Allow new subscribers to join automation mid-sequence instead of starting from beginning | Voters

Allow new subscribers to join automation mid-sequence instead of starting from beginning

Jed Ng

Allow new subscribers to join automation mid-sequence instead of starting from beginning

March 5, 2026

Davi Brasil

Hi Jed Ng,
Thanks for sharing this! I just want to make sure I fully understand your use case.
If I got it right, you’re referring to subscribers who enter the automation automatically via a trigger, and expecting them to start from a specific point in the middle of the sequence, instead of from the beginning. Is that correct?
If so, could you share more examples of how you visualize this flow structure to be? For instance, would there be a time or date-based reference that determines where the subscriber should enter and continue receiving emails? Do your automation content changes over time?
If you are referring to manually adding subscribers to a specific step in the flow, this is already supported. You can add a subscriber and choose the exact step they should start from, even while the automation is active. Just access the "Activity hub" inside the automation builder, click on "Add subscribers", enter the email or select a group, and select where you want to add them, if at the "Start of automation" or "Specific step". You can check the images below.
Thank you,

Gabriele Mann

Hi Davi Brasil,
not original poster, but I can think of a date sensitive automation, e.g. an advent calendar (usually a link to a subpage on the website as the open "door").
From 1st to 24th of December, they'll receive a daily email. So far, I have to plan every single mail as a single campaign, because some people sign up throughout October and November, some sign up during December when the first mails have already been sent out and I would not want to manually add them at a certain step of the automation.
Having the option to allow new subscribers to join automation mid-sequence would make that a lot easer.
They sign up before the first mail of the automation is sent, they'll receive the first email on the first of Dec, the second on the second of Dec, ...
Somebody who signs up on Dec 10th doesn't have to start from the first email, they should receive the email of Day 10 (or day 11) and then following the rest of the sequence (they'll get access to the content missed via the website, so don't need to receive the email they missed).
Hope that helps.
Cheers

Staffing Department

Davi Brasil,

Not original poster but I am also having this same issue. When using automations with specific calendar-based dates (such as biweekly payroll or timecard reminders), there is a significant gap in how new subscribers are handled. Currently, if a subscriber joins after scheduled dates have already passed, they are still entered at the beginning of the workflow and immediately process through past steps, receiving outdated and irrelevant emails. This behavior creates operational issues and defeats the purpose of setting up a structured, date-driven automation. There should be an option that allows the system to recognize when a subscriber joins after a scheduled step and automatically move them to the next upcoming future step instead of starting from the beginning. The existing workaround of manually placing subscribers at a specific step is not scalable, as new subscribers are added unpredictably and this requires ongoing manual intervention. A feature such as “start from next upcoming step” or “skip all past-dated steps upon entry” would make automations with fixed schedules far more reliable and usable, especially for operational workflows like payroll reminders, billing cycles, and compliance deadlines. Without this capability, users are forced to abandon automations in favor of manual campaign scheduling or external tools, which limits the effectiveness of the platform for real-world business needs.

Madina Umirbek

Jed Ng thanks for posting this! Really helpful feedback — I’ve shared it with the team and we’ll take a look at allowing new subscribers to enter an automation mid-sequence (instead of starting from the beginning). We’ll follow up as soon as we have an update.

Jed Ng

Madina Umirbek Looking forward to updates. Thank you so much.

Jed Ng

When an automation is ON and someone new gets added to the trigger group, they receive the entire sequence automatically. I want newly added ones to only receive emails that happen AFTER they are added and not old ones. They could get a TON of emails, specially when an automation has been active for a long time and risk my account getting flagged for being spammy.

Manually turning off an automation so I can add them and choose a step defeats the purpose of 'automating' it if I have turn things on and off to prevent this from happening.

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