Quick answer: Across millions of campaigns, a typical email sees roughly a 40% open rate and a 2–3% click rate, but it varies a lot by industry — non-profits run well above average, ecommerce well below. Treat published benchmarks as a rough compass, not a target: methodologies differ and Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens.
“Is 30% good?” is the most common question in email, and the honest answer is it depends on your industry, your list, and how the number was measured. Here is what the big providers actually publish, and how to read it.
- 43.46% — median open rate across all industries (up from 42.35% the year before)
- 2.09% — median click rate
- 6.81% — median click-to-open rate
- 0.22% — median unsubscribe rate
Source: MailerLite email benchmarks — medians across 3.6 million+ campaigns from about 181,000 accounts, December 2024 to November 2025; last updated 7 April 2026.
Watch out: Read this before you compare yourself. Different providers measure differently — GetResponse reports around a 39.6% open rate and a 3.2% click-through rate on its own data, which is not directly comparable with MailerLite’s. And since Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images, open rates are inflated across the whole industry. Use opens as a trend, not a truth.
By industry
The spread is bigger than the average.
| Industry (MailerLite, Dec 2024 – Nov 2025) | Open / click |
|---|---|
| Non-profit | 52.38% / 2.90% |
| Health & fitness | 47.81% / 1.45% |
| Software & web apps | 39.31% / 1.15% |
| Ecommerce | 32.67% / 1.07% |
Notice the pattern: causes people care about (non-profits) get opened; shops sending frequent promotions get opened less. Neither is “bad” — they are different jobs. Full tables are published by MailerLite, GetResponse and Mailchimp.
All 46 industries
Every industry MailerLite reports, as medians for December 2024 to November 2025. Open rates are inflated across the board by Apple Mail Privacy Protection, so lean on click and click-to-open when you compare yourself. MailerLite did not publish an open rate for educational institutions.
| Industry | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | 40.52% | 1.85% | 6.74% | 0.21% |
| Agriculture and food services | 45.51% | 1.83% | 6.21% | 0.23% |
| Architecture and construction | 40.55% | 1.68% | 6.1% | 0.23% |
| Art gallery and museum | 50.43% | 2.66% | 6.28% | 0.33% |
| Artist | 49.23% | 2.52% | 7.45% | 0.27% |
| Author | 43.14% | 2.75% | 7.81% | 0.31% |
| Beauty and personal care | 38.4% | 0.95% | 3.91% | 0.23% |
| Blogger | 43.03% | 3% | 8.56% | 0.16% |
| Business and finance | 43.34% | 2.37% | 7.96% | 0.16% |
| Coaching | 48.07% | 1.42% | 4.9% | 0.3% |
| Computers and electronics | 35.29% | 1.37% | 4.83% | 0.17% |
| Construction | 39.95% | 3.53% | 12.38% | 0.27% |
| Consulting | 45.96% | 2.41% | 7.67% | 0.23% |
| Creative services/agency | 47.69% | 1.87% | 5.53% | 0.29% |
| E-commerce | 32.67% | 1.07% | 4.01% | 0.18% |
| Educational institution | — | 1.93% | 7.03% | 0.17% |
| Entertainment and events | 46% | 1.28% | 3.7% | 0.24% |
| Games | 41.35% | 2.11% | 9.71% | 0.25% |
| Government | 48.52% | 3.05% | 8.44% | 0.22% |
| Health and fitness | 47.81% | 1.45% | 4.45% | 0.3% |
| Higher education | 43.98% | 2.15% | 9.15% | 0.1% |
| Hobbies | 53.25% | 3.3% | 8.45% | 0.23% |
| Home and garden | 39.18% | 1.75% | 7.05% | 0.23% |
| Insurance | 44.4% | 1.36% | 3.19% | 0.27% |
| Legal | 42.58% | 4.9% | 14.72% | 0.09% |
| Manufacturing | 37.36% | 4.22% | 14.82% | 0.3% |
| Marketing and advertising | 37.23% | 1.3% | 6.09% | 0.15% |
| Media | 42.97% | 4.1% | 12.92% | 0.1% |
| Medical, dental, and healthcare | 43.75% | 2.25% | 7.31% | 0.2% |
| Music and musicians | 45.93% | 1.7% | 5.42% | 0.23% |
| Non-profit | 52.38% | 2.9% | 8.24% | 0.19% |
| Online courses | 43.1% | 1.39% | 5.23% | 0.23% |
| Other | 44.9% | 2.15% | 6.86% | 0.22% |
| Photo and video | 49.98% | 1.59% | 4.84% | 0.4% |
| Politics | 47.19% | 0.83% | 2.96% | 0.14% |
| Public relations | 47.18% | 2.02% | 6.18% | 0.14% |
| Publishing company | 34.24% | 2.82% | 9.12% | 0.2% |
| Real estate | 40.37% | 1.72% | 6.72% | 0.16% |
| Recruitment and staffing | 45.26% | 1.68% | 5.29% | 0.24% |
| Religion | 55.71% | 2.95% | 7.58% | 0.13% |
| Restaurants and cafes | 44.32% | 1.06% | 3.28% | 0.39% |
| Retail | 37.47% | 1.27% | 4.51% | 0.22% |
| Software and web app | 39.31% | 1.15% | 5.4% | 0.2% |
| Sports | 47.69% | 1.27% | 3.35% | 0.16% |
| Telecommunications | 37.21% | 1.49% | 4.54% | 0.34% |
| Travel and transportation | 30.1% | 1.68% | 6.34% | 0.13% |
Which numbers actually matter
Opens are the weakest. Revenue is the strongest.
- Open rate — inflated by Apple MPP. Useful as a trend line only.
- Click rate — far more honest. Someone chose to act.
- Click-to-open — did the people who opened find it worth clicking?
- Unsubscribe + complaint rate — your early-warning system.
- Revenue per recipient — the number that pays the bills.
Segment by behavior and value, not demographics… And measure on revenue per recipient, not open rate.
— Chase Dimond, Ecommerce email marketer
The benchmark most people miss
How much of your revenue comes from automations?
Industry data shows automated emails driving a wildly outsized share of sales — Omnisend found 37% of email sales came from just 2% of sends. So the most useful benchmark isn’t your open rate at all; it’s what share of your email revenue comes from flows.
The biggest red flag is when flow revenue is under 20% of total email revenue.
— Chase Dimond, Ecommerce email marketer
Tip: If you are under that line, the fix is almost never your subject lines — it is missing or half-built flows. Start with the guide to email automation.
How to use benchmarks properly
Compare yourself to yourself.
- Find your industry row, then treat it as a rough compass.
- Compare this month to your last three months — that’s the real benchmark.
- Below average on opens? Check deliverability before you rewrite subject lines.
- Below average on clicks? That is usually a segmentation problem, not a copy problem.
Benchmark health check
- You know your open, click, CTOR and unsubscribe rates
- You compare against your own last 3 months, not just the industry
- Complaint rate is under 0.3%
- Flow revenue is above ~20% of total email revenue
- You judge campaigns on revenue per recipient
Common questions
What is a good email open rate in 2026?
Roughly 40% is a common average across providers, but non-profits run above 50% and ecommerce nearer 33%. Because Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, treat the number as a trend rather than a score.
What is a good click rate?
Around 2–3% is typical, depending on the report and industry. Clicks are a far more honest measure than opens because someone actively chose to act.
Why do benchmark reports disagree with each other?
Because they measure different senders in different ways. MailerLite reports around a 43% open rate and roughly 2% clicks; GetResponse reports about 39.6% opens and 3.2% clicks. Compare within one report, not across them.
Are open rates still reliable?
Not on their own. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images, which marks emails opened whether or not a human read them. Use opens directionally and lean on clicks and revenue.
What should I benchmark against instead?
Yourself. Your last three months is the most useful comparison you have. After that, the best single benchmark is what share of your email revenue comes from automated flows.
Measuring against these in Bluey
A benchmark is only useful if you can see your own equivalent next to it, measured the same way. Two things make that harder than it should be, and both are worth knowing before you compare yourself to any table.
- Open rates are unreliable now — Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images, inflating opens for a large share of recipients. Benchmarks published since 2021 vary wildly in how they handle it. Compare click and click-to-open rates instead.
- Revenue, not opens — Bluey’s analytics attribute orders to the campaign or flow step that preceded them, which is the number that survives any change in how opens are counted.
- Per-step attribution — for sequences, see which individual email earned the revenue rather than crediting the whole flow.
- Click heatmaps and custom reports — Grow and above.
- A/B testing — Grow and above; multivariate on Business. Your own list settles an argument faster than any published benchmark.
- Deliverability first — if your numbers sit far below a benchmark, check authentication and inbox placement before rewriting subject lines. A page in the spam folder has no open rate to optimise.
Related guides
- Email segmentation: the complete guide (Segmentation)
- Email automation for beginners (Automation)
- The complete guide to email deliverability (Deliverability)
- Deep analytics and revenue attribution (Product)
- Test a subject line before you send it (Free tool)
Sources: Average and by-industry open/click/CTOR — MailerLite email marketing benchmarks (December 2024 to November 2025 data); cross-check — GetResponse benchmarks and Mailchimp benchmarks by industry. All figures are publisher-reported and methodologies differ, so they are not directly comparable. Automated-email revenue share — Omnisend (2024). Chase Dimond quotes — Omnisend interview (Jul 2026). Open rates are inflated industry-wide by Apple Mail Privacy Protection.