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Checking the Number and Breakdown of Contacts in Your Current Marketing Cloud Account

Publiceringsdatum: Sep 29, 2025
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To check the number of billable contacts in your active account, you'll need to generate the "Contact Count" report (hereafter referred to as "this report") at the top-level business unit (parent BU, EID). The value in the "Total Distinct Contacts Count" field within the report results will be the number of billable contacts for that account.

If your goal in checking the total contact count is often to organize the contacts in your active account, please refer to the related articles below as well.

Related Articles

 

How to Generate This Report

  1. Log in to your top-level Business Unit.
  2. Click Analytics Builder | Reports, then click Contacts from the Report Catalog. Click the Create button next to "Contact Count."
  3. Set your desired range for the report parameters and click the Send button.
  4. Review the results on the screen or by downloading them as a CSV file.

 

Important Notes:

  • Always run this report from your top-level Business Unit (parent BU, EID). Reports generated from child BUs will not provide an accurate contact count.
  • This report uses weekly aggregated data, so it does not provide real-time contact counts.
  • We recommend against trying to reconcile the numbers in this report with other sources. For example, attempting to understand the breakdown of "Total Distinct Contacts Count" by comparing it to the summed values from various metrics on the Contact Builder | All Contacts screen, or by comparing the "Total Distinct Contacts Count" value with the sum of other items within this report, often won't match in many environments. We advise against doing this as it can cause confusion.
  • If you need to identify unnecessary contact counts or their details, please use the "Contacts Without Channel Addresses" option in the Data Extract Activity.

 

On the Values of Each Item in This Report

This article provides definitions for each item in the report. Let's clarify their meanings:

The "Total Distinct Contacts Count" value indicates the number of contacts. In contrast, subsequent items (such as "Total Distinct Email Addresses" and "MobilePush Contacts") show the number of unique addresses. Please note that these represent address counts, not contact counts. When you download the report as a CSV, the column names, like Total_Distinct_Push_DeviceIDs_Count, also indicate address counts; we recommend referring to these as well.

Here, "address count" refers to:

  • MobilePush: Number of devices
  • MobileConnect: Number of phone numbers
  • GroupConnect: Number of LINE addresses

In mobile channels, a single contact can have multiple addresses, which is why the address count may be higher than the contact count.

When you generate this report from a top-level Business Unit, the numbers displayed under "MobilePush Contacts," "MobileConnect Contacts," and "GroupConnect Contacts" represent the total sum of mobile channel addresses across all Business Units.

 

Example:

Let's assume the MobilePush contact counts and device ID counts for Business Units A, B, and C are as follows. Here, Business Unit A is the top-level BU. When you generate this report in each Business Unit, the results will be as shown below:

Contact Configuration

 

==========================================
Business Unit A: MobilePush Contacts: 3, Device IDs: 5
Business Unit B: MobilePush Contacts: 4, Device IDs: 6
Business Unit C: MobilePush Contacts: 5, Device IDs: 7
==========================================

 

[MobilePush Contacts] Field in Report Output File

 

==========================================
Business Unit A: 18 (Total device count across all BUs: 5 + 6 + 7 = 18)
Business Unit B: 6
Business Unit C: 7
==========================================

This illustrates that the results displayed in this report are address counts, and when generated from the top-level BU, they represent the total sum across all business units in your account.

Please note: To confirm contact counts instead of address counts, refer to the next section: "How to Confirm Contact Counts in Each Business Unit."

How to Confirm Contact Counts for Each Business Unit

Sometimes, especially when you want to delete contacts, you might need to see the breakdown of contact counts rather than just address counts. In such cases, you can use the values displayed in Contact Builder. This feature shows the contact count for mobile channels that exist only within each specific Business Unit.

Steps:

  1. Log in to the Business Unit for which you want to confirm the contact count.
  2. Navigate to Contact Builder and click All Contacts tab.
  3. From the left-hand menu, click on the mobile channel you wish to check, found under Channels.
  4. The contact count will be aggregated and displayed within parentheses. This number represents the contact count for that specific channel within the Business Unit.

Using the previous example, you would see the following numbers:

    As shown above, Contact Builder allows you to confirm the contact count that exists only within that specific Business Unit.

    Contact Count Viewable from Contact Builder | All Contacts | MobilePush Channel

    

    

    

    

    ==========================================
Business Unit A: 3
Business Unit B: 4
Business Unit C: 5
==========================================

    

    

    

    

    

    Note that the total number of contacts and the number of contacts for the email channel are managed at the EID (Enterprise ID) level, meaning they will be the same value across all Business Units.
    

    

    Important Notes:
    

    • The total contact count and the email channel contact count (all subscribers) are managed at the EID level, so they will display the same value regardless of which Business Unit you view them from.
    • Mobile channels are managed at the Business Unit level. Thus, as shown in the example above, if you switch Business Units, only the contacts existing within that specific Business Unit will be displayed.
    

    • If the number shown in Contact Builder | All Contacts doesn't match the Total Distinct Contacts Count value in the Contact Count report, it might be due to the use of Population Data Extension.

      • Contacts that exist only in Population Data Extension (i.e., those that haven't been sent to yet) cannot be seen from All Contacts, which can lead to discrepancies.
      • Please note that contacts existing only in Population Data Extension are not extracted by the "Contacts Without Channel Addresses" Data Extract Activity.
      

    

    

    About This Article
    

    Please note that the contact configuration varies significantly across different environments, so the information provided here may not apply to all setups. Additionally, behavior may change without prior notice.
    

    

    

    

    Knowledge-artikelnummer
    000395022
     
    Laddar
    Salesforce Help | Article