Autopilot

Autopilot decides how many notifications each subscriber gets, based on how they click. People who click often keep hearing from you; people who stop clicking get fewer messages until they click again. Turn it on in the dashboard under Autopilot. It is off for every website until you switch it on, and while it is off everything works exactly as before.

Why limit messages

Every notification someone ignores makes the next one easier to ignore, and every one too many risks an unsubscribe. Chrome also turns off notifications by itself for websites whose notifications people keep dismissing, and shows a quieter prompt to new visitors on those websites. Sending fewer messages to the people who stopped clicking protects your audience and the reputation of your website in the browser.

The four tiers

Each subscriber is in one tier at a time. relaybell moves them automatically from their recent deliveries and clicks:

Fatigue back-off: several delivered notifications in a row without a click move a person down one tier. A click moves them back up.

Limits count every notification that reached any of a person's devices (one person on a phone and a laptop counts once). A daily limit follows the subscriber's own time zone; a weekly limit covers the last 7 days. A limit of 0 means that tier gets nothing.

Settings

Three presets fill in the limits and the time between messages:

• Balanced (recommended): 3 a day / 1 a day / 2 a week / 1 a week, 3 hours apart.
• Conservative: 2 a day / 1 a day / 1 a week / 1 a week, 4 hours apart. For audiences that unsubscribe a lot. (Fewer than once a week isn't possible yet; set Dormant to 0 to stop messaging them.)
• Aggressive: 5 a day / 2 a day / 3 a week / 1 a week, 2 hours apart. For busy stores and news sites with very engaged readers.

Over the API, Autopilot is the autopilot key of the website settings (PUT /api/v1/settings):

{
  "settings": {
    "autopilot": {
      "enabled": true,
      "budgets": {
        "engaged": { "perDay": 3 },
        "regular": { "perDay": 1 },
        "quiet": { "perWeek": 2 },
        "dormant": { "perWeek": 1 }
      },
      "minGapHours": 3,
      "holdoutPct": 5,
      "broadcastsRespect": true
    }
  }
}

Each tier takes exactly one of perDay or perWeek. Values outside the ranges answer 400 invalid_autopilot. While Autopilot is on, it replaces the flat daily limit (frequencyCap, Settings → Sending) for everyone except the comparison group.

Which messages go first

Messages people triggered themselves — automations, journeys, back-in-stock and price-drop alerts — are timelier than a broadcast, so they get first pick. In a tier with 2 or more messages a day, one daily slot is kept for them; a broadcast never uses a person's last slot.

When a notification is held back for someone, it is not sent to them later. A notification's report says how many people Autopilot held back, and why.

Sending to everyone anyway

For important news, tick Send to everyone anyway in the composer (only shown while Autopilot is on), or send "sendAnyway": true with POST /api/v1/notifications. That one notification skips the limits; it still counts toward them afterwards.

What is never limited

• Transactional notifications ("transactional": true): order updates, sign-in alerts, replies.
• Test sends to your own devices.
• The comparison group, which keeps your old daily limit instead.

Quiet hours, smart timing and same-local-time delivery still apply as usual.

The comparison group

A fixed random share of your subscribers (5 % by default) is left alone: they get notifications as before, under your daily limit. Autopilot's page compares them with everyone else — click rate, revenue per subscriber and unsubscribes — and says in one sentence what Autopilot changed, for example "Subscribers with Autopilot unsubscribed 32% less". Until both groups have enough subscribers and history, the page says Not enough data yet. The same people stay in the comparison group, so the comparison stays fair over time; set it to 0 % to stop comparing.

The numbers are also available from GET /api/v1/autopilot/summary?days=30.