Email marketing benchmarks: open rates, click rates and ROI from published reports

"What's a good open rate?" is one of the most common questions in email marketing, and the honest answer is that it depends on whose numbers you use. Published benchmarks for average open rate range from around 20% to over 40%. That gap comes from different customer bases, different methods, and a privacy change from Apple that made opens much less meaningful.

This guide collects the figures from named, published reports, with the publisher and year next to every number. It explains why they disagree, why open rates have become unreliable, and which metrics to use instead. It ends with what the research says about email marketing ROI and how to work out your own.

Email marketing benchmarks at a glance

Sources: MailerLite's email marketing benchmarks, Mailchimp's email marketing benchmarks, Klaviyo's 2026 email marketing benchmarks and Campaign Monitor's 2022 email marketing benchmarks. Klaviyo describes its figures as what "a good email open rate" and "a good email click rate" look like in 2026.

Notice how much the open rate column moves, while the click rate column sits in a narrower band of roughly 1.7% to 2.6% for regular campaigns. That pattern is the main lesson of this article.

Why benchmarks disagree

Before comparing your results with any of these numbers, it helps to know why they differ.

• Who the customers are. Klaviyo's customers are mostly online stores. MailerLite has many creators, small businesses and non-profits. Mailchimp spans every kind of small business. Newsletters people subscribed to for content get opened more than promotional mail.
• Averages vs medians. MailerLite reports medians, which aren't pulled up by a few very high performers. Not every report says which it uses.
• What's included. Mailchimp only counted campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers. Klaviyo splits campaigns from flows. Campaign Monitor's figure covers all campaigns on its platforms.
• When the data was collected. Campaign Monitor's 2022 report covers 2021, the year Apple's Mail Privacy Protection launched. MailerLite's covers December 2024 to November 2025.
• How a "click rate" is calculated. Most reports divide unique clicks by delivered emails. Click-to-open rate (CTOR) divides clicks by opens, so it shifts whenever open tracking changes.

The practical takeaway: compare yourself with a benchmark from the platform you use and the industry you're in, and trust your own trend over any single number.

Open rate benchmarks, and why you shouldn't trust them

An "open" is recorded when an invisible tracking pixel in the email loads. That worked tolerably well until September 2021, when Apple released Mail Privacy Protection (MPP).

Apple's support documentation for Mail describes what the Protect Mail Activity setting does: it hides the recipient's IP address, and remote content is downloaded privately in the background when a message is received, instead of when it's viewed. Remote content includes the tracking pixel. So for anyone using Apple Mail with the setting on, your email is counted as opened whether or not a human ever looks at it.

The publishers of these benchmarks say as much themselves:

• Campaign Monitor's 2022 report says MPP "effectively disables open rate tracking by pre-fetching (or downloading) an email and its images." It linked the year's higher average open rate and lower click-to-open rate to the change.
• MailerLite's 2025 benchmarks say MPP automatically marks emails sent to Apple Mail clients as opened, so real open rates are lower than shown and real click-to-open rates are higher. MailerLite calls click rate "the most accurate indicator" of engagement because it doesn't rely on tracking opens.
• Mailchimp's benchmarks page warns that the accuracy of open rates may be affected by Apple's privacy changes and Mail Privacy Protection.

Some security filters at companies also scan links and load images before delivery, which can add false opens and even false clicks. That's another reason to judge results on actions further down the funnel.

What to use instead of open rate

Open rate still has some uses. A sudden drop across all mailbox providers can be an early sign of a deliverability problem, such as mail landing in spam. Watch it as a smoke alarm, not a scorecard.

Click rate benchmarks by industry

Industry matters more for clicks than most people expect. MailerLite's 2025 benchmarks (median values, Dec 2024–Nov 2025) give these figures:

Mailchimp's benchmarks page (data as of December 2023) lists ecommerce at a 29.81% open rate, 1.74% click rate and 0.19% unsubscribe rate. Campaign Monitor's 2022 report (2021 data) put retail at a 17.1% open rate and a 0.7% click-through rate, the lowest open rate of any industry it tracked.

The pattern across reports: promotional retail and ecommerce email gets fewer clicks per send than content that people subscribed to deliberately. If you run a store, compare yourself with ecommerce or retail rows, not the all-industry average.

Ecommerce benchmarks: campaigns vs flows

For stores, the most useful split isn't by industry but by email type. Klaviyo's 2026 benchmark report, based on over 183,000 of its customers, gives these averages:

• Click rate: 5.58% for flows against 1.69% for campaigns. The top 10% reach 10.48% for flows and 3.38% for campaigns.
• Placed order rate: flows are 13 times higher than campaigns.
• Revenue per recipient: nearly 18 times higher for flows than campaigns.
• Share of revenue: flows generated nearly 41% of email revenue from just 5.3% of sends.

Klaviyo's page also lists average conversion rates, which it calls order rates, by industry:

The page doesn't define the basis of these per-industry figures, and they don't line up with its 13-times headline, so use them to compare industries with each other rather than as targets. The direction is clear either way: automated emails triggered by behaviour, such as abandoned checkout or post-purchase, convert better than broadcast campaigns. Our ecommerce email flows guide covers which ones to build first.

Unsubscribe and spam complaint benchmarks

• Unsubscribe rate: Mailchimp's page lists 0.22% for all users (data as of December 2023). MailerLite's 2025 median is also 0.22%, up from 0.08% in its 2024 figures, a rise MailerLite links partly to Gmail making unsubscribing easier.
• Spam complaint rate: this one isn't a benchmark but a limit. Google's sender guidelines require senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, and recommend staying below 0.1%.

A rising unsubscribe rate after a frequency increase is a normal signal to pull back. A rising complaint rate is more serious: it means people don't recognise you or didn't ask for your mail, and it directly affects whether you reach the inbox. Our email deliverability guide and Gmail and Yahoo sender requirements cover the thresholds in detail.

Email marketing ROI: what the research says

You have probably seen the claim that email returns $36 for every $1 spent. That figure traces to Litmus, which has cited a 36:1 email ROI, linking it to its 2020 State of Email report.

Litmus's more recent figures give a spread rather than a single number. Its ROI of email marketing page, citing its State of Email report 2025, says that for every $1 marketing leaders spend on email:

• 35% receive $10–$36 in return
• 30% receive $36–$50 in return
• 5% receive more than $50 in return

The same page reports that 21% of marketing leaders don't measure email ROI at all, down from 36% in 2023, and that 41% use direct revenue attribution to email campaigns.

Two cautions. First, these are survey responses from marketers, not audited results, and companies that measure ROI carefully may differ from those that don't. Second, email ROI depends heavily on how you attribute sales. A customer who clicks an email and buys a week later via a search ad may be counted by both channels.

How to calculate your own email marketing ROI

The formula is simple:

ROI = (revenue attributed to email − email costs) ÷ email costs

Costs should include your email platform, any agency or freelancer fees, design and copywriting time, and discounts given in emails.

Use a consistent attribution window, such as orders within five days of a click, and stick to it, so month-on-month comparisons are fair. If you can, hold out a small random group from a campaign or flow and compare their purchases with those who received it. That gives you the incremental revenue email actually caused.

How to use benchmarks without fooling yourself

• Your baseline beats any benchmark. Track your own click rate, conversion rate and revenue per recipient over 3–6 months, then aim to improve on that.
• Compare like with like. Flows against flows, campaigns against campaigns, and within your industry and platform.
• Segment your reporting. An average across engaged and inactive subscribers hides both.
• Watch the health metrics first. Rising bounces or complaints matter more than a dip in clicks.
• Expect benchmarks to date quickly. Check the data period; a report on 2021 data describes a different inbox from today's.

For how benchmarks fit into goals and planning, see our email marketing strategy guide.

FAQ

What is a good email open rate?

Published benchmarks range widely: Klaviyo's 2026 report calls 31% good for campaigns, Mailchimp lists 35.63% (data as of December 2023), and MailerLite's 2025 median is 43.46%. Because Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, compare your open rate only with your own past results and judge success on clicks and conversions.

What is a good click rate for email marketing?

Klaviyo's 2026 report puts a good click rate at 1.69% for campaigns and 5.58% for flows. MailerLite's 2025 median across all industries is 2.09%, and Mailchimp lists 2.62% (data as of December 2023). Ecommerce and retail usually sit lower than the all-industry average.

Why did my email open rates suddenly go up?

The most common reason is Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, launched in 2021, which downloads email content in the background and records an open whether or not anyone reads the message. Security scanners at some companies can do something similar. If clicks and sales didn't rise with opens, the increase isn't real engagement.

What is the average ROI of email marketing?

The widely quoted figure is $36 for every $1, which Litmus has cited from its 2020 State of Email report. Litmus's 2025 State of Email figures show a spread: 35% of marketing leaders report $10–$36 per $1, 30% report $36–$50, and 5% report more than $50. Your own ROI depends on costs and how you attribute sales.

How do I calculate email marketing ROI?

Subtract your email costs from the revenue attributed to email, then divide by the costs. Include the platform fee, people's time or agency fees, and discounts given. Use a consistent attribution window and, if possible, a holdout group to measure incremental revenue.

What is a good unsubscribe rate?

Mailchimp lists an average of 0.22% per campaign (data as of December 2023), and MailerLite's 2025 median is also 0.22%. Spam complaints matter more: Google requires senders to stay below 0.3% and recommends below 0.1%.