Email Marketing Statistics 2026: 100 Verified Data Points

Email is still one of the highest-return channels in marketing, but the benchmarks have shifted. Open rates are inflated by privacy features, inbox providers now enforce hard sender rules, and automation and AI are doing more of the work. Every number below links to the organization that measured it, so you can cite the original.

Key statistics at a glance

• The average global inbox placement rate for 2025 was 87.2%, according to Validity's 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report.
• 35% of companies see $10 to $36 for every $1 spent on email, and 30% receive $36 to $50, per the Litmus 2025 State of Email survey.
• Automated emails represented only 2% of sends but generated 30% of email-attributed revenue in 2025, according to Omnisend.
• The average email open rate in 2025 was 43.46% and the average click rate was 2.09%, according to MailerLite.
• Gmail requires senders to keep spam rates below 0.10% and to avoid ever reaching 0.30%, per Google's email sender guidelines.
• Apple accounted for 76.56% of email opens tracked by Litmus in September 2026.
• Flows generate nearly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, according to Klaviyo.
• The number of worldwide email users will top 4.4 billion in 2024 and grow to over 4.9 billion by the end of 2028, per The Radicati Group.
• Marketers with deeply integrated AI are 75% more likely to achieve ROI above 45:1, yet just 12% of organizations have that depth of integration, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Microsoft's inbox placement rate for 2025 was 77.4%, the lowest of the major mailbox providers, according to Validity.

Email usage and market size

• The number of worldwide email users will top 4.4 billion in 2024 (4,481 million), according to The Radicati Group's Email Statistics Report, 2024-2028.
• Worldwide email users are expected to grow to over 4.9 billion by the end of 2028, per The Radicati Group, 2024.
• The total number of business and consumer emails sent and received per day will exceed 361 billion in 2024, according to The Radicati Group.
• Daily email traffic is forecast to grow to over 424 billion by year-end 2028, per The Radicati Group, 2024.
• With 40% of marketers reporting using it, email marketing ties with organic social media as the number two most used marketing channel, according to the HubSpot State of Marketing Report, 2026.
• About 75% of marketers plan on maintaining or increasing their email marketing investment in 2026, per HubSpot's 2026 State of Marketing.
• 41% of small business owners expect email marketing to be their most valuable marketing channel this year, according to a Constant Contact 2026 survey of over 1,500 small business owners.
• For the first time, there was a clear year-over-year reduction in sending volumes in 2025, according to Validity's 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report.

Email marketing ROI

• 35% of companies receive $10 to $36 in return for every $1 spent on email, according to the Litmus 2025 State of Email survey of nearly 500 marketers.
• 30% of companies receive $36 to $50 for every $1 spent on email, per Litmus, 2025.
• 5% of companies receive more than $50 for every $1 spent on email, per Litmus, 2025.
• 21% of marketing leaders do not measure email ROI, down from 36% in 2023, according to Litmus, 2025.
• 59% of companies analyze customer engagement metrics (opens, click-through rate, bounce rates) to measure email's contribution, per Litmus, 2025.
• 41% of companies use direct revenue attribution to email marketing campaigns, per Litmus, 2025.
• The marketers reporting the highest returns are the top 8%, at 45:1 or higher, according to the Litmus from Validity State of Email 2026.
• Marketers in Australia and New Zealand are 63% more likely than U.S. and U.K. teams to achieve an ROI of over 45:1, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Companies with click-through rates above 5% are 30% more likely to send daily emails, according to Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• 22% of marketers reported email marketing as one of their top ROI-driving channels, according to the HubSpot State of Marketing Report, 2026.
• Only about 8.4% of marketers say email open rates and click-through rates are the most important metrics of success, per HubSpot, 2026.
• Automated emails earned 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns in 2025, according to Omnisend.

Open and click rate benchmarks by industry

Open rates below come from platform data and are inflated to different degrees by Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Compare clicks and conversions across platforms, and compare opens only within the same platform. For timing tests, see our guide to the best time to send an email.

MailerLite (December 2024 to November 2025, median of 3.6 million campaigns)

• The average email open rate in 2025 was 43.46%, according to MailerLite.
• The average email click rate in 2025 was 2.09%, per MailerLite.
• The average email click-to-open rate in 2025 was 6.81%, per MailerLite.
• The average unsubscribe rate in 2025 was 0.22%, per MailerLite.
• Non-profit emails had a 52.38% open rate and a 2.90% click rate in 2025, per MailerLite.
• E-commerce emails had a 32.67% open rate and a 1.07% click rate in 2025, per MailerLite.
• Legal emails had a 42.58% open rate and a 4.90% click rate in 2025, per MailerLite.
• Manufacturing emails had a 37.36% open rate and a 4.22% click rate in 2025, per MailerLite.
• Software and web app emails had a 39.31% open rate and a 1.15% click rate in 2025, per MailerLite.

Mailchimp (data last updated December 2023, published 2024)

• The average open rate across all Mailchimp users is 35.63%, according to Mailchimp's email marketing benchmarks.
• The average click rate across all Mailchimp users is 2.62%, per Mailchimp.
• Non-profits average a 40.04% open rate and a 3.27% click rate, per Mailchimp.
• Ecommerce averages a 29.81% open rate and a 1.74% click rate, per Mailchimp.
• Business and finance averages a 31.35% open rate and a 2.78% click rate, per Mailchimp.
• Education and training averages a 35.64% open rate and a 3.02% click rate, per Mailchimp.
• Government has the highest average open rate (40.55%) and click-through rate (4.58%) of any industry Mailchimp tracks, per Mailchimp.
• Vitamin supplements has the lowest average open rate (27.34%) and click-through rate (1.19%), per Mailchimp.

GetResponse, Klaviyo and Omnisend

• The average open rate across all industries was 39.64% and the click-through rate was 3.25%, based on 4.4 billion messages sent in 2023, according to GetResponse's 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks.
• The average email spam complaint rate is below 0.01%, per GetResponse, 2024.
• A good email open rate in 2026 is 31% for campaigns and 32.2% for flows, according to Klaviyo's benchmarks, based on over 183,000 customers.
• A good email click rate in 2026 is 1.69% for campaigns and 5.58% for flows, per Klaviyo.
• Ecommerce email open rates rose from 26.6% in 2024 to 30.7% in 2025, across 27 billion emails from 150,000 brands, according to Omnisend's 2026 Ecommerce Marketing Report.
• Email click-to-conversion rates increased 53% year over year, from 5.9% to 9%, in 2025, per Omnisend.

Deliverability and sender rules

Inbox placement is now the first metric to fix, because a campaign that lands in spam has no open rate to optimize. If your complaint rate is creeping up, review your copy against our list of spam trigger words and your list sources.

Inbox placement (Validity, 2025 data)

• The average global inbox placement rate for 2025 was 87.2%, according to Validity's 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report.
• Globally, 6.6% of email landed in spam and 6.1% went missing in 2025, per Validity.
• Gmail's average inbox placement rate was 89.8% in 2025, per Validity.
• Microsoft's average inbox placement rate was 77.4% in 2025, with 15.1% of mail going to spam, per Validity.
• Average inbox placement at Yahoo was 87.3% in 2025, per Validity.
• Europe remains the top-performing region with an average inbox placement rate of 91.1% in 2025, per Validity.
• With an average inbox placement rate of 97.2%, Transportation was the top-performing sector in 2025, per Validity.
• Real Estate was the bottom sector in 2025, with 80.1% inbox placement and 15.9% of mail in spam, per Validity.

Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook requirements

• Starting February 1, 2024, senders who send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must meet Google's bulk sender requirements, including SPF, DKIM and DMARC, per Google's email sender guidelines.
• Google tells senders to keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and to avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher, per Google.
• Bulk senders to Gmail must process one-click unsubscribe requests within two days, according to Google's October 2023 announcement.
• Gmail's AI-powered defenses stop more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware from reaching inboxes, per Google, 2023.
• Gmail blocks nearly 15 billion unwanted emails every day, per Google, 2023.
• The number of unauthenticated messages Gmail users receive plummeted by 75% after Google began requiring authentication, per Google, 2023.
• Yahoo tells senders to keep their spam rate below 0.3%, per Yahoo Sender Hub best practices, enforced since February 2024.
• Yahoo requires bulk senders to honor unsubscribes within 2 days and to publish a valid DMARC policy of at least p=none, per Yahoo, 2024.
• Effective May 5, 2025, domains sending more than 5,000 emails per day to Outlook.com accounts must be fully compliant with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, per Microsoft's postmaster policies.
• Non-compliant high-volume mail to Outlook.com goes to junk and may be rejected with error 550; 5.7.515, per Microsoft, 2025.

Email clients, mobile and privacy

Recent, original data on the share of email opened on phones is scarce, so we report email client share instead. Apple's lead reflects both iPhone Mail and Apple Mail Privacy Protection, which preloads messages and registers opens.

• Apple accounted for 76.56% of email opens in September 2026, based on over 1.5 billion opens tracked by Litmus Email Analytics.
• Gmail accounted for 16.10% of email opens in September 2026, per Litmus.
• Outlook accounted for 3.48% of email opens in September 2026, per Litmus.
• Yahoo Mail accounted for 2.35% of email opens in September 2026, per Litmus.

Email automation

• Flows generate nearly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, according to Klaviyo, based on over 183,000 customers (2026).
• Flows deliver average revenue per recipient nearly 18 times higher than campaigns, per Klaviyo, 2026.
• Flows achieve 13 times higher placed order rates than campaigns, per Klaviyo, 2026.
• Nearly 48% of flow-driven email revenue comes from new buyers, per Klaviyo, 2026.
• Automated emails represented only 2% of sends but generated 30% of email-attributed revenue in 2025, according to Omnisend.
• Automations earned $2.87 per send versus $0.18 for scheduled campaigns in 2025, per Omnisend's 2026 Ecommerce Marketing Report.
• Abandoned cart and welcome messages drove 76% of all automation-generated orders in 2025, per Omnisend.
• Welcome emails had an 83.63% open rate and a 16.6% click-through rate in 2023, making them the most effective campaign type, according to GetResponse, 2024.
• Autoresponders had a 51.05% open rate and a 5.59% click-through rate, per GetResponse, 2024.
• Triggered emails had a 45.38% open rate and a 5.02% click-through rate, per GetResponse, 2024.
• Emails with Vimeo links had a 51.63% open rate and 6.8% click-through rate, versus 40.17% and 3.74% for emails without video, per GetResponse, 2024.

Personalization and segmentation

Personalization depends on clean data and a clear audience segmentation model, which is also where most teams say they get stuck.

• Email campaigns (85%) are the most common place B2B marketers use personalization, according to the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 B2B Content and Marketing Trends report.
• 53% of marketers incorporate basic personalization, such as including a name in email copy, according to the HubSpot State of Generative AI Report, 2026.
• 26% of marketers report email marketing is one of the most effective channels for segmentation and personalization, per HubSpot, 2026.
• 17% of marketers say developing the content efficiently is their top email personalization challenge, according to the Litmus 2025 State of Email report.
• 16% of marketers say collecting and analyzing the data is their top personalization challenge, per Litmus, 2025.
• 15% of marketers say measuring the impact on email performance is their top personalization challenge, per Litmus, 2025.

AI in email marketing

• Just 12% of organizations described their AI maturity in email as "integrated," according to the Litmus from Validity State of Email 2026, a survey of over 500 marketers.
• 17% of organizations reported either pausing AI initiatives or having no program at all, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Marketers with deeply integrated AI are 75% more likely to achieve ROI above 45:1 from their email campaigns, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Advanced AI adopters are 54% more likely to follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and 52% more likely to comply with the European Accessibility Act, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Integration with existing systems (34%) is the top challenge to scaling AI in email, followed by team skills gaps (27%), per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• Poor data quality (25%) and difficulty proving AI's ROI or measuring outcomes (23%) are the next biggest AI challenges, per Litmus from Validity, 2026.
• 78% of teams now take three days or less to produce and deploy an email, compared with 2024, when 62% took two weeks or more, according to Litmus, 2026.
• 29% of marketers believed advanced AI-driven content generation and analytics would be the biggest change in email marketing in 2025, per Litmus, 2025.
• Over 80% of marketers report using AI for content creation, including email copy, according to the HubSpot State of Generative AI Report, 2026.
• 54% of small businesses are currently using AI, and 44% of them are using it to write emails or other content, according to Constant Contact's 2026 Small Business Now report.
• 36% of B2B marketers use email marketing AI tools for campaign optimization and personalized email content, per the Content Marketing Institute, 2026.

B2B email marketing

• Email newsletters (71%) and email (63%) were among the most used content distribution channels for B2B marketers in the prior 12 months, according to the Content Marketing Institute's B2B benchmarks for 2025.
• Email (42%) tied with organic social media platforms (42%) as the best-performing distribution channel for B2B marketers, per CMI, 2025.
• 37% of B2B marketers named email newsletters a best-performing distribution channel, per CMI, 2025.
• 30% of B2B marketers used partner emails as a paid distribution channel, per CMI, 2025.
• Email newsletters (54%) rank second only to LinkedIn (76%) among the most effective thought leadership channels for B2B marketers, per CMI, 2026.
• 95% of B2B marketers say their organizations use AI-powered applications, per CMI, 2026.
• Social outreach outranks email for response rates (42% vs. 26%), according to HubSpot's 2025 sales strategy research.

For outbound benchmarks specifically, see our separate roundup of cold email statistics.

What these numbers mean in practice

Open rates are now a weak signal. Apple accounts for roughly three of every four tracked opens, and Mail Privacy Protection registers many of those automatically. That is why benchmarks range from about 30% to over 43% depending on the platform. Use clicks, replies, conversions and revenue per recipient to judge performance.

Deliverability is a gate, not a nice-to-have. Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft all now require authentication from high-volume senders, and Microsoft still sends about one in seven messages to spam. If you send more than 5,000 messages a day, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe are mandatory.

Automation pays out of proportion to volume. Both Omnisend and Klaviyo show a small share of sends (2% to about 5%) producing 30% to 41% of email revenue. If you only run broadcast campaigns, building a welcome series and an abandoned cart flow is usually the fastest win. Our guide to running an ROI-driven email marketing campaign covers the setup.

AI helps most when it is wired into the workflow. Most teams use AI somewhere, but only a small minority have integrated it. The Litmus data links deep integration with faster production and higher ROI, while the common blockers are integration, skills and data quality rather than the tools themselves.

Benchmark against your own history first. Industry averages vary by platform, list size and method (medians vs. means). The most useful comparison is your own trend over time, then a benchmark from the same platform you send on.

How we compiled this list

Every statistic on this page was verified in October 2026 at the original source: the research report, benchmark page, press release or official policy page published by the organization that collected the data. We traced secondhand figures to their origin and dropped any we could not confirm, including most of the figures from earlier versions of this article (several dated to 2019 to 2022 or had no traceable source).

We prioritized data published in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and we note the data period where it differs from the publication year. Wording follows each source as closely as possible. Vendor benchmarks reflect each vendor's own customers, so numbers are not directly comparable across platforms. We update this page regularly as new reports are released.

This page contains 100 data points in the sections above (the "at a glance" list repeats ten of them).

Cite this page

Nerdy Joe, "Email Marketing Statistics 2026: 100 Verified Data Points," updated October 2026, https://nerdyjoe.com/blog/email-marketing-statistics/

Sources

• The Radicati Group, Email Statistics Report, 2024-2028 (Executive Summary)
• Litmus, The ROI of Email Marketing (2025 State of Email survey)
• Litmus, The State of Email 2025
• Litmus, The State of Email 2026
• Validity, press release on the State of Email 2026 (April 14, 2026)
• Validity, 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report
• Litmus, Email Client Market Share (September 2026)
• Mailchimp, Email Marketing Benchmarks
• MailerLite, Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry (2025 data)
• GetResponse, Email Marketing Benchmarks (2024 report, 2023 data)
• Klaviyo, Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry
• Omnisend, 2026 Ecommerce Marketing Report
• Omnisend, press release (January 29, 2026)
• HubSpot, Marketing Statistics (State of Marketing 2026 and other HubSpot research)
• Constant Contact, Email Marketing Statistics (2026 small business survey)
• Content Marketing Institute, 2026 B2B Content and Marketing Trends
• Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025
• Google, Email sender guidelines
• Google, New Gmail protections for a safer, less spammy inbox (October 3, 2023)
• Yahoo Sender Hub, Best Practices
• Microsoft, Outlook.com Postmaster Policies, Practices, and Guidelines