30:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-01T09:30:00Z"
}

When the person is already on the audience

Adding an address that’s already on the audience depends on its current state:

A resubscribe through this endpoint sends subscriber.updated and subscriber.resubscribed events and starts Added to audience automations, the same as a new subscriber.

Edit a subscriber

In the audience’s subscribers table, open the row menu and select Edit. You can change First name, Last name and the Subscribed switch. The email address is read-only here.

With the API, call Update a subscriber. Identify the subscriber by its sub_ ID or by email address, and send any of email, first_name, last_name, custom_fields and subscribed:

curl https://api.emailit.com/v2/audiences/Newsletter/subscribers/ada@example.com \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMAILIT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "first_name": "Augusta", "subscribed": false }'

Names, email and custom fields belong to the contact, not the subscriber. Changing them here updates the contact everywhere, including in its other audiences. Only subscribed is specific to this audience.

Turn Subscribed on or off

The Subscribed flag decides whether campaigns to this audience reach the person. Turning it off keeps the subscriber on the list, records unsubscribed_at and leaves the contact’s other audiences alone. Turning it back on sets a new subscribed_at and clears unsubscribed_at.

These changes send a subscriber.updated event. They don’t record an unsubscribe on any campaign, so they don’t appear in a campaign’s Unsubscribes tab. When recipients unsubscribe themselves with the link in a campaign, they leave every audience at once. See Unsubscribes.

Remove a subscriber

Removing a subscriber deletes the membership. Select Delete in the row menu on the audience page, Remove from audience on the contact page, or call Delete a subscriber.

Prefer unsubscribing when someone opts out, so you keep a record of it. Remove subscribers you added by mistake or no longer want to keep. To delete the person entirely, delete the contact, which removes it from every audience.

List and find subscribers

On the audience page, search by email or name, and filter by Email, First name, Last name, Subscribed or Created.

With the API, List subscribers returns every subscriber, including unsubscribed ones. Add subscribed=true or subscribed=false to narrow the list, search to match email or names, and page and limit (up to 100) to page through:

curl "https://api.emailit.com/v2/audiences/aud_5hJ2kL8mNp4Qr/subscribers?subscribed=true&limit=100&page=1" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMAILIT_API_KEY"

To look up one person, Retrieve a subscriber by sub_ ID or email address.

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