2026 Email Open Rate Report: The Median Is 43.46%. Software Sits at 39.31%

Agencies still quote 20 to 25 percent. MailerLite’s 3.6-million-campaign median is 43.46%. Switch the industry to software and the same dataset prints 39.31%. Mailchimp’s 1,000-subscriber unique-open file sits at 35.63% — and a second Mailchimp page still prints 21.33%. They are not arguing about subject lines. They are measuring different sends.

A “good” email open rate is the number your agency, your ESP, and your board treat as the same KPI. It is not. MailerLite’s 43.46% is a median of unique opens on opted-in campaigns from 181,000 approved accounts, December 2024 to November 2025. Mailchimp’s 35.63% is an average of unique opens on campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers, last updated December 2023. GetResponse’s 39.64% is a mean of total opens — reopens included — across 4.4 billion messages in 2023. This report separates the samples, puts the B2B-closest industry rows next to the all-industry number, and treats click-through rate as the column Apple Mail Privacy Protection does not inflate.

This is the permissioned-email post. For cold outbound replies, see the 2026 B2B cold email reply-rate report. For what happens after the click, see the landing page conversion report. For the envelope the email line sits inside, see the SaaS marketing budget report. For paid clicks that compete with the same inbox, see the 2026 Google Ads CPC report. For the seat that still writes the sequence when the list is cold, see B2B SDR cost.

Key Takeaways

• MailerLite’s latest file (3.6 million campaigns, 181,000 approved accounts, 1 December 2024–30 November 2025, published 3 December 2025) prints a 43.46% all-industry open rate, 2.09% click rate, 6.81% click-to-open rate, and 0.22% unsubscribe rate. The page often says “average.” The methodology says these are medians.
• Software and web app is the B2B starting row. MailerLite’s software median is 39.31% open and 1.15% click — below the 43.46% / 2.09% all-industry pair. Marketing and advertising sits at 37.23% / 1.30%. Consulting prints 45.96% / 2.41%. Do not staff a SaaS newsletter forecast off 43.46%.
• Mailchimp’s official benchmarks page (campaigns of at least 1,000 subscribers, data as of December 2023) prints 35.63% unique open and 2.62% click for all users. Business + Finance, the closest printed B2B row, is 31.35% open and 2.78% click. The same vendor’s reporting explainer still quotes 21.33%. Do not average 43.46%, 35.63%, and 21.33%.
• GetResponse’s 2024 report (4.4 billion messages in 2023, active senders with at least 500 contacts) prints 39.64% open, 3.25% CTR, and 8.62% CTOR. Those are total actions, not unique recipients: welcome emails open at 83.63%, and a one-day webinar reminder prints 106.52%. Technology & High Tech sits at 44.72% open and 7.40% CTR. That 7.40% is not MailerLite’s 1.15% software click median in a different font.
• Click rate is the planning column. MailerLite says so on the fetched page: Apple Mail Privacy Protection auto-marks Apple Mail as opened, so reported opens run hot and CTOR runs cold. MailerLite’s software CTOR is 5.40% against 6.81% all-industry.
• Unsubscribes doubled on MailerLite, from 0.08% in 2024 to 0.22% in 2025, after Gmail’s one-click unsubscribe. Software unsubscribes at 0.20%. Mailchimp’s all-user unsub is also 0.22%.
• Campaign type beats industry for some cuts. GetResponse newsletters open at 40.08% with 3.84% CTR. Triggered: 45.38% / 5.02%. Autoresponders: 51.05% / 5.59%. Welcome: 83.63% / 16.60%. A software company quoting 43.46% against a welcome series is measuring a different send.

Three samples, four different open rates

Search “average email open rate 2026” and you will get 43%, 40%, 36%, 21%, and “20 to 25 percent” on the same results page. The useful question is which sample produced the number sitting next to it.

MailerLite, published 3 December 2025, updated 7 April 2026. 3.6 million campaigns from 181,000 approved accounts, 1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025. Forty-six industries, seven regions. Unique opens over recipients, after bounces. The methodology says median; the reader-facing copy often says “average.” All-industry open: 43.46%, up from 42.35% in 2024. Click: 2.09%. CTOR: 6.81%. Unsubscribe: 0.22%. SMB-skewed, global, campaign-median sample of permissioned mail.

Mailchimp, data as of December 2023. Billions of emails where campaign tracking was on and the user reported an industry. Campaigns under 1,000 subscribers were dropped. Unique open rates, unique click rates. All users: 35.63% open, 2.62% click, 0.22% unsubscribe. The FAQ on the same page says to “aim for somewhere around 34.23%.” A separate Mailchimp reporting article still prints 21.33% as the all-industry average. Mailchimp has not published a 2026-titled industry file as of 21 August 2026; December 2023 is the current official benchmark.

GetResponse, 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks. 4.4 billion messages sent in 2023 by active senders with at least 500 contacts. Every subscriber action counts, including reopens and every link click. Headline open rate: 39.64%. CTR: 3.25%. CTOR: 8.62%. Bounce: 2.33%. The industry table on the same report prints an “All” row of 42.53% open and 5.14% CTR. The continent table prints 39.64%. The country table prints 38.33%. Three “all” numbers, one vendor, one year. Do not average them.

If your board is using 43% and your dashboard is printing 32%, you are not disagreeing about a broken subject line. You are disagreeing about the sample. Do not average 43.46, 35.63, 39.64, and 21.33. The “20 to 25 percent” band is what older roundups and Mailchimp’s reporting explainer still feel like. Write the sample definition at the top of the slide.

Industry medians on opted-in campaigns

MailerLite’s industry table is the file when the send is a permissioned campaign and you want a median, not a mean pulled up by welcome series. Do not mix these rates with GetResponse’s total-open column or with Mailchimp’s 1,000-subscriber unique-open file.

Software is not the worst row MailerLite printed — travel and transportation sits at 30.10%, ecommerce at 32.67%, publishing at 34.24%. It is also not 43.46%. Religion (55.71%), hobbies (53.25%), and non-profit (52.38%) pull the all-industry median up. A SaaS product update competing with those lists is on the software row, not “below average.”

Mailchimp’s printed industries on the fetched page: non-profits 40.04%, education 35.64%, ecommerce 29.81%, business + finance 31.35%. The FAQ adds government at 40.55% and vitamin supplements at 27.34%. Mailchimp did not print a software row; none is invented. Business + finance at 31.35% is the B2B-closest Mailchimp unique-open number.

GetResponse’s technology row at 44.72% open will beat MailerLite software in a deck. It is a different event: every reopen counted. Internet marketing (32.62% / 3.18%) and agencies (39.26% / 4.69%) show that even inside one total-open file, “tech-adjacent” is not one number.

Software is not 43.46%. Clicks are not opens.

Two B2B numbers get treated as one.

MailerLite software: 39.31% of recipients uniquely open. 1.15% click. 5.40% of those unique opens then click (CTOR). Unsubscribe 0.20%. Marketing and advertising is worse on the open (37.23%) and similar on the click (1.30%), with CTOR 6.09%. Consulting is the optimistic B2B twin: 45.96% open, 2.41% click, 7.67% CTOR. Agency sits in between: 40.52% / 1.85% / 6.74%. Business and finance is the on-median B2B cut: 43.34% / 2.37% / 7.96%.

GetResponse technology: 44.72% total-open, 7.40% CTR, 16.54% CTOR. Financial services: 34.70% / 5.34% / 15.40%. Those click rates are several times MailerLite’s software 1.15% because GetResponse counts every click, including repeats. A 7.40% technology CTR next to a 1.15% software click median is a total-click mean next to a unique-clicker median.

Mailchimp’s click column is the closest unique-click analog to MailerLite. All users 2.62%. Business + finance 2.78%. Ecommerce 1.74%. The FAQ “optimal CTR” of 2.66% is the same neighborhood. MailerLite’s 2.09% all-industry click median and Mailchimp’s 2.62% unique-click average can both be “on file” for a permissioned newsletter. Neither is GetResponse’s 3.25%, and neither is GetResponse technology’s 7.40%.

Region is a second cut, not a third sample. MailerLite: Australia 47.69% open, US and Canada 44.49%, Europe 45.08%, LATAM 31.97%, Asia 32.54%. GetResponse United States: 45.62%. High-iPhone regions print higher opens — MailerLite attributes that to Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Use the industry row first. Do not “adjust 43.46% down by Apple share” unless you measured your own mix.

Campaign type moves the number more than the template

GetResponse is the file when the question is newsletter versus automation. MailerLite’s fetched benchmarks page does not split campaign type. Do not transplant these rates onto MailerLite’s 43.46% median.

The 106.52% webinar-reminder open rate is the tell. Unique open rate cannot exceed 100%; total open rate can, because reopens count. A welcome series at 83.63% is not proof that 43.46% is “low.” It is a different product from a Tuesday newsletter.

Frequency is the other GetResponse split. One newsletter a week: 48.31% open, 5.71% CTR. Two a week: 43.20% / 4.73%. Sixteen-plus: 32.15% / 3.75%. Unsubscribes fall as frequency rises because the remaining list still wants mail — selection, not a reason to send daily.

MailerLite’s year-over-year four-pack: opens 42.35% → 43.46%, clicks 2.00% → 2.09%, CTOR 5.63% → 6.81%, unsubscribes 0.08% → 0.22%. MailerLite attributes the unsub jump to Gmail’s one-click unsubscribe. GetResponse’s prior-year jump (open +12.84 points, CTR +1.36) is older and partly Apple auto-opens. Do not chain those into one “email is back” slide.

What to put on the slide

Email is not the 8% of ARR in the marketing budget report. That 8% is the whole marketing line. At $5 million ARR the median private B2B SaaS company has about $400,000 for marketing. Put the send next to the industry and the metric definition, not next to 43.46%.

1. Pick the sample. MailerLite all-industry 43.46% / 2.09%. MailerLite software 39.31% / 1.15%. Mailchimp all users 35.63% / 2.62%, business + finance 31.35% / 2.78%. GetResponse all 39.64% / 3.25% (total opens), technology 44.72% / 7.40%. Do not staff a SaaS newsletter off 43.46% or off a welcome-series 83.63%.
2. Lock the definition. Unique opens over delivered (MailerLite, Mailchimp) versus total opens including reopens (GetResponse). Unique clickers versus every click. Median of campaigns versus mean of messages. A 39.31% software unique-open median and a 44.72% technology total-open mean can both be “on file.” Mixing them with 21.33% is how a board deck dies in the first question.
3. Lock the click before you lock the open. MailerLite: click rate is the metric Apple does not auto-fire. Software 1.15% click, 5.40% CTOR. All-industry 2.09% / 6.81%. GetResponse technology 7.40% / 16.54% is a different numerator. Score the send on clicks and downstream conversions, then on opens.
4. Convert rate to clicks before you convert list size to pipeline. Arithmetic from MailerLite’s software medians and 10,000 delivered: about 3,931 unique opens and 115 clickers. Same 10,000 at the 43.46% / 2.09% all-industry medians: about 4,346 opens and 209 clickers. At Mailchimp’s 35.63% / 2.62%: about 3,563 and 262. These are median illustrations, not a promise. MailerLite and Mailchimp measured engagement events, not revenue per email.
5. Do not treat a marketing open rate as a cold-email KPI. The cold email reply-rate report’s 3.4–3.7% sequencer averages are replies over emails sent to people who did not opt in. Instantly 3.43%, Saleshandy 3.7% on 53.1 million emails. A 39.31% software open and a 3.7% cold reply are not two views of one funnel. A fully loaded US SDR seat is already about $121,000.

Unbounce’s email-to-page conversion — 19.3% all-industry, 16.9% SaaS, from the landing page conversion report — is visitors who arrived via email and converted on a dedicated page. It is not an email open rate. Circle it only as the post-click bar.

Circle 43.46% (MailerLite all-industry), 39.31% / 1.15% (software), 35.63% / 2.62% (Mailchimp unique, Dec 2023), 39.64% / 3.25% (GetResponse total opens), and 21.33% (Mailchimp reporting explainer) on the same slide as list type and open definition. If those numbers do not fit, the 20% quote was never your number. Change the sample.

FAQ

What is the average email open rate in 2026?

MailerLite prints 43.46% as the all-industry median for unique opens (3.6 million campaigns, December 2024–November 2025). The page often says “average.” The methodology says median. Mailchimp’s official unique-open average is 35.63% (December 2023, campaigns of at least 1,000 subscribers). GetResponse’s 2023 total-open mean is 39.64%. There is no single 2026 all-ESP open rate.

What is a good B2B or SaaS email open rate?

Use MailerLite’s software row unless you have a tighter vertical: 39.31% unique open, 1.15% click, 5.40% CTOR. Marketing and advertising: 37.23% / 1.30%. Consulting: 45.96% / 2.41%. Mailchimp business + finance: 31.35% / 2.78%. GetResponse technology: 44.72% / 7.40% — label it total-open first.

Why is MailerLite at 43.46% when Mailchimp prints 35.63% or 21.33%?

Different population, different date, and in one case a different article. MailerLite is a 2025 campaign-median of unique opens with no 1,000-subscriber floor on the fetched page. Mailchimp’s 35.63% is a December 2023 unique-open average on large campaigns. Mailchimp’s 21.33% lives on a reporting explainer, not on the industry-benchmark table. Apple Mail Privacy Protection has inflated reported opens since 2021; older pages still quote the 20s. Do not average them.

What email click-through rate should I use for B2B?

Start with MailerLite’s software click median of 1.15% and CTOR of 5.40%, or marketing and advertising at 1.30% / 6.09%. Mailchimp’s unique-click analog is 2.62% all-industry and 2.78% business + finance. GetResponse’s 3.25% and 7.40% technology figures count every click, including repeats. On a MailerLite-like SaaS newsletter, 1.15% is the median, not a crisis.

Does a lower open rate mean the campaign is failing?

No. MailerLite counted unique opens, not value per open, and flagged Apple auto-opens on the same page. A 39.31% software unique-open with a 1.15% click can beat a 52.38% non-profit open with no pipeline. Score the send on qualified clicks and conversions, then on CTR, then on open rate.

Is this the same as cold email performance?

No. Every primary in this report is permissioned marketing email. The cold email reply-rate report measures replies over cold sends: Instantly 3.43%, Saleshandy 3.7%, Belkins unique-reply / total-send 0.45%. Do not put 39.31% next to 3.7% and call it a channel comparison.

Methodology

Figures are taken from the primary publications below, not from secondary roundups. No number is averaged across samples. Industry rows are only those the vendor printed. Mailchimp did not print a software row; none is invented. HubSpot’s 2025 roundup was fetched and dropped: its 42.35% is MailerLite’s 2024 median, and its industry rows mix other ESPs.

• MailerLite, Email marketing benchmarks by industry and region for 2026. Published 3 December 2025, updated 7 April 2026. 3.6 million campaigns, 181,000 accounts, 1 December 2024–30 November 2025. Medians. Source of 43.46% / 2.09% / 6.81% CTOR, software at 39.31% / 1.15%, and the Apple MPP note.
• Mailchimp, Email Marketing Benchmarks & Industry Statistics. Data as of December 2023. Unique open and click rates on campaigns of at least 1,000 subscribers. Source of 35.63% all-user and 31.35% business + finance. The 21.33% figure is from Mailchimp’s email reporting explainer, used only as a labelled older quote.
• GetResponse, 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks. 4.4 billion messages in 2023, active senders with at least 500 contacts. Total opens and clicks, reopens included. Source of 39.64% / 3.25%, the 42.53% industry-table “All” row, technology at 44.72% / 7.40%, and the newsletter / welcome splits.

The 10,000-delivered illustrations are arithmetic from the printed medians. MailerLite has not published a 2026-calendar-year file as of 21 August 2026; December 2024–November 2025 is the latest primary sample.