What is a good open rate for email? A complete 2025 guide

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Is your email open rate declining despite your best attempts to craft compelling campaigns? Many marketers struggle with this exact problem. Your content may be great, but if subscribers aren’t opening your emails, the rest of your message never gets a chance to reach them or drive action. 

A high open rate means your subject lines are effective, your timing is right, and your subscribers are highly engaged. All these factors are vital for increasing conversions and maximizing your ROI.

To truly improve performance, you need to know what a good email open rate is and how you can achieve it?

That’s exactly what we’ll answer. This guide will reveal the latest industry benchmarks, explain how average email open rates vary by email type, and share practical strategies to improve your performance.

What is email open rate?

An email open rate in email marketing refers to the percentage of subscribers who open an email out of the total number of campaigns successfully delivered. 

For example, an email open rate of 35% means 35 out of 100 subscribers opened your email.

Although email open rates alone don’t measure email marketing success, understanding this metric is crucial for business owners and marketers for the following reasons:

• Open rates indicate which email format performs best with your subscribers
• A low email open rate can hurt your email sender’s reputation and eventually affect deliverability
• Open rates are precursors for other critical email marketing metrics like click-through and conversion rates
• Tracking and measuring open rates is integral to A/B testing 

What is a good open rate for email?

The percentage of recipients who need to open your emails for a good email open rate is probably lower than you think. While it depends on the industry you’re operating in, a good open rate is somewhere between 30% and 50% for most industries and email types. 

Keep in mind that what’s considered a good email open rate in one industry could be bad in another. The same comparison applies to various types of email campaigns.

To achieve a truly good email open rate, consistently compare your performance against your own historical data and industry averages. Doing so helps you spot trends, track improvements, and understand what resonates with your audience.

Average email open rate

The average open rate for email marketing campaigns across various industries is 42.3%, according to Mailerlite’s 2025 benchmark report.

Ecommerce, in particular, has an average email open rate of 26.64%, which is slightly lower than the overall industry benchmark.

This is likely because ecommerce email marketing involves sending a higher volume of promotional and sales-focused messages. This can lead to inbox fatigue, resulting in lower open rates. 

But with a great strategy, you can achieve higher open rates for your email marketing campaigns. You can start by using this data to set realistic benchmarks and spot areas for improvement. 

Average newsletter open rate

Newsletters perform differently from other email types. According to a GetResponse study, email newsletters had a 40.08% open rate in 2024. This is lower than the 51.05% open rate recorded for automated emails.

The difference comes down to intent and personalization. Automated emails are triggered by specific actions, such as a customer subscription, making them highly personalized and relevant. 

In comparison, newsletters are usually sent to a broader audience with a mix of content, updates, or promotions. Since they’re less personalized, not every issue feels relevant. 

Despite that, newsletters are still valuable. Even with lower open rates, they’re great for building brand awareness, nurturing subscribers, and strengthening customer loyalty.

How to calculate email open rate?

To calculate the email marketing open rate, simply divide the number of people who opened your email by the total number to which it was sent. Here’s the formula:

Note that the total email open rate counts every single open, including when the same person opens your email multiple times. 

Unique open rate

The unique open rate measures the number of individual subscribers who opened your email at least once. Unlike the total open rate, it disregards repeat opens from the same person. So, if a single person opens an email 10 times, the total opens would be 10, but the unique opens would be one.

Here’s the formula for calculating your unique email open rate:

While open rate sets the ground for email marketing campaign success, it’s not the only metric you must measure. Response, bounce, conversion, unsubscribe, and click-through rates are additional email marketing metrics used to measure campaign success.

Industry benchmarks for email open rates

According to Omnisend’s 2025 Ecommerce Marketing Report, the email open rate for Omnisend’s merchants rose from 25.16% in Q1 2024 to 29.44% by Q4 2024. The overall average email open rate recorded for the entire year was 26.64%, as illustrated below.

To further answer the question of what the average open rate is for email marketing, we’ll look at how various industries compare. Some of the top-performing sectors with the highest average email open rates include: 

• Auto (32.5%)
• Fashion and apparel (32.1%)
• Arts and entertainment (30.9%)

Industries like consumer electronics had a lower average of 23.8%, while antiques and collectibles recorded a 23.9% average email open rate, as shown below:

Below are a few factors influencing open rate benchmarks:

• Type of industry: Average open rates can differ greatly between industries. Apparel, B2B/B2C, Cosmetics, Travel, Books, Food, etc., may have varying user engagement levels. This means the open rate between them isn’t worth comparing.
• Target audience: Different audience groups may have different email checking preferences. Also, the level of email personalization based on user preferences can influence the open rate.

Average open rates by email type

Different email types, such as promotional, welcome, and shopping cart abandonment, have varying open rates. Knowing which messages naturally attract more opens, and why, helps you evaluate campaign performance more effectively and set the right benchmarks.

To better understand what a good open rate for emails is, let’s see how some common email types compare:

Emails with the highest open rates

• Shipping confirmations (62.47%): This email type has the highest open rate because it’s time-sensitive and arrives precisely when customers are eagerly awaiting updates on their orders.
• Back in stock emails (59.19%): These emails are sent to customers who’ve previously expressed interest in a specific product, making them relevant and likely to be opened. 

Emails with the lowest open rates

• Lapsed purchase emails (34.34%): Trying to re-engage an audience that’s no longer interested in your offer can result in low email open rates.
• Browse abandonment emails (34.55%):  Users who viewed a product but didn’t add it to their cart are less likely to engage with your email, as they may no longer be interested. 

A low open rate isn’t automatically a failure. It depends on the purpose and the intent of the email. For instance, a lapsed purchase email might see fewer opens, but even a handful of re-engaged customers can drive meaningful sales and revenue.

High email open rates often depend on timing, relevance, and meeting customer expectations. The more an email aligns with your customer expectations, the better it performs.

Factors affecting email open rates

When trying to increase your email open rate, it’s important to understand that multiple factors play a key role in creating a successful campaign. This video explores essential email marketing basics to help you craft impactful messages that compel readers to click:

Let’s take a close look at factors affecting email open rates:

1. Subject lines 

The email subject line is the first thing that pops up on your recipients’ screens. So clickbaity, irrelevant, vague, or weak subject lines have lower chances of getting opened.

Remember that subject line lengths can affect email visibility. Say your recipients are mobile users — the subject line will be cut off earlier than it would on a desktop computer. As a result, potentially crucial information, such as discounts or sale alerts, may be hidden, negatively affecting open rates. 

A few other subject line aspects you must consider while writing emails are:

• Use of personalization: Personalizing your email subject lines with the recipient’s first name, including a personalized offer, or similar elements that are contextual to their journey with your brand, can lead to higher open rates and engagement. For example, combine FOMO with first names: “Hey (first_name), 30% off your next purchase before midnight.”
• Tone and clarity: Your subject line can influence whether your email lands in the spam folder. Have a friendly and casual tone, and be clear with fewer but relevant words, e.g., “Last 5 hours…”
• A/B test subject lines: Not all subject lines yield high open rates, regardless of how meticulously they are planned. So, to avoid wasted efforts, perform A/B testing on a small batch of email subject lines to analyze how your recipients respond and engage with them.

If you need help with your subject lines, Omnisend’s free subject line tester can help you optimize them for higher engagement and improve your overall email open rate:

2. Sender reputation 

Sending an email doesn’t guarantee that it’ll reach your recipients. To combat spam, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) monitor multiple factors, including the engagement on your emails, to give you a sender reputation score.

It’s especially important for new accounts to spend time on email domain warmup, which is the practice of improving your email account’s reputation to avoid being flagged as “suspicious” by ISPs.

ISPs assign a sender reputation score to every brand sending emails. So, the higher the score, the greater the likelihood of them delivering your emails to the desired recipients. To maintain a high score, perform regular list cleaning by deleting inactive, fraudulent subscribers and tracking user engagement. 

Likewise, a high spam rate can lower your sender reputation score. You can tackle this by only sending relevant emails and keeping your list clean.

3. Email list quality 

Your email list quality correlates with your potential email open rate. 

How?

Sending emails to inactive or uninterested subscribers is like shooting arrows into the dark. Your chances of engaging them are slim. 

Here’s how to maintain email list quality for the best open rate:

• Subscriber segmentation: Segmenting lists can help you deliver relevant messages to the right user group. For example, dividing subscribers based on their website interactions (adding products to the cart, browsing a specific section, etc.) lets you tailor offers and increase the chance of conversion.
• List hygiene: Subscribers are ever-evolving. So, if you’re reusing your email list created at the beginning of your marketing strategy, it’s time to rethink your process. Regularly delete inactive and unengaged subscribers to ensure higher open rates and improved email marketing ROI.
• Acquiring subscribers: Start from square one. Change your subscriber acquisition methods to collect high-intent contacts. For example, use double opt-ins to reconfirm subscriptions and ensure accurate data.

4. Timing and frequency 

Sending emails by understanding the optimal time when your subscribers are most active can improve email open rates. 

What are the best times to send an email for higher open rates? 

• Tuesdays have the highest open rates, while Fridays are for higher conversions
• The beginning of the month has shown the highest open and conversion rates
• The best times to email are 8 PM, 2 PM, and 5 PM

However, days and times can vary by industry or audience. For example, B2B audiences are most active during business hours before 6 PM, and ecommerce customers are most active during weekends or after business hours. You can use these as a starting point, but then you need to experiment to see what your audience responds to.

And turning to email frequency, maintaining a balance is crucial to gaining higher open rates. 

Too many or too frequent emails can frustrate your recipients, and inconsistency can cause a drop in engagement rates. Most marketers consider between one and three weekly emails to be the golden standard for maintaining good open rates. 

5. Mobile optimization

Mobile devices and desktops have different ways of rendering emails. For starters, mobiles have smaller screens and support vertical scrolling, while desktops have all kinds of scrolling with a wider canvas. 

Medium-length subject lines that work well on desktop browsers may get cut off on mobile devices, hampering open rates. 

So here’s what you can do for better mobile optimization:

• Create a responsive email design: Ensure your email design adapts well to different screen sizes by optimizing images and cutting down lengthy content. Also, using suitable font sizes improves readability, making your email more accessible.
• Use preheader texts: A preheader offers a quick overview of the email’s body and is placed next to the subject line in an inbox. For mobiles, 30 to 55 characters are optimal. Make the most of it by adding catchy, relevant, and clear text.
• Use a clear CTA: Testing your call to actions (CTAs) is critical to your email’s success. Run A/B tests to find the best-performing copy, placement, and designs for mobile devices separately.

6. Technical factors 

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are called the golden trio for IP reputation and authentication. Failing to comply with any of these protocols would significantly impact your open rates, regardless of the quality of your email content. 

As you grow, learn the technicalities behind triggered spam filters.

How Omnisend can help improve your email open rate

Omnisend is a complete email marketing solution tailored for ecommerce businesses. It offers multiple tools that can help you improve your email open rates, such as email list cleaning, automation, email warm-up, and audience segmentation. 

Here’s a breakdown of Omnisend’s advanced tools that improve and maintain email open rates:

• Intuitive drag-and-drop Email Builder: Well-designed emails can improve your email open rates. Omnisend’s Email Builder makes email campaign creation seamless using optimized templates and auto-branding your emails based on your website.
• Targeted campaigns: Build and run personalized email campaigns on autopilot to ensure timely and relevant communication reaches the right people at the perfect time. For example, you could send cart abandonment emails within 90 minutes of the user’s abandonment session. 
• Precise segmentation: Omnisend analyzes your customers’ profile data to set up dynamic segments based on their engagement levels, purchase history, transactional events, and so on. Doing so is key to delivering emails that each user group can resonate with and want to open and click through. 
• Split test emails: What’s the best email combination to fetch the highest open rate? A/B testing is the only way to know. Omnisend lets you split-test multiple email marketing campaigns to find the best-performing one. For example, testing various subject lines, CTAs, content lengths, timings, and frequency.
• Powerful analytics: Omnisend’s analytical tools help you keep track of email open rates and other key email deliverability metrics. Access detailed campaign performance reports for a bird’s-eye view of email metrics and use them to make smarter improvements to upcoming email marketing efforts.
• AI-powered tools: Creating the perfect subject line and drafting engaging email content takes time. Omnisend’s AI Subject Line Generator and Email Generator help you craft compelling, high-converting subject lines and content tailored to your brand and audience in minutes.

The story of how 123Presets doubled its revenue by working on its deliverability with the help of Omnisend is a great example of how important your email open rate is. After implementing Omnisend’s recommendations, its open rates increased by 62.3%, leading to a surge in sales.

The bigger picture: Beyond email open rates

As mentioned, email open rates don’t paint a complete picture of campaign success. High open rates don’t always mean greater returns. 

Although open rate sets the stage for tracking content relevance, there are other critical email marketing metrics every ecommerce business must track, including engagement metrics like conversion, click-through, unsubscribe, and cart abandonment rates. Transactional metrics also include the average order value, revenue generated per email, and the overall email campaign ROI. 

Does this mean you can overlook email open rates? The short answer is no!

Opening an email is the very first subscriber action, followed by email click-through and conversion. So, it’s safe to say the open rate is the primary building block of measuring and optimizing email marketing success. 

Conclusion 

A good email open rate alone may not always indicate the true success of your email marketing efforts. However, viewing open rate as a basic component of a larger email marketing strategy is important. 

Understand what factors influence email open rates so you can start working on improving other critical email marketing metrics. 

And remember, email marketing is a non-stop journey. Just like subscribers, your email campaigns must evolve to suit their best interests.

FAQs

1. Is a 50% open rate good?

Yes, a 50% email open rate is excellent. Achieving a 50% open rate indicates a highly engaged audience, compelling subject lines, and a very strong sender reputation.

2. What’s a good email open rate 2025?

A good email open rate in 2025 depends on your industry and the type of email. While some sources cite a general average between 30% and 50%, some sectors and campaign types see much higher rates.

3. How can I improve my email subject lines?

Email subject lines can make or break your email open rates. To improve your email subject lines, try cutting the length, personalizing them, eliminating spammy words, creating urgency, and testing multiple subject lines to pick the best-performing one. Try Omnisend’s free subject line tester to see how you can make improvements.

4. What is a good open rate for a newsletter?

Many sources suggest that a good open rate for newsletters falls between 40% and 50%. To further understand what a good open rate for newsletters is, read our detailed guide above. 

5. Is a 20% open rate good?

Yes, a 20% open rate can be considered decent. However, a good email open rate depends on your industry. Some sectors regularly achieve 30% or higher, while others average below 25%. 

6. What is the industry standard email open rate in 2025?

According to Omnisend’s 2025 Ecommerce Marketing Report, the overall industry standard email open rate is around 26.64%. Reports from other sources indicate an average of 42.3%. 

7. What should my email open rate be?

Your email open rate should ideally exceed your specific industry’s benchmark. The goal is to keep improving it over time and outperform each past email marketing campaign.