diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/email_marketing/signals.py b/lms/djangoapps/email_marketing/signals.py
index 90a6d6561b..13cecaf21b 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/email_marketing/signals.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/email_marketing/signals.py
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ import datetime
 import logging
 from random import randint
 
-import backoff
 import crum
 from celery.exceptions import TimeoutError
 from django.conf import settings
@@ -264,23 +263,7 @@ def _log_sailthru_api_call_time(time_before_call):
              delta_sailthru_api_call_time.microseconds / 1000)
 
 
-def _backoff_handler(details):
-    """
-    Simple logging handler for when timeout backoff occurs.
-    """
-    log.info('Trying again in {wait:0.1f} seconds after {tries} tries calling {target}'.format(**details))
-
-
-def _not_a_timeout(e):
-    return 'timed out' not in e.message
-
-
 @receiver(USER_RETIRE_MAILINGS)
-@backoff.on_exception(backoff.expo,
-                      Exception,
-                      max_time=600,  # Only 10 minutes of trying
-                      giveup=_not_a_timeout,  # Stop trying if exception is *not* a timeout.
-                      on_backoff=_backoff_handler)
 def force_unsubscribe_all(sender, **kwargs):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
     """
     Synchronously(!) unsubscribes the given user from all Sailthru email lists.
diff --git a/requirements/edx/base.in b/requirements/edx/base.in
index 1512ec0b13..27ed86bf2d 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/base.in
+++ b/requirements/edx/base.in
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@
 analytics-python==1.1.0             # Used for Segment analytics
 attrs                               # Reduces boilerplate code involving class attributes
 Babel==1.3                          # Internationalization utilities, used for date formatting in a few places
-backoff
 bleach==1.4                         # Allowed-list-based HTML sanitizing library that escapes or strips markup and attributes; used for capa and LTI
 boto==2.39.0                        # Deprecated version of the AWS SDK; we should stop using this
 boto3==1.4.8                        # Amazon Web Services SDK for Python
diff --git a/requirements/edx/base.txt b/requirements/edx/base.txt
index 556965fbee..a41ad6d631 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/base.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/base.txt
@@ -51,7 +51,6 @@ argparse==1.4.0
 asn1crypto==0.24.0
 attrs==17.4.0
 babel==1.3
-backoff==1.5.0
 beautifulsoup==3.2.1      # via pynliner
 billiard==3.3.0.23        # via celery
 bleach==1.4
diff --git a/requirements/edx/development.txt b/requirements/edx/development.txt
index 811a39b38f..4c7dd957b3 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/development.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/development.txt
@@ -58,7 +58,6 @@ astroid==1.5.2
 atomicwrites==1.1.5
 attrs==17.4.0
 babel==1.3
-backoff==1.5.0
 backports.functools-lru-cache==1.5
 beautifulsoup4==4.6.0
 beautifulsoup==3.2.1
diff --git a/requirements/edx/testing.txt b/requirements/edx/testing.txt
index 1c7486cf2c..e6bc861e5d 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/testing.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/testing.txt
@@ -55,7 +55,6 @@ astroid==1.5.2            # via edx-lint, pylint, pylint-celery, pylint-plugin-u
 atomicwrites==1.1.5       # via pytest
 attrs==17.4.0
 babel==1.3
-backoff==1.5.0
 backports.functools-lru-cache==1.5  # via astroid, pylint
 beautifulsoup4==4.6.0
 beautifulsoup==3.2.1