Stop an email sequence when someone replies
They wrote back. The next email never goes out.
A reply means the follow-up worked, so the next email should not go out. Builderify takes a person off a sequence when they answer it. What makes that happen is not a switch. It is where replies are sent, whether that address is a mailbox that receives here, and how the Inbox tells a person from an out-of-office. This is the whole fork, stop by stop, with a tester for where an email goes and what a month costs.
Each email leaves with a return address.
And a label only it carries.
A sequence sends one email at a time to each person, from the sender you connected. Two things go out with every email. The Reply-to address says where an answer is delivered. The Message-ID is a label made for that one email, and Builderify keeps it against the step that sent it. A reply that quotes the label can be matched back to the step it answers.
- The sender
- A sequence sends as the sender on the Sending domains page, and shares that domain’s hourly allowance with campaigns and Inbox replies.
- The address
- Reply-to address on that page: Where replies to your emails go. Leave empty to use the sender email. It accepts any valid address, which is why it is the setting to check.
- The label
- Every email also leaves with a Message-ID of its own:
sq-, a random string and your sending domain. Builderify keeps it against the step. There is nothing to set. - One pass
- A person walks a sequence once, so nobody is put back on it after they leave. Flow 01 covers how people get in.
The address must be a mailbox.
Or the answer never arrives.
Builderify can only act on mail it receives. A mailbox starts receiving once mail for its address reaches Builderify, and there are three ways to make that happen. Until it does, the chip beside it says so, and a reply sent there goes nowhere you can see.
- Where it starts
- Saving a sender on the Sending domains page creates a reply mailbox for that address. More can be added in Inbox, on any domain the website has connected or a subdomain of one.
- On the domain
- Point the domain’s MX record at
mta-pool.builderify.net. The mailbox says Receiving once the domain’s ownership and MX records check out under Domains. - On a subdomain
- Make the mailbox on one, such as
reply.acme.co, point only its MX here and press Check now. Your main domain’s mail stays where it is. - By forwarding
- Every mailbox has a private forwarding address. Forward your existing mail to it, with no DNS change. In Gmail, that is Settings, then Forwarding.
- Your own mail
- If the domain’s mail already goes to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Zoho Mail, the page warns you not to change its MX, or that mail stops arriving.
Real reply or machine?
The Inbox reads the headers.
Every email that arrives is sorted before anything else happens, in this order. Spam is set aside first. What is left is matched to the sequence email it answers, by the Message-ID it quotes. If a person wrote it, they are taken off that sequence. If a machine did, it is only labelled.
- Spam first
- Mail from a sender you blocked, mail whose own domain says it did not send it (a failed DMARC check) and mail a spam scanner flagged all go to Spam, with the reason. Spam is never matched to a step, so it never stops a sequence.
- The match
- A reply is matched by the In-Reply-To and References headers a mail app adds when someone presses Reply. A match is labelled Reply to sequence “Welcome”, step 2, and the label links to the sequence.
- A real reply
- The person is taken off that sequence: Stopped in Lead progress, with the reason replied. The emails still waiting for them are never sent, and ones already sent are not recalled. They stay on the list, and any other sequence goes on.
- An auto-reply
- Out-of-office notices say so in their headers, such as Auto-Submitted or Precedence: bulk, or start their subject with Automatic reply or Out of office. They are labelled Auto-reply and change nothing.
Answer the person.
Not just the address.
Beside every conversation the Inbox shows what Builderify already knows about the person behind the address. It matches on the address alone, so before you write back you can see which lists they are on, what they were sent, which sequences they are in and where they went on your site.
- The lists
- Every list they are on, with its status: Subscribed, Awaiting confirmation, Unsubscribed or Bounced. Someone on no list shows Not on a list yet and an Add to a list button. Someone who left that list before is not added back.
- What they got
- The last three campaigns they were sent, with whether they opened each one, and the sequences they are in, each Active, Completed or Stopped.
- On your site
- From User Journey: how many visits they made, where the first one came from, the pages they read last and a link to their whole journey. It is there when they signed up through your widget, or identified on your site with the same address.
- A draft
- Suggest reply writes a draft from the conversation and what your AI Chatbot knows. It lands in the composer for you to read, change and send. Nothing is sent by itself.
Where does this email go?
Move the address, the reply and the sender.
A tester built from the rules above. Say where replies are sent, how the person answers, what kind of email comes back and where they are in the sequence, and follow it through the same checks the Inbox makes, in the same order. It is a model of those rules, not the product: it does not know your mailboxes, your block list or your spam scanner, so it takes your word for what arrives.
hello@reply.acme.co is a mailbox, and it says Receiving.
Their mail app adds In-Reply-To and References, naming your email.
No automatic-reply headers, nothing flagged, a sender you have not blocked.
They have had email 2 of 4, and email 3 is waiting for day 5.
Two things get counted.
One of them gets smaller.
The flow draws on one balance of Usage Credits. Each sequence email has a rate per recipient and each new person who joins a list has one too, both on the pricing page. Receiving mail, sorting it and replying from the Inbox have no rate. Every account gets 250 free credits a month, packs start at $9, and purchased credits never expire.
People who join a list and start the sequence.
Each person is sent every one, unless they leave.
Real replies only. An out-of-office notice does not count.
- Sequence emails 0.5 credits per email sent, and fewer as more people reply 582
- New leads 1 credit per new person, once 300
It fits inside the free credits, with -632 to spare, before any AI drafts.
Over by 632 credits, before any AI drafts. One Starter pack (1,000 credits, $9) covers that for about 1 month at this size. Purchased credits never expire.
- The first line takes off the emails a reply saves. It assumes a person who replies has had about half the sequence, which is an assumption: your own sequence has its own average, and the Lead progress table shows it.
- Receiving mail, sorting it, the Spam folder and replying from the Inbox have no rate of their own.
- Suggest reply and the one-line conversation summaries are AI features: credit usage is dynamic, based on the model and the cost of the task, so there is no fixed price to count here.
- A person who is taken off is never sent to, so they are never charged for the emails they did not get.
Six ways a reply goes unheard,
and the setting behind each.
- Cause
- Replies go to the Reply-to address on the Sending domains page, or to the sender email when it is empty. If that is a Gmail or Outlook address, or any address Builderify does not receive for, the reply never arrives, so nothing can match it to a step.
- Fix
- Set Reply-to address to a mailbox in Inbox. For anyone who already answered, open the sequence and choose Remove from sequence in the row’s menu.
- Cause
- The address is on your domain, but no mailbox with that address exists. The mail server refuses it with Mailbox not found, so the person gets a bounce notice and you get nothing. A mailbox that is paused is refused the same way.
- Fix
- Create the mailbox in Inbox, or change the Reply-to address to one that exists. Check its chip says Receiving, not Paused.
- Cause
- A mailbox only receives once mail for its address reaches Builderify: the domain’s ownership and MX records check out, its subdomain’s MX points here, or mail is forwarded to its address. Pointing your main domain’s MX here can cut off the mail you already use.
- Fix
- Use a mailbox on a subdomain such as reply.yourdomain.com and press Check now once its MX record is in, or forward mail from your current provider to the mailbox’s forwarding address. That needs no DNS change.
- Cause
- Automatic replies are recognised by their headers or by a subject that starts Automatic reply, Out of office and the like. An auto-responder that sends none of those, such as a vacation reply with a subject that starts Re:, looks like a person.
- Fix
- Nothing puts a stopped person back, because a lead walks a sequence once. Write to them from the Inbox yourself, and if the rest of the emails still matter, put them in a sequence of their own.
- Cause
- Spam is checked first. A reply from a sender you blocked, one whose domain fails its DMARC check, or one a spam scanner flagged goes to Spam and is never matched to a step. Not spam moves it back and unblocks the sender, but it does not stop the sequence afterwards.
- Fix
- Look in Spam now and then, press Not spam on real people, and use Remove from sequence for the one who already answered.
- Cause
- A reply is matched by the Message-ID it quotes in In-Reply-To or References. A person who writes a brand-new email, or whose mail app drops those headers, quotes nothing, so there is nothing to match and the sequence is not stopped.
- Fix
- End the emails with a plain ask to reply to this email, so people press Reply. Take anyone who wrote a new message off the sequence by hand.
4 modules, in the order a visitor meets them.
- 01 · Automated email drip sequences Sequences Sends each email with a return address and a label only it carries, then lets go of the person who answers.
- 02 · Custom domain email inbox Inbox Receives what comes back, tells a person from a machine and labels it with the step it answers.
- 03 · Lead capture and lead lists Leads Shows which lists the person is on and what they were sent, so you answer knowing who they are.
- 04 · Visitor-level website analytics User Journey Shows where they came from and which pages they read last.
- Broadcast Replies to a campaign get the same label, and stop nothing.
- AI Chatbot Its knowledge writes the first draft of your reply.
Same script tag. A different job.
The consent fork
A visitor says no to cookies. What does your site still record?
Cookie Consent User Journey Leads AI Chatbot Open this flowThe lead line
Someone leaves their email. Then what?
Popups Leads Sequences User Journey Open this flowThe answer loop
A visitor asks something the bot cannot answer. Then what?
AI Chatbot Support Tickets Live Chat Callbacks Open this flowThe booking fork
Not every visitor should get the same calendar.
Quizzes Bookings Callbacks Sequences Open this flow
Stop losing the visitors
you already paid for.
More leads from the traffic you already have, and follow-up that sends itself. Free to start. No card, no monthly fee.