Reachkit includes a built-in unsubscribe system that helps you stay compliant with email regulations while giving recipients a clean way to opt out.

How It Works

When you enable the Unsubscribe Option on a campaign, every email gets two things:

A List-Unsubscribe header, an industry-standard mechanism (RFC 8058) that Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail use to surface a one-click “Unsubscribe” button in the email interface without the recipient needing to read through the body.
An unsubscribe link in the body, automatically inserted into every step and variant of the campaign. This makes opt-out visible to recipients on email clients that don’t surface the header, and is what most compliance frameworks consider “clear and conspicuous.”

Both pieces are per-campaign, so you can enable the option on some campaigns and not others.

Customizing the Body Link

The unsubscribe link is system-managed but you can:

Move it anywhere in the email body using the editor.
Change its text (for example, “unsubscribe”, “opt out”, “remove me from this list”).

You can’t delete the link individually; it’s tied to the toggle. To remove the link from a campaign, disable the unsubscribe option. When you do, Reachkit will remove the link from every variant and confirm before doing so.

If you create a new step or variant while the option is enabled, the link is added automatically. You don’t need to re-add it for each one.

What Happens When Someone Unsubscribes

When a lead clicks the unsubscribe link or uses their email client’s one-click unsubscribe header:

Their request is processed immediately.
The lead is marked as unsubscribed in your campaign.
No further emails from that campaign will be sent to them.
With automatic blocklisting on (the default), the address is also added to your workspace blocklist, so it’s skipped in every campaign, not just this one, and won’t be re-contacted if you import them again later.
The unsubscribe event appears in the lead’s activity timeline.
A lead.unsubscribed webhook event fires if you have webhooks configured.

When Someone Replies Asking to Be Removed

Some people don’t use the link — they just reply “unsubscribe” or “take me off your list”. With the written-unsubscribe setting on (the default, under Settings > Blocklist), Reachkit treats that reply as an explicit opt-out and adds the address to your workspace blocklist, so it’s skipped in every campaign and won’t be re-contacted on a future import.

This is a blocklist action, not a campaign unsubscribe. A written unsubscribe stops the sequence (any reply does) and blocks the address everywhere, but it does not mark the lead as unsubscribed in the campaign, does not appear as an unsubscribe on the activity timeline, and does not fire the lead.unsubscribed webhook — those are reserved for the formal link/header opt-out. You can turn written unsubscribes off in Settings > Blocklist; see the Blocklist article for details.

Should You Enable It?

We recommend it for most campaigns. Here’s why:

Email providers like Gmail increasingly expect an unsubscribe mechanism.
A visible unsubscribe option actually improves deliverability, because recipients who want out will unsubscribe instead of marking you as spam.
A spam report is far more damaging to your sender reputation than an unsubscribe.

The only case where you might skip it is highly targeted, low-volume outreach where every recipient specifically expects your message.

Compliance Best Practices

Honor opt-outs promptly: Reachkit handles this automatically.
Enable the unsubscribe option: Header plus body link is the strongest opt-out mechanism.
Check your blocklist: Proactively prevent emails to addresses or whole domains that shouldn’t be contacted.
Keep lead lists clean: Regularly remove contacts who are no longer relevant.

Unsubscribe and Compliance