Benchmark email 2026: Badsender finds you the best in emailing statistics

Measure the statistical performance of your email campaigns and compare your indicators to other players in your market is inevitably important. So there's nothing like a good emailing benchmark. Unfortunately, we can't, obtaining objective statistics is no easy task.

Generally, emailing benchmarks are created by emailing tools themselves. These tools compile statistics on their customers. It is therefore important to note that each benchmark has its own specificities rather BtoB or BtoC, rather enterprise accounts or SMBs/VSEs, rather retention or acquisition emailing, rather ecommerce sector... In short, from one benchmark to another, there can be discrepancies in terms of results.

We have compiled a list of the best emailing benchmarks of the market!

Elements of email benchmark methodology

Before making comparisons with your own emailing statistics, it's a good idea to check a few methodological points, especially the way rates are calculated in the studies you read.

For example the meaning of the term "click-through rate" in email marketing can vary widely from one platform to another. We can talk about clicker rate, cumulative click rate, reactivity rate, CTOR (Click-to-open rate), click-rate, click-through rate, etc.

Similarly, depending on the email marketing solution, the click-through rate may or may not include clicks on unsubscribe links. Be relative to the number of emails sent or the number of emails delivered. Sometimes click rates are confused with reactivity rates (clickers/openers)...

Also, the statistics differ according to the authors of the benchmarks. Some specialize in sending prospecting emails to cold prospects. Others base their calculations on newsletters sent to active subscribers.

In short, be sure to compare apples with apples !

Finally, it is sometimes interesting to looking beyond "averages. The few studies that do use medians or quartiles are often much more rigorous in their treatment of the data. And while your statistics courses may have given you a knack for studying, it's essential to understand that statistics can provide essential insights.

Quantitative email marketing benchmarks

Brevo: Marketing Orchestration Benchmark 2026

About the data: The 2026 Brevo benchmark is built on first-party data from over 175,000 active customers for the year 2025—a broader data set compared to previous figures (11.9 billion emails / 47,000 senders). The data comes primarily from France and relates mainly to small and medium-sized businesses, although Brevo is acquiring an increasing number of mid-sized companies and large enterprises.

Download the benchmark : https://www.brevo.com/fr/resources/brevo-marketing-benchmark/

Key takeaways from the Brevo 2026 benchmark:

• What's interesting about this benchmark is that it breaks down the stats based on the type of campaign (ad hoc campaigns and transactional campaigns).

• Brevo honors two distinct open rates : the standard open rate, which excludes automatic opens triggered by Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), and the rate that includes these MPP opens. This dual perspective serves as a reminder that the open rate can be artificially inflated by Apple’s automatic pre-loads in other benchmarks. So be careful when making comparisons!
• The benchmark also breaks down the results by industry :

• The benchmark also breaks down the indicators by region of the world (APAC, Europe, ...) and shows the evolution of the volume of companies sending SMS / RCS, WhatsApp, push notifications, and mobile wallets sent by business sector, without demonstrating their performance.

Zeta Global: Marketing Benchmark Report 2026 (Email & SMS)

About the data: Zeta Global publishes this report quarterly, featuring first-hand proprietary data from brands using the Zeta Marketing Platform (Zeta CDP/ESP/DSP). The Q2 2026 edition covers the period from April 1 to June 30, 2026, with results from more than 100 American and European marketers. The data is broken down into four sectors: Retail; Travel, Hospitality & Leisure (TH+E); Financial Services & Insurance (FSI); and Media. A notable feature of this edition: she is integrating European benchmarks for the first time, in addition to North American historical data.

To access the report: https://zetaglobal.com/resource-center/email-benchmark-report/

Key figures:

• Overall performance
  • Deliverability rate: 99.3 1Q-9Q (stable)
  • Single opening rate: 40.6 %
  • "Actual" open rate (excluding server preloading): 10.7 % (ouch!)
  • Unique click-through rate: 1.32 %
  • Churn rate: 0.08 %
• Promotional Emails
  • Single opening rate: 39.9 %
  • Unique click-through rate: 1.14 %
• Triggered emails
  • Single opening rate: 45.6 %
  • Unique click-through rate: 2.57 %
• By sector (single open rate / single click-through rate)
  • Financial Services & Insurance: 46.4 % / 1.12 %
  • Retail: 41.6 1Q9T / 0.70 1Q9T
  • Travel, Hospitality & Leisure: 31.4 1Q9T / 1.87 1Q9T
  • Media: 39.0 1Q9T / 2.30 1Q9T
• The study also shows campaign stats SMS (US market) and focus on campaign stats in Europe (new in this edition)), whose results nevertheless remain quite close to the American averages:

Klaviyo: Ecommerce Email Benchmark 2026

About the data: The 2026 Klaviyo benchmark is based on the averages of over 183,000 ecommerce brand customers of the platform (compared to 100,000 in the previous edition). The study now covers three pillars: email, SMS, and AI-based personalization, with a detailed breakdown by sub-sector within e-commerce and hospitality (hardware/interior design, automotive, games and leisure, electronics, etc.). A rare occurrence among market benchmarks, the study also provides data on revenue by recipient (RPR), allowing to directly link engagement indicators to business performance.

To access the benchmark : https://www.klaviyo.com/fr/marketing-resources/benchmark-report

Key figures :

• Average open rate (campaigns): 31%
• Average open rate (flows): 32.2%
• Average click-through rate (campaigns): 1.69%
• Average click-through rate (flow): 5.58%
• Flows represent only 5.3 % of the total shipment volume, but generate nearly 41 % of total email revenue, with an income per recipient approximately 18 times higher to that of traditional campaigns.

• The 2024 version of the Klaviyo study showed stats by type of scenario. Unfortunately, the 2026 study lost some of that depth, so I am leaving the visuals taken from the 2024 study here:
  • Welcome scenario statistics

• Email statistics Cart abandonment :

• Email retargeting statistics :

• Post-purchase scenario statistics :

• Revenue per scenario:

MailerLite: Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry and Region 2026

About the data: This benchmark is based on more than 3.6 million campaigns sent by 181,000 accounts MailerLite clients, over a period running from December 2024 to November 2025. Unlike many other benchmarks, MailerLite communicates median values rather than averages, a more rigorous methodological choice, less sensitive to extreme values. The study breaks down the results by 46 business sectors and 7 world regions (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, LATAM, United States/Canada, and Poland isolated in a separate category, as the platform has a particularly large customer base there).

To access the report: https://www.mailerlite.com/blog/compare-your-email-performance-metrics-industry-benchmarks

Key figures:

• Median opening rate across all industries: 43.46 %
• Median click-through rate: 2.09 1Q9T
• Median unsubscribe rate: 0.22 in 1Q9T: more than double the rate in 2024 (0.08 in 1Q9T), attributed to new Gmail features that make it easier to unsubscribe with a single click
• By sector, the gap is significant:
  • The open rate ranges from 30.10 % (Travel & Transportation) to 55.71 % (Religion),
  • and the click-through rate ranging from 0.83 in 1Q9T (Politics) to 4.90 in 1Q9T (Legal)
• By region, Australia has the highest open rate (47.69 %) and click-through rate (2.82 %), while Latin America and Asia rank last on both metrics

The interesting statistic from the study: The report highlights a regional paradox: the’Africa has one of the lowest open rates in the study (36.53 %, 4 out of 7 regions), but ranks 2? Best region for click-through rate (2.29 %), just behind Australia. This gap between open rates and click-through rates can be partly explained by the low penetration of the iPhone on the continent: open rates there are less artificially inflated by the automatic preloading of Apple Mail Privacy Protection, unlike in Australia, the United States, or Canada, where a high proportion of iPhone users drives up reported open rates without reflecting actual engagement. This is an important methodological consideration to keep in mind before making any international comparisons of open rates.

Mailmodo: 2026 KPIs and the Role of AI

In its recent 2025 «State of Email 2026», Mailmodo surveyed marketing professionals primarily from the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

The main findings of the Mailmodo Report :

• Email remains in the top 1 of channels, with 26.7% of respondents citing it as the best-performing channel, ahead of organic search (23.3%) and organic social (12.2%).
• Average opening rate: between 20-30%. Some sectors perform better, as shown in the table below.
• Nothing is said about the click rate, they highlight the CTOR (Click to open rate, the equivalent of the reactivity rate in French, which is unreliable, since the opening is unreliable)
• The length of an object with the highest open rate is between 81 and 100 characters.
• If emoji in the object, the average opening rate is 29%, otherwise 21%.
• Average mailing frequency: 1 to 4 campaigns per month for the most part
• Best days: Tuesday and Thursday in the lead, but every day performs (especially Sunday!)
  

What tools are used to create emails?

• 42.9% are assisted by AI
• 28.6% through their routing tool's email builder
• 28.6% by a third-party email builder

Email marketers know less and less how to do without AI to write emails:

• 42.9% use AI as a creative aid
• 27.3% write directly via IA
• 54.5% combine AI and copywriter
• Only 18.2% rely solely on a copywriter.

Download the benchmark : https://www.mailmodo.com/ebook/state-of-email/2026/

Litmus: State of Email Report 2026

AI has slipped in between the sender and the recipient. Gemini is now integrating Gmail to sort, summarize, and filter emails on behalf of subscribers. Emails with no real value will be discarded. Yet, less than a third of marketers have a strategy adapted to these new AI-driven inboxes.

The main takeaways:

• AI :
  • 35 % des marketeurs citent l’IA comme priorité numéro un au recrutement
  • Senders who use AI are 28 % more likely to send an email in less than a day
  • Shippers who use AI are 75 % more likely to achieve a higher ROI
  • Companies in the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region are 63 % more likely to achieve a ROI despite a more cautious approach to AI adoption but a strategy that is more respectful of
• Production :
  • 76 % des équipes produisent une campagne en moins de 3 jours
  • 1 in 3 marketers needs 4 to 6 tools to send an email
• Newsletters are up 12 % vs 2025 vs promotional emails
• Return on Investment Companies with the best ROI (45:1) focus on relationship emails: newsletters and onboarding.
• Accessibility Only 26 % follow WCAG standards. Only 21 % comply with the EAA (European Accessibility Act, in force since 2025).
• Average open rate : between 30 and 40%
• Average click-through rate : between 3 and 5%

Important note on the open rate Since Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), the open rate is a directional signal, not an absolute metric. It's just useful for comparison.

Download the benchmark : https://www.litmus.com/landing-page/state-of-email-2026

Nomination: B2B Special – 2025 Prospecting Email Sequences Barometer

About data Unlike one-off emails sent to an entire database, email sequences rely on a structured, multi-step scenario. In this email sequence benchmark, Nomination analyzed the 1,526 sequences sent by its 238 corporate clients in 2024, representing 1,062,234 emails sent to 426,948 decision-makers.

Download the benchmark : https://www.nomination.fr/livres-blancs/barometre-sequences-emailing-2024/

Key lessons :

• An emailing sequence offers 4.5 times more response opportunities than a one-off email
• A 5-6-step prospecting sequence offers better performance
• Messages should follow an editorial thread and add value to each mailing. The more we talk about their issues and give advice, the better the response.

GDMA: 2025 International Benchmark

A major study covering more than 60 countries!

It includes the classic KPIs (deliverability, open, click), sending time (day, month, time), but not unsubscribe and complaint rates.

The tool allows detailed zooming in on each of the 3 indicators.

You can manipulate the data by browsing the tabs in the top right-hand corner, as you would in a Tableau-style BI tool, filtering by world region, country, business sector, target, campaign size,

One thing's for sure: if you're a major international account, it's worth taking a look to compare the performance of your different countries!

Please note, however, that statistics for the French market are not yet available from French routers. French data are mainly from foreign providers operating in France, which may not perfectly reflect local specificities.

Another incredible and rare thing: the study is freely accessible (and we love that at Badsender!). https://globaldma.com/international-email-benchmark/

Inxmail: Email Marketing Benchmark 2024

About data The study is based on a total of 4.3 billion emails sent over 297,600 different campaigns by 1,061 different senders. 55.9% of these emails were sent to B2B targets, and 44.1% to B2C targets. The emails analyzed were sent between January 1 and December 31, 2023. The data comes mainly from the DACH markets (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

Download the benchmark : https://newsletter.inxmail.fr/benchmark.jsp

Key figures :

	B2B	B2C
Median frequency of mailings per month	3	6
Median opening rate	22,8%	23,5%
Median click-through rate	3,2%	3,6%
Median bounce rate	0,9%	0,3%

The study's interesting statistic : This is an extremely detailed emailing study, with an impressive amount of data. It should be noted, however, that the data is mainly German. Its richness lies, among other things, in the clear distinction between B2B and B2C campaigns, and the wealth of information linked to business sectors. We've therefore included a comparative table based on business sectors. For the rest, download the full report.

B2B: 2023 Barometer of prospecting emails by Nomination

About data : In this emailing barometer dedicated to B2B, Nomination analyzes the results of 1,852 campaigns sent by 182 customers in 2022, representing a total of over 3 million emails. Nomination's customers are exclusively French and run prospecting campaigns.

Download the barometer : https://www.nomination.fr/livres-blancs/barometre-emailing-btob-2023/

Key figures :

• Average deliverability rate: 95%
• Average opening rate: 16.5%
• Average click-through rate: 2.6%
• Average reactivity rate: 25%

The interesting statistic from the study: There's a lot of interesting information in this emailing barometer dedicated to B2B. Particularly noteworthy is a radar diagram showing open rates as a function of email sending times. It highlights the times when people return to work (after lunch, when they arrive at work in the morning) and at the end of the day before leaving the office.

Outdated quantitative email studies (archives)

Rather than completely removing the oldest studies from this article, we preferred to keep them for the archive:

• Marketing Benchmark Study 2018 by IBM Watson : It was undoubtedly the most comprehensive study of email marketing performance. But no longer updated since 2018.
• Email Marketing Benchmark 2021 by Mailpro : Interesting study for its analysis of email typologies, but doesn't seem to have been updated since 2021.
• Global email benchmark report 2018 by Sendgrid The latest Sendgrid benchmark dates back to 2018.
• Email Marketing Benchmark by Mailchimp Mailchimp's barometer figures date back to 2019, although they are still used by many brands to compare themselves with their competitors.
• State of Engagement 2021 by Litmus In the past, Litmus published a study on engagement, but since 2021 this has no longer been the case.
• Email routing business in France 2023 by DMA France
• Email Marketing Benchmark 2022 by Campaign Monitor The stats are from all emails sent by the Marigold group (which Campaign Monitor is a part of) over the course of 2021.
• Emailing barometer of ecommerce 2022 by Kiliba the data comes from 467 French e-retailers

Benchmarks of other CRM channels

Batch: 2025 App, Web Push, and In-App Message Benchmark

About data Batch: Batch releases its benchmark for Push App Notifications, Push Web and In-App Messages for the finance, leisure, media, retail, mobility and services sectors. 800 billion messages sent between July 2024 and July 2025 to more than 1.2 billion unique visitors worldwide via 10,000 apps (iOS/Android) and mobile websites.

Key figures :

• 61% average opt-in rate for push notifications
• Contextualized or segmented pushes open 3.4 times more than generic pushes
• Click-through rates for in-app pushes are better in popup format
• The opt-in rate for web push notifications is 3%

What's interesting about the study It would be very interesting to cross-reference email and push notification statistics. Is it a complementary channel or one that replaces email when a contact becomes inactive on the latter?

Download the report : https://batch.com/fr/ressources/etudes/barometre-notifications-push-crm-mobile-2022

Qualitative Studies: Practices and Uses of Email

Average open rates are great! But it's also essential to understand how your recipients perceive email, to perceive trends in the sector, to know the conditions under which messages are opened... It's therefore necessary to leave a little room for qualitative studies, and not just quantitative ones.

Email Client Market Share and Popularity June 2026 by Litmus

About data This study is actually rather quantitative, but it clearly reflects email practices and usage. It has the advantage of being updated every month. At the time of writing, June 2026 data is available and is based on 1.4 billion opens by users of the Litmus analytics solution.

To access the study : https://www.litmus.com/email-client-market-share

Key figures The whole study looks at the distribution of open rates by email client. This gives us an idea of which e-mail clients are the most important to invest time and quality control work on during the email template development. Remember that these figures vary greatly depending on the target audience and the country. The ideal is to’analyze the distribution of email customers on your own target. Here is the top 10 in June 2026 (feel free to check their website for the latest results and trend curves):

Email & Responsible Digital 2024 survey by Dolist

About data The survey is based on the responses of 277 decision-makers and operational staff who were questioned on subjects related to eco-design, accessibility and data minimization. They come from a wide range of business sectors, with an over-representation of communications agencies and companies with B2B targets.

To download the survey : https://www.dolist.com/ressources/guides-livres-blancs/enquete-email-numerique-responsable-2024/

Key figures :

• 79% of respondents say they have or want to act on theeco-design of their emails.
• 78% claim to have fully or partially integrateddigital accessibility to their emails
• 85% fully or partially implement a data minimization strategy
• 11% of respondents claim to have measured all or part of their the carbon impact of their e-mail campaigns
• 83% of respondents claim to have fully or partially implemented a strategy to reduce the number of marketing pressure.

Interesting statistics from the study: In this study of digital responsibility in France, we have selected two graphs that summarize the progression of practices compared to the same study 2 years earlier:

Deliverability barometers

A special category in this list of email marketing benchmarks since email deliverability is an important and very special topic in the world of email marketing. The word deliverability experts is relatively rare in in-depth studies. So make the most of it.

Validity: Email Deliverability Report 2026

About data Validity's deliverability report unfortunately doesn't specify which data volumes the figures presented are derived from. All we know is that they are derived from the data generated by their deliverability monitoring toolnamely Everest.

Download the report : https://www.validity.com/resource-center/2026-email-deliverability-benchmark-report/

Key findings of the study:

• The global inbox placement rate has increased : 87.2 % in 2025, up 3.7 points year-over-year, driven by a decrease in «missing» emails (those blocked or delayed by providers).
• Engagement is becoming the #1 trust signal for Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple email providers.
• The response rate (reply rate) will increasingly be scrutinized by suppliers as a signal of engagement
• Microsoft remains the hardest : 77.4 % IPR (inbox placement rate) only, despite an increase related to its new requirements for high-volume senders.
• Gmail : 89.8 % (market leader with a 42.9 % market share), but a downward trend is expected in 2026 due to stricter commitment requirements.
• Yahoo : 87.3 1Q9T; merger with AT&T/Comcast to watch (risk of a temporary decline).
• Apple : the strongest growth (+5.7 points, to 82 %) driven by the ripple effect of new standards adopted by other suppliers.
• L'Europe is the best-performing region (91.1 1Q9Q), driven by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (the «GDPR halo effect»).
• Transport (97.2 1Q9T), Energy and Telecommunications are the best-performing sectors.
• Real estate, consumer health and consumer services are lagging behind.
• Main messaging market shares:

The interesting statistic from the study: There are many statistics that we could have highlighted, but once again we have favored a view by business sector. Even though, furthermore, we must take into account local specifics of deliverability, as the destinations are not the same from one market to another.

Signal Spam: Q3 2025 Barometer by Signal Spam

About data Signal Spam publishes a quarterly barometer that summarizes the main insights from the spam complaints collected. For the third quarter of 2025, it is based on nearly 6 million reports. These data are almost exclusively French.

To access the barometer : https://www.signal-spam.fr/barometre/

Key figures :

• 66% of reports of complaints come from marketing emails; 31.8% are related to cybercrime
• 45.2% of spam comes from the U.S., 22.5% from France
• The domain hosting the most phishing pages is societe-generale.fr

To go further

Live : Benchmark emailing 2023. Badsender gives you statistical benchmarks

Finally, about benchmark emails

The great challenge of this page on emailing barometers is to keep it up to date! So don't hesitate to call us to order on a regular basis. by contacting us. Don't hesitate to share your favorite emailing benchmarks in the comments, as they'll be a great way of enriching what's been set out above. In other news, the emailing consultants Badsender also carries out internal benchmarks for its customers within the framework of our emailing coachings and our emailing audits ! We look forward to hearing from you!