# Stop

Stop explicitly ends a branch of the Journey.

## What Stop does

A Stop node is terminal. It has no outgoing edges. When a contact reaches a Stop step, their path through the Journey is complete.

Use Stop when you want the end of a branch to be **intentional and visible** in the canvas.

## Why Stop matters

A Journey can sometimes end implicitly — for example, when a branch has no further steps connected. But an implicit ending is easy to miss during review and harder to explain to a non-technical reviewer.

An explicit Stop node makes the intended business outcome clear:

* "Contacts who take this branch are done." — visible without having to trace the full graph
* Easier to audit when reviewing a live Journey
* Reduces the risk of leaving a branch accidentally disconnected

{% hint style="info" %}
Use Stop to make review and troubleshooting faster. When every branch has either a downstream step or a Stop node, you can quickly confirm that no path is accidentally left open.
{% endhint %}

## Common patterns

**Simple flow ending:**

```
Activate → Stop
```

**Segment with explicit endings on every branch:**

```
Segment
  ├── [Branch A] Activate → Stop
  ├── [Branch B] Activate → Stop
  └── [other]   Stop
```

**Pause Until with both paths handled:**

```
Pause Until
  ├── [Condition met] Activate → Stop
  └── [Timeout]       Stop
```

## Best practices

* Add Stop when you want branch endings to be unambiguous.
* Connect a Stop node to the **other** branch of a Segment step so it is clear what happens to unmatched contacts.
* Connect a Stop node to the **timeout** branch of a Pause Until step when no further action is needed on timeout.
* Do not connect anything after Stop — it is a terminal node.

## Related pages

* [Segment](/journey/concepts/segment.md)
* [Pause Until](/journey/concepts/pause-until.md)


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