Send one line the same day: "Done. You won't hear from me again." Then remove them everywhere before you do anything else. No explanation, no apology that runs longer than the request, no "are you sure," no attempt to keep the conversation going. The reply is a courtesy. The removal is the obligation. This is general information, not legal advice.
The reply is easy. The awkward cases are the ones that need a script: someone who asks how you got their address, someone who is angry, someone who writes after a follow-up you'd already scheduled. Below are the exact wordings, then the routine that keeps removed people removed.
The three replies you will get most
Bryn sells filter-replacement subscriptions to small offices. In her first 300 emails she got these three.
The plain request: "Please remove me from your list." Send:
Done. You won't hear from me again.
The one-word request: "Stop." or "Unsubscribe." Send the same line. Treat any clear message asking you to stop as an opt-out, whether or not it uses a keyword.
The polite request with a reason: "We have a facilities company handling this, please take us off." Send:
Understood, and you're removed. Thanks for telling me.
In all three, the reply takes ten seconds. The routine after it takes two minutes, and it's the part that matters.
When they ask how you got their address
"Remove me, and how did you get my email?" is a fair question, and the right answer is the true one in a single clause:
It's listed on your company's contact page. You're removed and you won't hear from me again.
Name the real source: their site, a directory, a conference list. If you don't know, say so and don't make something up: "I'm not sure which list it came from. You're removed everywhere I have you." Then go find out, because an address you can't trace is an address you shouldn't have. See how to find a business owner's email address for sources you can name.
When they are angry or mention reporting you
An angry reply deserves the shortest reply you can write:
You're removed. Sorry for the intrusion.
Match their length. If their message is three words, yours is five. Do not defend cold email, explain your intentions, or point out that your message was legal. Each of those turns a removal into an argument, and arguments end in spam reports. If the message names a law or threatens action, remove them, send the same single line, and save the thread. If it becomes a formal letter, that's the time to talk to a lawyer, not to write a longer email. The basics of CAN-SPAM explain what you owe and what you don't.
When your follow-up went out after they asked
This one is on you, and it happens when a follow-up was already scheduled. They wrote "remove me" on Tuesday and got your third email on Thursday, with a second angry reply. Send:
You're right, and I'm sorry. My next message was already scheduled when you wrote. You're off the list now.
Then fix the cause. Cancel scheduled steps whenever a removal comes in, before the reply. A tool that stops the sequence when it reads a reply does this for you. In a sheet-and-mail-merge setup, you're the only safeguard, which is a good reason to remove first and reply second.
When they ask you to remove the whole company
"Please don't email anyone at our company again." Send:
Understood. I've removed everyone at your company and won't contact anyone there again.
Then actually do it: add the domain to your do-not-contact list, not just the one address. Check the other contacts you'd found there and delete them from your sheet and any sequence they're in.
When someone else replies for them
An assistant or a shared inbox writes back: "Mr. Delgado asks that you remove him." Treat it as his request. Reply to the sender with "Understood, he's removed," and log his address, not the assistant's. If the reply comes from a different address than the one you wrote to, remove both.
Phrases that turn a removal into an argument
"Sorry to bother you" before you've done anything. "If you change your mind" (they won't, and it suggests you'll write again). "I'd just like to say our service..." (a pitch). "Could you tell me why?" (it reopens the conversation). "Please confirm" (it asks them to do more work after asking you to stop). Everything that is not "done" is optional, and almost all of it makes things worse.
One list that works across every tool
A single sheet is enough, kept somewhere you can reach from your phone. Columns: address, domain, date, source of the request. The routine for every request:
- Add the address to the sheet. If they asked for the company, add the domain.
- Cancel scheduled follow-ups in every tool that can send as you: your outreach tool, your CRM, any mail-merge add-on, a scheduled draft in Gmail.
- Send the one-line reply.
- Check each new import against the sheet before you send it. A stale export brings removed addresses back.
- Once a week, glance at your inbox search for "unsubscribe", "remove" and "stop" so nothing slipped through.
The wording that prevents some requests in the first place, and the cases where a link beats a sentence, are in cold email unsubscribe links: do you need one?. Rocketship covers the first two steps on its own for mail it sends: it reads replies, ends that person's follow-ups when they ask to be removed, and keeps the address from being contacted again. You still keep your own list for anything you send outside it.
How often this should happen
A few per hundred emails is ordinary. Bryn got 4 in 300, or about 1.3%. If it climbs well above that, say one in twenty, the problem is upstream: the list is wrong for the offer, the first line doesn't say why you wrote, or the follow-ups come too fast. Fix those before anything else. A removal request is far better news than a spam report, because it costs you one address and keeps your sending reputation. That's why a fast, courteous reply is worth the ten seconds. For other kinds of no, how to respond to a not-interested reply and auto-replies and out-of-office messages are the companion pieces.
Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. See how the AI workers run outreach.