Email Open Rate: What It Is, How to Calculate & Benchmarks

Email open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email out of the total number of emails successfully delivered. It’s calculated by dividing unique opens by delivered emails, then multiplying by 100.

For example, if 20 people open your email out of 100 delivered, your open rate is 20%. This metric helps email marketers understand how well their subject lines, sender names, and send timing resonate with their audience, though it’s just one piece of a larger email performance puzzle.

Understanding your email open rate is critical for B2B SAAS companies like those using SmartReach.io

While average open rates across industries hover around 21%, the real question isn’t just “what is a good open rate”, it’s whether your emails are driving the business outcomes you need: meetings booked, demos scheduled, and revenue generated.

What is email open rate?

Email open rate measures the percentage of email recipients who open your message. It’s one of the first indicators of email campaign performance, telling you whether your subject line and sender reputation are effective enough to cut through inbox clutter.

The formula is straightforward:

Email Open Rate = (Unique Opens ÷ Emails Delivered) × 100

Key components:

• Unique Opens: Count each recipient only once, even if they open multiple times
• Emails Delivered: Total sent minus bounces (hard + soft)

Important: Open rates are tracked through a tiny, invisible tracking pixel embedded in your email. When a recipient’s email client loads images, the pixel fires and registers an open. This means:

• Recipients who disable image loading won’t be tracked as opens (undercount)
• Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images, inflating open rates (overcount since iOS 15)

How to calculate email open rate: step-by-step

Let’s walk through a real calculation:

Step 1: Determine emails delivered

• You sent 1,000 emails
• 25 bounced (hard bounces: 10, soft bounces: 15)
• Delivered = 1,000 – 25 = 975 emails

Step 2: Count unique opens

• 215 recipients opened your email
• Some opened multiple times, but you count each person only once
• Unique Opens = 215

Step 3: Apply the formula

• (215 ÷ 975) × 100 = 22.05% open rate

Common Mistakes to Avoid:

• Using “emails sent” instead of “emails delivered” (inflates your denominator)
• Counting multiple opens per person (inflates opens)
• Not accounting for Apple MPP inflation (post-2021 data skewed higher)

Email Marketing Metrics: Introduction

This article would be your guide to the most common metrics used in email marketing reports and how they could be directly connected to buyer behavior.

Email marketers are hands-on with the below metrics but as a sales leader that wants to better its SDR team’s performance, it’s best you understand the various email marketing metrics and get a sense of the industry benchmarks. 

• Email Open Rate: What Is It?
• Industry-Wide Email Marketing Metrics
• Rates of Email Open, Click, and Reply cannot predict Customer Behaviour accurately
• Concentrate on intentions and results to predict what your customers will do

Email open rate benchmarks by industry

Email marketing metrics also vary depending on the type of industry. Below are a few industry-based metrics:

Industry	Open Rate	Click-Through Rate	Bounce Rate	Opt-Out Rate
Pharmaceuticals	19-21%	2.2-2.7%	0.4-0.5%	0.2-0.3%
Software As A Service	21-23%	2.5-3.0%	0.5-0.7%	0.3-0.5%
Marketing and Advertising	18-20%	2.0-2.5%	0.4-0.6%	0.3-0.4%
Ecommerce	16-18%	2.0-2.5%	0.2-0.4%	0.3-0.4%
Business and Finance	22-24%	2.8-3.2%	0.4-0.6%	0.2-0.3%

What these numbers mean

For B2B SAAS companies, a 21-23% open rate is solid. However, context matters:

• Cold outreach emails: 15-25% is typical (lower end of spectrum)
• Nurture sequences: 25-35% (warm audience)
• Newsletter campaigns: 20-30% (engaged subscribers)

If your open rate is below 15%, you likely have deliverability issues (landing in spam) or sender reputation problems. Above 35%? Either you have an exceptionally engaged list, or you’re seeing Apple MPP inflation.

What is a good email open rate?

The answer depends on multiple factors:

By business model

• B2B SAAS: 20-25% is good, 30%+ is excellent
• B2C Ecommerce: 15-20% is good, 25%+ is excellent

By company size

• Enterprise (>1,000 employees): Expect 18-22% (larger, colder lists)
• SMB (<100 employees): Expect 22-28% (smaller, more targeted lists)
• Startups: Highly variable (15-30% depending on list quality)

By email type

• Cold outreach: 15-25% (depends heavily on targeting and personalization)
• Lead nurture sequences: 25-35% (recipients showed interest)
• Product updates/newsletters: 20-30% (existing customers)
• Transactional emails: 40-60% (high-intent, expected emails)

Benchmark against yourself:

Rather than obsessing over industry averages, track your own baseline and improve incrementally. A 2-3% lift quarter-over-quarter is realistic and compounds over time.

Key email marketing metrics explained

While email open rate gets the spotlight, it’s just one metric in your email marketing dashboard. Here’s what else matters:

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR measures the percentage of email recipients who clicked a link in your email.

Formula: (Clicks ÷ Delivered) × 100

A 2.5-3% CTR is typical for B2B SAAS. Higher CTR indicates your content and call-to-action resonate with readers beyond just opening.

Email Response Rate

Response rate tracks replies to your email as a percentage of total emails sent.

Formula: (Replies ÷ Sent) × 100

For B2B prospecting, a 3-5% positive response rate signals strong targeting and messaging. This metric matters more than opens for sales outreach.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered, calculated as

Formula: (Bounces ÷ Sent) × 100

Hard bounces (invalid addresses) and soft bounces (full inboxes) both hurt sender reputation. Keep bounce rates under 2% by regularly cleaning your email list.

Opt-Out/Unsubscribe Rate

Opt-out rate measures how many recipients unsubscribe after receiving your email.

Formula: (Unsubscribes ÷ Delivered) × 100

An opt-out rate above 0.5% suggests targeting or messaging issues. Always include an unsubscribe link to avoid spam complaints, which hurt deliverability more than unsubscribes.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate tracks the percentage of email recipients who completed your desired action (demo request, download, purchase).

Formula: (Conversions ÷ Delivered) × 100

This is the ultimate metric, opens and clicks mean nothing if recipients don’t convert. For B2B SAAS, 2-5% email-to-demo conversion is strong.

How to improve your email open rate?

Improving your open rate requires testing and iteration. Here are proven strategies:

1. Optimize send timing

Send emails when your audience is most likely to check their inbox. For B2B, Tuesday through Thursday between 9-11 AM local time typically performs best. However, test your specific audience, some industries have different patterns. Use SmartReach’s send-time optimization to automatically schedule emails based on recipient time zones.

2. Write compelling subject lines

Your subject line is the gatekeeper. Best practices:

• Keep it under 50 characters (mobile truncation)
• Personalize with recipient name or company: “{{FirstName}}, quick question about {{Company}}”
• Create curiosity without clickbait: “3 deliverability issues hurting your open rates”
• A/B test variations, SmartReach.io lets you test subject lines across your campaigns

Avoid spam triggers: excessive punctuation!!!, ALL CAPS, or words like “FREE” and “ACT NOW.”

3. Perfect your sender name and email address

Recipients decide whether to open based on who sent the email. Use a real person’s name (“Sarah from SmartReach”) rather than a generic company name (“SmartReach Support”). Your sending domain should match your company (you@ smartreach.io, not you@ gmail.com), which also builds sender reputation.

4. Personalize beyond the first name

Generic “Hi {{FirstName}}” emails don’t cut it anymore. Reference specific details:

• Their company’s recent news or funding round
• A blog post they wrote or shared
• Mutual connections or shared interests
• Pain points specific to their role or industry

SmartReach’s merge tags and custom fields let you scale personalization without manual work.

5. Segment your email list

Don’t send the same email to everyone. Segment by:

• Industry vertical (fintech, healthcare, etc.)
• Company size (SMB vs enterprise)
• Engagement level (opened previous emails vs cold contacts)
• Buyer stage (awareness vs consideration vs decision)

Segmented campaigns get 14% higher open rates than non-segmented blasts.

6. Clean your email list regularly

Remove inactive subscribers, invalid addresses, and hard bounces. A clean list improves deliverability, which directly impacts open rates. If someone hasn’t opened your last 10 emails, either re-engage them with a “we miss you” campaign or remove them. Email service providers penalize senders with low engagement.

7. Authenticate Your Domain (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

Email authentication proves you’re a legitimate sender, not a spammer. Set up:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Authorizes which servers can send from your domain
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to your emails
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication): Tells receiving servers how to handle failed authentication

Without these, your emails land in spam folders where open rates plummet. SmartReach provides setup guides for all three.

8. Avoid spam filters

Beyond authentication, avoid spam triggers:

• Don’t use all caps, excessive exclamation points, or spammy words (“FREE MONEY!!!”)
• Keep a healthy text-to-image ratio (at least 60% text)
• Don’t send from free email providers (Gmail, Yahoo) for business campaigns
• Warm up new sending domains gradually (start with 20-50 emails/day, increase by 10-20% daily)

9. Mobile-optimize your emails

Over 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices. If your email isn’t mobile-friendly, recipients delete it immediately:

• Use responsive design (SmartReach templates are mobile-optimized)
• Keep subject lines under 40 characters for mobile screens
• Use larger fonts (14pt minimum)
• Single-column layouts work best
• Make CTAs thumb-friendly (big buttons, not tiny links)

10. Test everything with A/B testing

Never assume, test. A/B test:

• Subject lines (test 2-3 variations per campaign)
• Sender names (personal vs company)
• Send times (morning vs afternoon, weekday vs weekend)
• Email length (short vs detailed)
• Personalization depth (first name only vs detailed references)

SmartReach’s built-in A/B testing automatically splits your audience and tracks which variation performs better. Run tests for at least 100+ opens to reach statistical significance.

11. Use AI personalization

AI-powered personalization tools can now generate unique email variations at scale:

• Analyze recipient’s LinkedIn activity and recent posts
• Reference company news from last 30 days
• Suggest pain points based on role and industry
• Generate subject line variations based on engagement history

While SmartReach includes personalization features, always review AI-generated content for accuracy and tone.

12. Re-engage inactive subscribers

Before removing inactive contacts, try a re-engagement campaign:

• Send a “We miss you” email with an incentive (content, discount, exclusive access)
• Ask if they want to update email frequency preferences
• Make opting out easy (unsubscribe link prominent)

If they don’t engage after 2-3 re-engagement attempts, remove them to protect your sender reputation.

Email open rate limitations: What this metric doesn’t tell you

While email open rate is a foundational metric, it has significant limitations you need to understand:

Opens don’t equal interest

Someone opening your email doesn’t mean they’re interested in your product. They might have:

• Opened by mistake while scrolling
• Previewed in their inbox pane (counts as an open)
• Had images auto-loaded by Apple Mail Privacy Protection (false positive)
• Opened out of curiosity but immediately deleted

Apple mail privacy protection skews data

Since iOS 15 (2021), Apple Mail pre-loads all email images on its servers before delivering to users. This means:

• Every Apple Mail user registers as an “open” even if they never see your email
• Open rates for Apple Mail users are artificially inflated to 80-100%
• Time-of-open tracking is inaccurate (shows server load time, not actual open time)

Impact: 30-40% of your audience may be on Apple Mail. Your true open rate could be 5-10 percentage points lower than reported.

Opens don’t predict conversions

A recipient who opens 10 emails in a row but never clicks or replies isn’t valuable. Conversely, someone who opens 1 email, clicks through, and books a demo is highly valuable. Focus on metrics closer to revenue:

• Reply rate (for sales outreach)
• Click-to-conversion rate (for marketing campaigns)
• Cost per acquisition (overall ROI)

What to track instead (or in addition)

Don’t abandon open rates, they’re still useful for subject line testing and deliverability monitoring. But prioritize:

• Click-through rate: Shows content relevance
• Response/reply rate: Shows engagement for sales emails
• Conversion rate: Shows business impact
• Revenue per email sent: Ultimate success metric

How SmartReach.io helps optimize email open rates

SmartReach.io is an all-in-one cold email platform designed to help B2B sales and marketing teams maximize email performance:

A/B testing at scale

Test subject lines, sender names, and email copy variations automatically. SmartReach splits your audience, tracks performance, and identifies winning variations so you can iterate quickly.

Advanced analytics dashboard

Track opens, clicks, replies, and conversions in one place. Segment data by campaign, recipient industry, company size, or any custom field. Export reports to share with stakeholders or analyze trends over time.

Deliverability tools

Email warmup: Gradually increase sending volume to build sender reputation
Spam score checker: Test emails before sending to avoid spam filters
Bounce management: Automatically remove invalid addresses
Domain health monitoring: Track SPF, DKIM, DMARC authentication status

Personalization engine

Use merge tags, conditional content, and custom fields to personalize emails at scale. SmartReach integrates with your CRM to pull in company data, recent activity, and engagement history.

Multi-channel sequences

Combine email with LinkedIn, phone calls, and other touchpoints. If a prospect doesn’t open your email, trigger a LinkedIn message or SMS follow-up automatically.

Ready to improve your email open rates? Try SmartReach free for 14 days and see how our platform helps sales teams boost engagement and book more meetings.

Summary

The benchmarks you pick for your email marketing or sales outreach campaign should be tied to the goals you want to accomplish.

You might decide that you care about email open rates, or the response rate but whatever you focus on, remember that benchmarks can only provide guidelines.

The best emails will be the ones that make customers want to buy your products, so while benchmarks are helpful in measuring your progress, don’t forget to pay attention to what your customers want the most.

SmartReach.io – All-in-one cold email software that helps your growth teams to achieve sales targets quite easily. A complete suite of features and tools that make sure your email reaches the prospect’s inbox. SmartReach’s unparalleled analytics tool helps you optimize campaigns and achieve the best ROI. The human-like sending and hyper-personalization of your email intrigue more clicks and conversions.

Frequently asked questions about email open rate

What is email open rate?

Email open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that recipients open, calculated as (Unique Opens ÷ Emails Delivered) × 100. It measures how effective your subject line and sender reputation are at getting recipients to engage.

How is email open rate calculated?

Divide the number of unique opens by the number of emails delivered, then multiply by 100. For example, if 200 people open your email out of 1,000 delivered, your open rate is 20%. Don’t use total sends, subtract bounces first.

What is a good open rate for email marketing?

For B2B companies, 20-25% is good, while 30%+ is excellent. B2C brands should target 15-20%. However, “good” depends on your industry, email type (cold vs nurture), and list quality. Compare against your own baseline rather than industry averages alone.

Why is my email open rate low?

Low open rates (under 15%) typically stem from poor deliverability (landing in spam), weak subject lines, unrecognized sender names, or sending to unengaged lists. Check your domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), clean your list, and test subject line variations.

Are email open rates accurate?

Email open rates have become less accurate since Apple’s iOS 15 Mail Privacy Protection (2021), which pre-loads images and inflates open rates by 5-10 percentage points. They’re still useful for relative comparisons (testing subject lines) but not precise engagement measures.

What is the average email open rate by industry?

SAAS companies average 21-23%, business/finance 22-24%, marketing agencies 18-20%, and ecommerce 16-18%. These are 2025 benchmarks, but your results depend on list quality, email type, and audience engagement. Track trends over time, not just snapshots.

How can I improve my email open rate?

Improve open rates by: writing compelling subject lines under 50 characters, personalizing sender names, sending at optimal times (9-11 AM weekdays for B2B), segmenting your list, cleaning inactive contacts, and authenticating your domain. A/B test everything.

What’s the difference between open rate and click-through rate?

Open rate measures who opened your email; click-through rate (CTR) measures who clicked a link inside. Open rate tests subject line effectiveness; CTR tests content and call-to-action strength. Both are important, but CTR correlates more closely with conversions.