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Subscribers & broadcasts

A subscriber is someone who gets a space's email newsletters without being a member. No DFOS account, no login — just an email address on a list. Subscribing never grants access to anything inside the space; it only means the space can email you.

Subscribing​

A space can offer subscriptions, and it's on by default. It shows up once the space has a public profile, and an admin can turn it off. When it's on, the space's public page offers a subscribe form — drop in your email, get a welcome email, and you're on the list. That's the whole deal: you'll receive the space's newsletters, and nothing more.

For spaces — the audience​

Studio → Reach → Audience holds the space's subscribers, its email lists, exports, and a history of every newsletter sent. It also shows subscriber stats and a chart of members and subscribers over time (see Your space's numbers).

  • Email lists can be imported from a CSV file or pasted in directly. Every list feeds the space's subscribers — importing a list means subscribing the people on it, so only import addresses you're allowed to email.
  • Limits keep imports sane: up to 100,000 rows per import (50MB file), which is also the cap on a single list.
  • Some imports need a review before they go live, such as your first import or a large batch of new addresses. The app tells you whether it was approved or declined.

Managing subscribers​

  • Search and filter. Search subscribers by email, sort by when they were added, and switch between the people currently subscribed and the people who unsubscribed.
  • The date is when they were added. For someone who used the subscribe form, that's the day they subscribed. For someone who arrived in an imported list, it's the day the import landed — an import file doesn't carry the date each person originally subscribed, so that date isn't something the space knows.
  • Open a subscriber to see where they came from, which lists they're on, whether their address is still delivering, and every email this space has sent them.
  • Unsubscribing someone. You can unsubscribe an email-only subscriber if they ask you to. After that, only they can subscribe again — you can undo your own unsubscribe, but you can't reverse one they made themselves. Members aren't in your hands at all: they manage their own email settings.
  • Removing an address from a list takes it off that list and nothing more. If the person is subscribed, they stay subscribed.
  • Exporting can include the people who unsubscribed, with the date they left, so you can carry consent state over to another tool.

Welcome emails​

A space writes its own welcome emails in Studio → Reach → Emails. There are two: Member welcome, sent when someone joins, and Subscriber welcome, sent when someone subscribes on your public site. Each can be switched off, edited, sent to yourself as a test, or reset to the default wording.

Email newsletters​

When publishing a post, an admin can pick Email newsletter to send it by email. Then choose who it goes to:

  • Members — everyone in the space who can read the post.
  • Subscribers — your email-only subscribers. Members still get an in-app announcement; they just aren't emailed.
  • Everyone — members and subscribers both. Each address gets it once.

The two subscriber options appear only when the post is readable space-wide, so a newsletter never emails someone content they couldn't otherwise see.

Narrow to lets you send to just some of that audience: pick any of the space's groups and email lists, and anyone in at least one of them gets the email. Groups narrow members only. Narrowing changes who gets the email, never who can read the post.

  • Sender name. Newsletters come from your space's own DFOS sending address under a name you choose. Set it in Studio → Reach → Audience → Broadcasts — leave it empty to use your space's name. You can add up to 3 alternate sender names to pick from when sending.
  • Replies. When a send includes subscribers, replies don't reach the space. If you want people to write back, put a way to reach you in the post.
  • Pacing. A space can send at most one newsletter every six hours. Each space also has a weekly email allowance — at least 25,000 emails, growing with your list. Messages to event attendees count toward it too. The app tells you when you're up against either limit.
  • Results. The history in Studio → Reach → Audience → Broadcasts shows each send's status along with how many emails were delivered, bounced, clicked, or marked as spam, and how many people unsubscribed.

Deliverability​

DFOS checks new addresses for you — nothing to do on your side. Members never need checking.

Before you send, the publish flow shows Recipient deliverability for the exact audience: Deliverable, Risky, Undeliverable, Unknown, and Unverified. Addresses that can't receive email are skipped and counted as excluded. Unconfirmed addresses that can't be checked are counted as withheld, which keeps them from putting the rest of your email at risk.

  • Temporary bounces pause an address for a while. It's tried again later, and the subscriber shows as Bouncing until it recovers.
  • Hard bounces and spam complaints are permanent. Those addresses show as Bounced or Complained and get no more newsletters.
  • Unsubscribes are honored right away.

A send to a newly imported list can take longer to go out. If a large send runs into a lot of bounces or complaints, it stops, and the history shows it as Paused.

Unsubscribing​

Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link that works without logging in. Use it to drop just that one space, or all newsletter email at once. Your mail app's built-in one-click unsubscribe works too.

Receipts and money confirmations are separate — those aren't newsletters and always arrive, so you always have a record of a charge or a refund. See How money works.