Across all industries the average email open rate is 35.63% and the average click rate is 2.62% (Mailchimp). Tuesday wins opens; Friday wins revenue. Every number on these pages is sourced from a named public study, with the sample size stated.
Benchmark pages
Email open rates by industry
35.63%
All-industry average. Government tops the table at 40.55%; ecommerce sits at 29.81%. Includes the Apple Mail Privacy Protection caveat.
Email click-through rates by industry
2.62%
All-industry average CTR, plus click-to-open rate — the metric Apple’s privacy changes cannot inflate.
Best day and time to send email
Tue 9–11 AM
Tuesday leads for opens; Friday 7 AM converts best. Two large studies, one honest disagreement.
Bounce & Unsubscribe Benchmarks
Healthy bounce (under 2%) and unsubscribe (under 0.2%) targets, plus unsubscribe rates by industry.
Ecommerce Email Benchmarks
Open, click, and conversion rates by ecommerce category, plus abandoned-cart and welcome-flow revenue.
Welcome & Automated Email Benchmarks
Why automations earn 22x more revenue per email, with benchmarks for every flow type.
B2B vs B2C Email Benchmarks
How open and click rates differ between business and consumer email, and why.
Email Marketing ROI Benchmarks
The $36-per-$1 average and how ROI varies by sector and automation.
Mobile vs Desktop Engagement
Where email is opened vs where it converts, by device.
The numbers at a glance
| Metric | All-industry average | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Open rate | 35.63% | Mailchimp |
| Click-through rate | 2.62% | Mailchimp |
| Click-to-open rate | 8.62% | GetResponse |
| Unsubscribe rate | 0.22% | Mailchimp |
| Bounce rate | 2.33% | GetResponse |
| Spam complaint rate | below 0.01% | GetResponse |
| Welcome email open rate | 83.63% | GetResponse |
| Best day for opens | Tuesday (31.27%) | Omnisend |
| Best day for conversions | Friday (0.081%) | Omnisend |
Methodology and sources
We do not run our own panel. Every figure here is lifted from a published benchmark report, attributed inline, and dated. Where two providers disagree we show both rather than picking the flattering one.
- Mailchimp, Email Marketing Benchmarks — billions of emails; campaigns to 1,000+ subscribers only; data as of December 2023.
- GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks — 4.4 billion messages sent in 2023; senders with 500+ contacts.
- Omnisend, best time to send an email — approximately 26 billion emails; ecommerce-weighted; published 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good open rate for email in 2026?
Roughly 30–40% for a permission-based list. Mailchimp reports 35.63% across all industries and suggests aiming for about 34%; GetResponse reports 39.64% on a different sender mix. Both numbers are inflated to an unknown degree by Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
Why do email benchmarks differ between providers?
Because each provider measures its own customers. Mailchimp’s base skews small business and ecommerce; GetResponse’s skews creators and B2B; Omnisend’s is heavily ecommerce. Sample definitions differ too — Mailchimp requires 1,000+ subscribers, GetResponse 500+. Compare a benchmark to your own history before you compare it to someone else’s.
Which email metric should I actually optimise?
Click-to-open rate and revenue per email. Both require a human action that no privacy proxy can simulate. Open rate is still useful as a same-account A/B signal, but it is no longer a scoreboard.
How often are these pages updated?
We refresh each page when the underlying report is republished, and we date every figure so you can see how stale it is. If a number here is out of date, it is because the source has not moved.
Free tools to act on these numbers
- Email marketing ROI calculator
- A/B test significance calculator
- Subject line tester
- All free marketing tools · Email marketing glossary
Beat the benchmark, not your budget
Bluey Email charges for the emails you send, not the contacts you store — so segmenting, re-engaging and testing your way past these averages does not push you into a higher plan. Founded in 2026 by Shubhainder Singh and Shivam Singh, headquartered in Bangalore, GDPR and Google CASA compliant. See send-based pricing.