---
title: "What is a soft bounce? – Invenitor"
description: "A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox. Here is how it differs from a hard bounce and when to retry."
url: https://invenitor.com/glossary/soft-bounce
agents: https://invenitor.com/llms.txt
mcp: https://api.invenitor.com/mcp
---

[Home](https://invenitor.com/)/[Glossary](https://invenitor.com/glossary)/Soft bounce

Glossary

# What is a soft bounce?

A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox or a busy server, where the address itself may still be fine.

By Invenitor team. Updated 2026-11-01.

## Should you retry a soft bounce?

Most sending tools retry for you. If you send by hand, wait a day and try once more. If it still fails after a couple of tries, treat it as a dead address.

## How is it different from a hard bounce?

Hunter describes hard bounces as "a permanent failure of delivery" and soft bounces as temporary, "caused by something that can be addressed and fixed" ([Hunter](https://hunter.io/blog/soft-bounce-vs-hard-bounce/)).

## Guides on this

- [How to lower your cold email bounce rate](https://invenitor.com/guides/lower-your-email-bounce-rate)

## Related terms

- [Hard bounce](https://invenitor.com/glossary/hard-bounce)
- [Cold email bounce rate](https://invenitor.com/glossary/cold-email-bounce-rate)

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