Glossary/Email & Lifecycle/Soft Bounce
Email & Lifecycle
Soft Bounce
A temporary email delivery failure, such as a full mailbox or server issue, that may succeed if retried later.
By Brandon Mina·CEO, BrandPilot AI·Updated November 2026
Short answer
A soft bounce is a temporary email delivery failure, such as a full mailbox or server issue, that may succeed if retried later. Email platforms usually retry automatically. Addresses that soft bounce repeatedly are often converted to hard bounces and suppressed, since continued failures can hurt sender reputation.