The average email open rate in recent benchmark reports runs from 30% to 43%. Omnisend reports 30.22% for 2025, HubSpot cites 42.35%, and MailerLite reports a median of 43.46%. Campaign Monitor’s 2021 data put the figure at 21.5%. The spread exists because these reports measure different senders, in different years, with different handling of machine opens. Since Apple Mail Privacy Protection launched in 2021, many recorded “opens” are Apple’s servers preloading a message, not a person reading it. Use a benchmark to sanity-check your order of magnitude, then judge campaigns against your own trailing baseline and on clicks.
How email open rate is calculated
Open rate is the share of delivered emails that registered an open. Mailchimp describes the mechanism this way: “Mailchimp loads a tiny, transparent image into each email and counts how often the image is downloaded for delivered emails.” That image is a tracking pixel. When the recipient’s mail client requests it, the open is logged.
Two details change the number you see:
- Denominator. Delivered is the standard base. Dividing by sent makes the rate look lower, because bounced messages count against you.
- Unique vs total opens. Unique opens count each recipient once. Total opens count every load, so one person re-opening a message inflates the figure. Benchmarks are normally quoted as unique opens.
A worked example: you send 10,000 emails and 9,800 are delivered. If 3,430 recipients open at least once, your open rate is 3,430 / 9,800 = 35.0%. Against 10,000 sent it would read 34.3%. The gap is small here, but it grows with a high bounce rate.
Pixel tracking is also imperfect in the other direction. Mailchimp notes that “open rate tracking relies on images, so it isn’t 100% accurate,” and that opens are missed when a recipient’s client has images turned off.
Open rate benchmarks by source, side by side
The table lists only reports fetched from the publisher’s own site. Figures are not averaged, because the datasets are not comparable.
| Source | Date | Data basis as stated | Average open rate | Machine opens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Dec 3, 2025 | 3.6 million+ campaigns from 181,000+ accounts, Dec 2024 to Nov 2025, median | 43.46% | Included. The page says Apple MPP “automatically marks emails sent to Apple Mail clients as opened” and real rates are lower |
| HubSpot | Updated 11/04/25 | Not stated for the open-rate figure | 42.35% | Not stated. The page discusses MPP skewing opens upward |
| Omnisend | May 12, 2026 | 2025 dataset: 20 billion+ campaign emails from 27,000+ brands (ecommerce focus) | 30.22% | Not stated. The page warns MPP can make emails appear opened |
| Mailchimp | Data “last updated in December 2023” | Billions of emails; unique opens; campaigns to 1,000+ subscribers | 35.63% (All Users) | Not stated as filtered; page says MPP may affect accuracy |
| Campaign Monitor | Undated page; covers 2021 | 100 billion+ emails sent in 2021 | 21.5% | Included. The report attributes part of the 2021 rise to MPP |
Two things stand out. First, the 2025 and 2026 figures cluster into two groups, about 30% and about 43%, which tells you the gap is mostly about who is in the dataset and how opens are counted, not about email suddenly performing twice as well. Second, HubSpot’s 42.35% is the same number MailerLite lists as its 2024 average, and HubSpot’s page does not say which dataset its figure comes from. Treat it as a restatement, not an independent measurement.
Open rate benchmarks for SaaS and B2B
Several of the reports break out technology and B2B categories. The category names and definitions are each publisher’s own.
| Source | Category | Open rate |
|---|---|---|
| MailerLite (2025 data) | Software and web app | 39.31% |
| MailerLite (2025 data) | Computers and electronics | 35.29% |
| HubSpot (updated 11/04/25) | SaaS | 38.14% |
| HubSpot (updated 11/04/25) | B2B Services | 39.48% |
| Omnisend (2025 data) | Business & Industrial | 28.66% |
| Omnisend (2025 data) | Computers | 23.41% |
| Omnisend (2025 data) | Internet | 19.99% |
| Campaign Monitor (2021 data) | IT/Tech/Software | 22.7% |
Mailchimp’s published industry table on the page we checked lists Business + Finance, Non-Profits, Education + Training and Ecommerce, with no software row, so it is left out.
The same pattern appears inside a single category: SaaS sits near 38% to 39% in two reports and between 20% and 29% in two others. Omnisend’s dataset is ecommerce brands, so its tech rows describe tech-adjacent senders on that platform rather than SaaS newsletters and lifecycle programs. If you need one reference point, pick the report whose audience looks most like yours and keep using that same report.
Why open-rate benchmarks mislead
Apple Mail Privacy Protection preloads messages. Apple announced the feature on June 7, 2021, saying “Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user” and that it helps “prevent senders from knowing when they open an email.” In practice the tracking pixel is fetched by Apple’s infrastructure whether or not the message is read, so opens from Apple Mail users are inflated. The effect on click-to-open rate is covered in our post on email click-through rate.
Security scanners and bots add more machine opens. Corporate gateways and filters often fetch a message’s images and links before a person sees it. Suped’s deliverability guide says to stop “treating opens and clicks as single clean human signals,” and ranks opens lowest of all: “Opens get the lowest trust.” Mailchimp likewise warns that bot activity “can falsely inflate open and click metrics.”
Image blocking pushes the other way. If a client blocks images, a real read goes uncounted. The error is in both directions, which is why a single open rate cannot be read as a count of people.
Denominators and definitions differ. Delivered vs sent, unique vs total, median vs mean: each shifts the number. MailerLite reports a median across campaigns, which is not the same statistic as an average over all emails sent.
List age and type are mixed together. A benchmark pools new signups, years-old subscribers, newsletters, promotions and automated sequences. Your onboarding sequence and your quarterly announcement should not be held to the same number.
What a good open rate means for your list
A good open rate is one that is stable or improving against your own history for the same type of email. A 25% open rate on a re-engagement campaign to dormant users and a 25% rate on a welcome email mean very different things.
A practical way to use your report:
- Split by email type: welcome and onboarding, lifecycle triggers, product announcements, newsletters.
- Record a trailing 8 to 12 send average per type.
- Flag sends that deviate sharply from that average, in either direction.
A sudden drop deserves attention before any content change. If opens fall across every email type at once, suspect inbox placement before subject lines: check your deliverability rate, your sender reputation and the domain and IP reputation charts in Google Postmaster Tools. If the drop appears only at one send, see why emails go to spam.
A sudden spike is just as suspicious. A jump with no change in list or content often means a larger share of recipients are on Apple Mail with MPP, or a security scanner started fetching your images. Compare it against clicks before celebrating.
Transactional and lifecycle email usually behave differently from broadcast campaigns, and Omnisend publishes a separate section comparing automated emails with campaign sends. Most benchmark pages report campaigns, so check what a figure covers before comparing your triggered emails to it.
What to track next to opens
Opens are a weak signal on their own. Pair them with measures that need a real action:
- Clicks and click-to-open rate. See email click-through rate.
- Conversions. Sign-ups, activations or purchases attributed to the email. See email conversion rate.
- Replies, for email where a response is the goal.
- Unsubscribe and spam complaint rates, which show whether the audience wants the mail.
- Inbox placement, which tells you whether the message reached the inbox at all.
HubSpot’s benchmark page draws the same conclusion: “email marketers now prioritize click-through rates, click-to-open rates” because of the MPP distortion.
How to raise open rates without gaming them
Start with deliverability. A message that lands in spam cannot be opened, so fix authentication, bounce handling and reputation first. After that, the levers are:
- Sender name. Use a consistent, recognizable name so the sender is familiar in the inbox.
- Subject line. Specific and honest beats clever. See subject lines that get opened.
- Preheader. The snippet next to the subject is a second headline. See preheader text.
- Send time. Test against your own audience rather than adopting a universal answer. See send time.
- List hygiene. Removing long-inactive addresses raises open rate and protects reputation.
Avoid tricks that inflate opens without engagement, such as misleading subject lines. They raise the number and damage the metrics that matter.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average email open rate?
It depends on the report. For 2025 data, Omnisend reports 30.22% and MailerLite reports a median of 43.46%. HubSpot cites 42.35% without naming its dataset. Campaign Monitor’s 2021 report put it at 21.5%. The differences come from dataset, year and how machine opens are handled.
What is a good email open rate?
One that holds steady or improves against your own trailing average for the same type of email. HubSpot’s page describes above 30% as solid, but with Apple MPP inflating opens, a benchmark threshold says less than your own trend plus your click rate.
Is a 20% open rate good?
It is below the 2025 and 2026 benchmark figures in this post, but not necessarily a problem. Campaign Monitor’s 2021 average was 21.5%, and Omnisend’s Internet category is 19.99%. Check your own history for that email type, then check clicks and deliverability.
Why is my open rate so high, or suddenly zero?
A high rate is often inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection or security scanners preloading your tracking pixel. A rate of zero or a sharp collapse more often points to tracking being switched off, images being blocked, or messages landing in spam. Check your deliverability metrics first.
Does Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflate open rates?
Yes. Apple says the feature helps “prevent senders from knowing when they open an email.” Because Apple’s servers can load the tracking pixel in advance, opens from Apple Mail users register whether or not the message was read. MailerLite and Campaign Monitor both say this inflates their reported open rates.
What is a good open rate for B2B or SaaS email?
Published figures vary widely: 38.14% for SaaS and 39.48% for B2B services at HubSpot, 39.31% for software and web apps at MailerLite, and 23.41% for Computers at Omnisend. Pick one report with an audience like yours and track your own trend against it.
How is email open rate calculated?
Unique opens divided by delivered emails, multiplied by 100. An open is logged when the recipient’s mail client downloads a tiny tracking image embedded in the message. Some platforms divide by sent instead of delivered, so check the definition before comparing numbers.
I’ve spent my career building software at scale with a soft spot for email: deliverability, lifecycle campaigns, and getting messages to actually land. I started Coldletter to fix what bugged me about transactional and marketing email tools. I’m based in Vancouver.