1. What are secondary contacts (“subcontacts”)?
In Pathway, each client can have:
Primary contact – your main contact (default email recipient).
Secondary contacts (“subcontacts”) – additional people related to the same account (e.g. billing contact, branch contact, marketing contact).
Enabling subcontacts lets you:
Email multiple contacts per client.
Target different roles with tailored content (e.g. billing vs. operations).
Track activity per person, not just per account.
💡 Billing reminder
Pathway charges based on active contacts with valid email addresses (“Total Valid Emails”).
Activating subcontact types will increase your contact count, which may move you into a higher plan tier.
2. How subcontacts sync from EPIC
For EPIC brokerages:
Pathway uses a specific Classifications dataset to pull additional contacts.
Certain EPIC Classifications are mapped to Pathway as subcontact types
(for example: Billing contact, Marketing contact, Operations contact – depending on your EPIC setup).The main EPIC contact remains your Primary contact in Pathway.
These mapped classifications appear as subcontact types on the Settings → Sync Mapping page.
3. Enabling subcontacts in Sync Mapping (EPIC)
To control which EPIC contacts are synced as subcontacts:
In Pathway, go to Settings → Sync Mapping.
Find the Contacts section, where you’ll see:
Primary contacts – always enabled and cannot be disabled.
EPIC Classifications mapped as subcontact types.
Tick the checkbox next to each classification you want to:
Sync into Pathway, and
Use in segments, Flows, and reporting.
What changes once enabled:
Total Contacts = all synced contacts (primary + subcontacts from enabled classifications).
Total Valid Emails = all active contacts with valid email addresses.
This is the number used for billing.Your EPIC reporting/dashboard remains unchanged – it is still client-based.
4. Sending manual emails to subcontacts (EPIC).
4.1 Step-by-step: include subcontacts in an email
Create a segment as you normally would in Pathway.
Click Send Email to open the Email Slider.
Open the Contacts tab.
Select who should receive the email:
Primary only (default), or
Primary + specific Classifications (subcontact types), or
Only specific subcontact types (e.g. Billing contacts).
Save and send/schedule the email.
⚠️ If you don’t modify the Contacts tab, Pathway will send only to Primary.
If you remove all contact types from this tab, Pathway will warn you and revert to Primary by default.
5. Using subcontacts in Flows (EPIC)
Flows can now use subcontacts based on EPIC Classifications, but rollout is being done in phases.
There are two key requirements:
The Flow must be enabled for subcontacts by Pathway.
The Flow’s filters must explicitly include the subcontact types you want.
5.1 Enabling subcontacts for your Flows
Because this uses a new dataset:
Not all EPIC accounts or Flows will have subcontacts enabled by default.
We are enabling this in waves or per request.
If you want to use subcontacts in a specific Flow:
Share the Flow name and Flow ID with your Pathway CSM.
Ask for sub-contacts to be enabled for that Flow.
Your CSM will confirm once it is ready.
Over time, more EPIC Flows will have this enabled automatically, but your CSM can confirm the current status.
5.2 Including subcontacts in Flow filters
Once a Flow is enabled:
Open the Flow and edit the Contact filters.
Add filter:
Contact → Contact Type → Is →Primary, and/or
The EPIC classifications you want to include as subcontacts.
Save your changes.
⚠️ If you do not include subcontact types in the initial Flow filters, those contacts will never enter the Flow.
Any condition later in the Flow checking “Contact Type = [subcontact type]” will then never be met.
5.3 Using conditions for different roles
Once subcontacts can enter the Flow, you can:
Add conditions using Contact → Contact Type → Is → [Primary/specific classification].
Split communication, for example:
Primary → gets general renewal info.
Billing contact → gets invoice/payment instructions.
Operations contact → gets coverage details and process instructions.
6. How subcontacts behave in Dispatch, subscriptions & reporting
6.1 Dispatch
With subcontacts enabled, Dispatch includes a Contact Type filter:
You can choose to send to:
Primary only,
One or more subcontact types (specific classifications), or
Both.
Important details:
If primary and subcontact share the same email under the same account, Pathway will not send duplicates – it sends once per email per account.
If the same email is used on multiple accounts, each account is treated separately – each account’s contact will receive the email.
6.2 Subscription settings
Subcontacts:
Have their own subscription preferences.
Can unsubscribe by using their own unsubscribe link.
When you:
Unsubscribe the primary from all lists → all linked subcontacts are also unsubscribed.
Re-subscribe the primary → subcontacts are re-subscribed.
Use bulk re-subscribe / reverse bulk unsubscribe → this applies to linked subcontacts as well.
6.3 Inactive and deleted contacts
If a primary contact becomes inactive or is deleted, their subcontacts are also treated as inactive/deleted.
Pathway UI visually labels inactive contacts.
Billing is based on unique active email addresses:
Multiple contacts with the same email still count as one active contact if at least one is active.
6.4 Reporting & merge tags
Subcontacts are included in:
Email reports – showing whether the recipient is a Primary or a specific subcontact type.
Activity Streams and exports – with a field for contact type.
eDoc download tracking – recording downloads per subcontact.
For personalization, we recommend using recipient-based merge tags, for example:
{recipient:name}– automatically uses the correct name for the actual recipient (primary or subcontact).{recipient:email}– uses the recipient’s email.{recipient:type}– shows whether they are primary or a specific classification (e.g. Billing).
These merge tags help ensure your emails render correctly regardless of who receives them.