Go live, pause, resume or archive

An automation is always in one of five statuses, shown as a badge next to its name: draft, live, in review, paused, or archived.

• Draft: being built, or sent back for changes. Nothing sends and nobody can enter it. Editable.
• Live: active. New contacts enter through its trigger and steps run on their timing. Read-only: you can’t edit a step or the trigger while it’s live.
• In review: an automatic check flagged it for a human look, usually clearing within a few hours. Nothing sends, and while it’s held it blocks every other campaign and automation on the account (see Why one review blocks all my sending).
• Paused: stopped by you or by a billing issue. Everyone inside stays where they are; their wait timers stop and pick up when it resumes. Editable.
• Archived: shelved for good, no un-shelving. Everyone inside exits where they are.

Go live

From a draft, click Go live. It runs a check for anything missing (see Why my automation isn’t sending) and either:

• goes straight to live (“It’s live.”), or
• goes to in review (“Sent for a quick review — nothing sends until it clears.”) if content needs a human look.

If something’s missing, it stays in draft and the editor’s checklist shows what to fix.

Pause

From a live automation, click Pause: “Paused. Everyone stays where they are and their timers stop with them.” Editing only happens on draft or paused automations, so pause before editing a step or the trigger.

Resume

From a paused automation, click Resume. It runs the same check as Go live, so if you edited the email content while paused (a send step’s subject, body or from address), it can land back in in review; editing a split’s routing rule doesn’t. Everyone’s wait timers shift forward by however long the automation was paused.

See Automation steps explained for what happens to a step’s stats when you remove it.

Archive (“Shelve”)

From any non-archived automation, click Shelve and confirm: “Shelve this automation? Everyone still in it stops where they are.” This is permanent, there’s no unarchive: anyone inside exits immediately and nobody new can ever enter.

While an automation is in review, the same action reads Withdraw it: “Withdraw this automation? It’s shelved for good — anyone waiting in it stops there, and it can’t be brought back.” It’s your only self-serve way out of a review hold.

Shelved automations keep their run history, exit reasons and reports. Find them from the Automations index via Shelved (N), and return with Back to active.

Billing pauses an automation automatically

If your account falls behind on payment while an automation is live, it’s paused for you, with a banner reading “Paused — there’s a billing issue. Nothing sends until it’s sorted. Everyone in the flow is safely paused, timers stopped. Fix billing, then hit resume.” Resuming is always manual, even after billing is fixed. See Why sending is blocked.