Email Open Rate Benchmarks 2026: Six Sources Compared, and Why Opens Mislead

The average email open rate depends on who you ask. Recent platform benchmarks range from 31% (Klaviyo campaigns, 2026 page) to 43.46% (MailerLite, December 2024 to November 2025), and older reports from before Apple's privacy changes show around 21.5% (Campaign Monitor, 2021 data). None of these is wrong. They measure different customers, in different years, with different handling of opens that no human made.

This page puts the published numbers side by side, each linked to the publisher's own page with the period it covers. Then it explains why they disagree and why open rate is now a weak measure of anything. If you're running cold email rather than newsletters, also read why open tracking hurts cold email deliverability.

The published averages, side by side

All pages were read on 8 October 2026.

Source	Average open rate	Period	Sample	MPP opens	Link
MailerLite	43.46%	December 2024 to November 2025	3.6 million campaigns from 181,000 accounts	Acknowledged as inflating opens; not stated as removed	MailerLite
Klaviyo (help centre)	43.33% campaigns, 55.21% flows	Q3 2023 (July to September)	Klaviyo benchmark data	Included, stated explicitly	Klaviyo help
GetResponse	39.64%	2023 (2024 report)	4.4 billion messages	Says Apple "auto-opens" partly explain the rise	GetResponse
Mailchimp	35.63%	Page last updated December 2023	"Billions of emails", campaigns to 1,000+ subscribers	Notes accuracy "may be impacted"	Mailchimp
Klaviyo (benchmarks page)	31% campaigns, 32.2% flows	Not stated (2026 page)	Over 183,000 Klaviyo customers	Not stated	Klaviyo benchmarks
Campaign Monitor	21.5%	2021 (2022 report)	Over 100 billion emails	MPP launched in September 2021, at the end of this period	Campaign Monitor

Two notes on what's missing. HubSpot's open rate benchmark article, the page that ranks first for this topic, doesn't publish HubSpot data. Its headline average (42.35%) is credited to MailerLite, and its industry figures come from Klaviyo, Brevo and ActiveCampaign (HubSpot, updated 4 November 2025). And we left out Constant Contact, whose benchmark pages we couldn't read directly, and Benchmark Email, whose page gives no date for its data.

Why the numbers disagree

The same vendor publishes two different numbers

Klaviyo is the clearest case. Its help centre gives a 43.33% campaign open rate from Q3 2023 data and states that "Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens are included in the open rates presented." Its 2026 benchmarks page shows 31% for campaigns, with no period given and no statement about MPP. A twelve-point gap within one company's own pages tells you how much the method matters. We don't know which choices produce it, and Klaviyo's pages don't say.

Apple Mail Privacy Protection

Open tracking works by putting a tiny remote image in each email. When the image loads, the platform records an open. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection, announced in June 2021 with the stated aim to help users "prevent senders from knowing when they open an email" (Apple Newsroom), changes when that image loads.

Apple's own description is direct. Protect Mail Activity "downloads remote content in the background by default — regardless of whether you engage with the email", and routes it through two relays so the sender doesn't see the reader's IP address (Apple Legal). Apple's Mac support page says remote content is "privately downloaded in the background when you receive a message (instead of when you view it)" (Apple Support).

For a sender, the result is that many messages delivered to Apple Mail users register as opened, whether or not anyone read them. Platforms say so in their own documentation:

• Klaviyo marks every open event with an "Apple Privacy Open" property and says such an open "doesn't necessarily reflect a true email open" (Klaviyo help).
• Mailchimp's bot filtering, "enabled by default", hides inaccurate activity from reports, including MPP opens (Mailchimp help).
• MailerLite's benchmark notes that MPP "automatically marks emails sent to Apple Mail clients as opened".

So a benchmark computed with MPP opens included and one computed with them filtered are measuring different things, and most benchmark pages don't say which they did.

Before and after September 2021

Campaign Monitor's 21.5% covers 2021, and its report notes MPP launched in September of that year, so most of that data predates the feature. Every other figure in the table comes from 2023 or later. The jump from roughly 21% to roughly 35-43% between those reports is consistent with MPP inflating opens, though the reports cover different platforms and can't prove the size of the effect on their own.

Different customers and industries

Every benchmark describes one platform's users. MailerLite's own industry breakdown runs from 55.71% for religion to 32.67% for ecommerce. A platform skewed toward ecommerce brands, like Klaviyo, will average lower than one with many creators, nonprofits and small publishers. The "average" is mostly a statement about the platform's customer mix.

How to read an open rate benchmark before you use it

Before comparing your numbers with any figure above, check four things on the source page:

1. The period. Anything mostly before September 2021 predates MPP and isn't comparable with a current dashboard.
2. The MPP treatment. Included, filtered, or not stated. Only Klaviyo's help centre states it outright.
3. The sample. Whose customers, how many, and which industries dominate.
4. The unit. Campaigns and automated flows behave very differently. Klaviyo's help centre puts flows twelve points above campaigns.

If a page doesn't answer at least the first two, treat its figure as a loose indication, not a target.

Why open rate is unreliable as a metric

MPP is the biggest distortion, but it isn't the only one:

1. False opens. MPP preloads, and security scanners and other bots fetch images too. Mailchimp's bot activity page says automated tools can "open emails before your contacts do".
2. Missed opens. A reader whose client blocks images can read the whole message and never register an open.
3. No link to delivery. A message in the spam folder that the user never looks at can still be opened by a preloading client, so a healthy open rate doesn't prove inbox placement.
4. Inconsistent filtering. Whether your dashboard removes automated opens depends on the platform and a setting, so your own numbers can shift when a vendor changes its filter.

That's why platforms themselves now point elsewhere. Mailchimp's MPP FAQ says "clicks and purchases are stronger signs of engagement than opens", and HubSpot's article recommends click-through and click-to-open rates instead.

What to use instead

Goal	Better measure
Did people engage?	Click rate, reply rate, conversions
Is mail reaching the inbox?	Inbox placement tests, Google Postmaster Tools spam rate (Gmail wants it below 0.3%)
Is the list healthy?	Bounce rate, ideally under 2% (benchmarks)
Who to keep mailing?	Clicks and replies in the last 90-180 days, not opens alone

If you still want an open rate:

• Compare yourself with yourself. The same list, same platform, same filter setting, over time. A sudden drop still tells you something even if the absolute level is inflated.
• Filter automated opens where your platform allows it, using Klaviyo's Apple Privacy Open property or Mailchimp's bot filtering, and keep the setting fixed.
• Don't build engagement segments on opens alone. An Apple Mail user who never reads your mail looks "engaged" on opens. Suppressing truly inactive contacts protects reputation, and that decision needs clicks or replies behind it.
• Check deliverability separately. A drop in clicks with a steady open rate can mean messages moved to spam. The deliverability check confirms your authentication is in order, and a clean list keeps bounces from dragging reputation down. Verifying addresses before sending, with SimpleVerifier or any other tool, removes the dead mailboxes that cause hard bounces.

The honest answer to "what's a good open rate?" in 2026 is that the published averages, 31% to 43%, are mostly a measure of each platform's customers and of Apple's preloading. Your own open rate trend, clicks and replies tell you far more.