Email marketing benchmarks are median performance figures by industry, most usefully read as orientation rather than as grades. Across 3.6 million campaigns sent from 181,000 accounts between December 2024 and November 2025, the median open rate was 43.5%, the median click rate 2.1%, the median click-to-open rate 6.8%, and the median unsubscribe rate 0.22%.
That 43.5% open rate is the single most important thing on this page, and not because it is a target. It is roughly double the figures the same industry reported five years ago, and the change is measurement, not performance.
Why published benchmarks disagree with each other
Three structural reasons, and understanding them is what makes any benchmark usable.
Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens. MPP pre-loads tracking pixels for Apple Mail users whether or not the message was opened. Every reported open rate since its introduction includes machine opens, and the size of the inflation depends on what share of a list uses Apple Mail — which nobody controls and few measure.
Medians and means tell different stories. A median describes the typical campaign, while a mean is dragged upward by outliers. A vendor reporting a mean and a vendor reporting a median can publish very different numbers from identical data.
Sample composition decides the answer. A platform serving creators and small newsletters reports higher opens than one serving large ecommerce senders, because list size and relationship type differ. The benchmark describes the platform's customers, not the industry.
The practical consequence: never compare your numbers to a benchmark from a platform you do not use, and never compare an open rate across the MPP boundary.
Benchmarks by industry
Median figures, December 2024 to November 2025, from 3.6 million campaigns across 181,000 accounts.
| Industry | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-profit | 52.4% | 2.90% | 8.24% | 0.19% |
| Hobbies | 53.3% | 3.30% | 8.45% | 0.23% |
| Coaching | 48.1% | 1.42% | 4.90% | 0.30% |
| Health and fitness | 47.8% | 1.45% | 4.45% | 0.30% |
| Creative services / agency | 47.7% | 1.87% | 5.53% | 0.29% |
| Consulting | 46.0% | 2.41% | 7.67% | 0.23% |
| Restaurants and cafes | 44.3% | 1.06% | 3.28% | 0.39% |
| Higher education | 44.0% | 2.15% | 9.15% | 0.10% |
| Medical and healthcare | 43.8% | 2.25% | 7.31% | 0.20% |
| Business and finance | 43.3% | 2.37% | 7.96% | 0.16% |
| Author | 43.1% | 2.75% | 7.81% | 0.31% |
| Online courses | 43.1% | 1.39% | 5.23% | 0.23% |
| Blogger | 43.0% | 3.00% | 8.56% | 0.16% |
| Media | 43.0% | 4.10% | 12.92% | 0.10% |
| Legal | 42.6% | 4.90% | 14.72% | 0.09% |
| Agency | 40.5% | 1.85% | 6.74% | 0.21% |
| Real estate | 40.4% | 1.72% | 6.72% | 0.16% |
| Software and web app | 39.3% | 1.15% | 5.40% | 0.20% |
| Beauty and personal care | 38.4% | 0.95% | 3.91% | 0.23% |
| Retail | 37.5% | 1.27% | 4.51% | 0.22% |
| Marketing and advertising | 37.2% | 1.30% | 6.09% | 0.15% |
| Computers and electronics | 35.3% | 1.37% | 4.83% | 0.17% |
| Ecommerce | 32.7% | 1.07% | 4.01% | 0.18% |
| Travel and transportation | 30.1% | 1.68% | 6.34% | 0.13% |
| All industries | 43.5% | 2.09% | 6.81% | 0.22% |
Click-to-open rate is where the interesting variation lives. Legal sits at 14.7% and restaurants at 3.3% — a four-fold difference that open rate entirely conceals, because both open in the low forties. High-consideration, information-seeking audiences click. Broadcast promotional audiences open and move on.
Benchmarks by region
| Region | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 47.7% | 2.82% | 8.30% | 0.37% |
| Europe | 45.1% | 2.04% | 6.46% | 0.23% |
| US and Canada | 44.5% | 2.14% | 6.73% | 0.20% |
| Africa | 36.5% | 2.29% | 7.82% | 0.19% |
| Asia | 32.5% | 1.23% | 5.21% | 0.12% |
| Latin America | 32.0% | 1.40% | 6.56% | 0.10% |
Regional differences in open rate track device mix more than audience behaviour. Regions with high iPhone penetration report higher opens, which is an MPP artefact rather than an engagement finding — and the click-rate column, which MPP does not touch, shows a much flatter distribution.
The thresholds that are not benchmarks
Four numbers are not industry averages at all. They are the lines inbox providers themselves draw, and they apply regardless of sector.
| Metric | Healthy | Warning | Emergency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spam complaint rate | Under 0.05% | 0.05–0.1% | Over 0.1% (0.3% = crisis) |
| Bounce rate | Under 1% | 1–2% | Over 2% |
| Unsubscribe rate | Under 0.3% | 0.3–0.5% | Over 0.5% |
| Delivery rate | Over 99% | 98–99% | Under 98% |
A metric outside the healthy column is a problem whatever the industry benchmark says. Google's published guidance is to keep spam rates below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%, and crossing 0.3% costs eligibility for Gmail's mitigation support — the full requirement set is in bulk sender requirements 2026.
Note how close the industry unsubscribe medians sit to the warning threshold. Restaurants at 0.39% and photo and video at 0.40% are above the healthy line as a sector norm, which is a sector-wide list-quality problem rather than a benchmark to aim at.
How to use benchmarks without misleading yourself
Four rules, in order of how much error each one prevents.
1. Compare yourself to yourself first. A 90-day trend on your own list beats any industry average, because it holds list quality, audience, and device mix constant. A newsletter that opened at 48% and now opens at 31% has a problem, even though 31% reads as respectable on this page.
2. Segment before judging. A full-list rate averages superfans with subscribers who have not opened anything in a year. Look at the last-90-day engaged segment separately: a slide there is a placement problem, while a slide only in the full-list number is list decay.
3. Split by provider. Gmail at 8% while Outlook sits at 30% is not a copy problem — it is Gmail specifically deciding something about your domain. Provider-level splits are the most diagnostic report most sending platforms offer and the least-opened one.
4. Judge on the metrics MPP cannot inflate. Click rate, click-to-open rate, replies, and revenue per recipient survive contact with reality. Open rate is a directional signal.
The metrics worth tracking instead
| Metric | What it tells you | Why it beats open rate |
|---|---|---|
| Click rate | Whether the email produced action | Requires a human |
| Click-to-open rate | Whether the body and CTA worked | Isolates copy from placement |
| Reply rate | Whether the relationship is real | Strongest positive engagement signal |
| Revenue per recipient | What the send was worth | The number the business runs on |
| List growth net of churn | Whether the asset is appreciating | Catches decay that rate metrics hide |
Revenue per recipient is the honest headline metric for commercial email. It absorbs deliverability, copy, offer, and audience fit into one number, and it cannot be flattered by machine opens.
Diagnosing a low click rate specifically is covered in why nobody clicks your emails.
What's in the book, not here. The three metrics that predict revenue and the per-provider diagnostic method are in The Email Deliverability Playbook.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good email open rate in 2026?
Median open rates now sit around 43% across industries, roughly double pre-2021 figures because Apple's Mail Privacy Protection counts machine opens. A useful target is your own 90-day trend rather than a published figure, since the inflation depends on what share of your list uses Apple Mail.
Is open rate still a useful metric?
Only as a directional signal. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads tracking pixels whether or not a message was opened, so reported opens include machine opens and cannot be compared across time or across lists with different device mixes. Click rate, click-to-open rate, replies, and revenue per recipient are the reliable measures.
What unsubscribe rate is too high?
Above 0.5% is an emergency and 0.3% to 0.5% is a warning, with healthy sitting below 0.3%. Several industries carry medians close to the warning line as a sector norm, which reflects a list-quality problem rather than a target worth matching.
What is a good click-to-open rate?
The all-industry median is around 6.8%, with high-consideration sectors such as legal and media exceeding 12% and broadcast promotional sectors sitting near 3.5%. Click-to-open rate is the most useful comparison metric because it isolates body copy and call-to-action performance.
Why do published email benchmarks disagree so much?
Three reasons: Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates open rates by an amount that varies with device mix, vendors report medians and means interchangeably, and every dataset describes that platform's own customers rather than the industry. Compare only against a benchmark drawn from a comparable sample.
What is a good email click-through rate?
The all-industry median click rate is around 2.1% of delivered messages, with most sectors falling between 1% and 3%. Sector variation is wide, and your own 90-day trend is a more useful comparison because it holds list quality and audience constant.
Should I compare my email metrics to industry benchmarks at all?
Use them for orientation, not for grading. Benchmarks are useful for spotting an order-of-magnitude problem and useless for fine judgement, because list quality, relationship type, and device mix vary more between two senders in one industry than between industries.
What to do next
Pull your last 90 days and calculate click-to-open rate rather than open rate. It is the one comparison metric that Apple's changes did not distort, and it isolates copy performance from placement.
Then split the same period by provider. A gap between Gmail and everyone else is a deliverability finding, not a copy finding, and it is diagnosed in email deliverability.
Free: The 60-Minute Email Authentication Fix — the checklist to run when the provider split looks wrong.
Go deeper: The Email Deliverability Playbook — the three metrics that predict revenue and the per-provider diagnostic method.
Related guides
- Email copywriting: emails people actually read — improving the numbers on this page
- Why nobody clicks your emails — diagnosing a low click rate
- Email subject line formulas — the open-rate lever
- Why authenticated emails still land in spam — when every metric falls together
- Bulk sender requirements 2026 — the thresholds providers enforce
- Email bounce rate: what's normal and how to fix it — the one threshold with a hard line
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Written by
Muhammad Basim
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