AWeber Account Suspended? How to Fix High Bounce Rates and Get Reinstated

AWeber suspended your account. Whether you’ve been an AWeber customer for years or just got started, a suspension is disruptive — especially if you have broadcasts scheduled or automations actively running. Here’s how to handle it.

Why AWeber Suspends Accounts

AWeber is one of the older email service providers, with a large base of small business owners, bloggers, and creators. Many of their users have had lists for years — which means list quality issues are common.

High bounce rate. AWeber’s own email engagement guide says “a good bounce rate is anything less than 2%.” AWeber doesn’t publish an exact bounce rate that triggers a suspension, but a campaign far above that line, or repeated high-bounce sends, is the kind of pattern that gets an account reviewed. AWeber also automatically unsubscribes addresses that are undeliverable three or more times in a 6-month period.

High spam complaint rate. AWeber’s complaints guide says your complaint rate should stay below 0.1% (fewer than 1 complaint per 1,000 messages). If it stays above that for a period of time, AWeber’s Customer Solutions team may contact you, and if you can’t bring it down, “your account may be shut down to prevent further unwanted email from being sent.”

Imported lists without confirmed opt-in. AWeber has historically allowed single opt-in, but lists imported from external sources — especially old lists, purchased lists, or lists from other platforms — are high-risk and a common source of suspensions.

Sudden volume spikes. Importing a large batch of contacts and immediately sending a high-volume campaign is a trigger, especially from accounts that haven’t historically sent at that volume.

Step 1: Review the Suspension Notice

AWeber sends an email explaining the suspension to your account’s registered email address. Read it carefully:

• Is it a full account suspension or a sending hold pending review?
• What specific metric triggered the action?
• Is there a link to their compliance policy or a contact for the review team?

AWeber distinguishes between accounts suspended for deliverability issues (bounce/complaint rate) and those suspended for Terms of Service violations. The path to reinstatement differs.

Step 2: Export and Verify Your List

Before contacting AWeber, clean your list. This is the step that demonstrates you’ve actually addressed the problem.

1. Export your subscriber list from AWeber (Subscribers → Export)
2. Upload to an email verification service — you’ll receive a breakdown of each address: valid, invalid, catch-all, disposable, role-based
3. Remove invalid and risky addresses — suppress everything flagged as undeliverable; consider removing catch-all addresses if your bounce rate was significantly elevated
4. Keep the cleaned file ready for re-import once reinstated

Verification prices vary a lot by vendor. On published pay-as-you-go pricing, a 5,000-address list costs from about $17 (EmailListVerify) to $69 (ZeroBounce), and a 10,000-address list from about $12 (Reoon) to $129. Use our price calculator to compare services and find the best rate for your list size.

Step 3: Contact AWeber’s Customer Solutions Team

AWeber’s customer solutions team handles suspension reviews. Contact them via:

• The support number or live chat on AWeber’s website
• Email if your account is fully suspended

When you reach out:

• Be direct about what happened — which campaign or import triggered the issue
• Tell them you’ve verified your list and removed invalid addresses (be specific about how many)
• Ask about the reinstatement timeline and whether there’s anything else they need from you

AWeber’s team is generally helpful and willing to reinstate accounts that have clearly fixed the underlying problem. They’ve been dealing with list quality issues for decades — they’ve heard every excuse, and they respond well to honest explanations paired with concrete action.

Step 4: Re-import and Resume Carefully

Once reinstated:

• Import only your verified, cleaned list — not the original
• Send your first campaign to your most engaged subscribers (those who have opened or clicked recently)
• Monitor your campaign stats immediately after sending
• Expand to your full list only after confirming bounce and complaint rates are healthy

Preventing Future Suspensions

Verify every external list before import. If contacts are coming from anywhere other than your AWeber signup forms — a trade show, your CRM, another platform, a lead magnet download — verify them first. This is the single most effective prevention step.

Enable confirmed opt-in. AWeber supports double opt-in via their signup forms. Enable it. It eliminates typos and fake addresses at the source and provides documented consent.

Prune unengaged subscribers regularly. AWeber’s reports show who hasn’t opened in the last 30, 60, or 90 days. Subscribers who haven’t engaged in 6+ months are both deliverability dead weight and bounce risk as their addresses go stale. Suppress or remove them periodically.

Check campaign stats after every send. AWeber surfaces bounce and unsubscribe data per campaign. If any send comes in above 1% hard bounces, investigate before your next broadcast.

Long-Term Subscribers Are a Hidden Risk

AWeber’s user base skews toward small businesses and creators who have been building lists for years. If you’ve been on AWeber since 2018 and haven’t done a major list clean since, a significant percentage of your subscribers have gone invalid — job changes, abandoned inboxes, domain expirations.

A quarterly verification pass on your full list is cheap insurance. For a 10,000-subscriber list, most vendors charge between about $12 and $70, and it keeps your bounce rate well under AWeber’s 2% guideline.

Use our price calculator to find the most affordable verification service for your list size.