Email list growth rate calculator: net growth per month and per year
Email list growth rate is new subscribers minus everyone who left (unsubscribes, hard bounces and spam complaints), divided by the list size at the start, times 100. A 10,000-contact list that gains 600 and loses 280 in a month grew 3.2%. Enter your numbers above for the monthly and yearly rate.
Inactive contacts you pruned, or deletions on request.
- Growth rate per month
- 3.20%
- Net change
- +320
- List at the end
- 10,320
- Same rate for a year
- 45.9%
(600 new − 120 unsubscribes − 150 bounces − 10 complaints) ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 3.20% per month. Kept up for a year, compounding, that's 45.9%. You lost 2.8% of the list to get there.
Bounces were 54% of your losses. Without them the rate would be 4.70%.
Next step
150 of your losses were addresses that no longer exist.
A bounced address was never a subscriber you could reach; it inflated the list until you sent to it. Verifying signups and imports before they go on the list shows your true size and growth, and keeps bounces off your sender reputation.
- Drop your list as a CSV
- See its rows, duplicates and bad formats, free
- 100 free email checks when you sign in with Google, no card
Ready to verify now? Verify the list
Sample result
The list grew 3.20% this month, a net gain of 320 contacts.
- Growth rate per month
- 3.20%
- Net change
- +320
- Compounded over a year
- 45.93%
What this means for you
Bounces caused 53.6% of the losses; verifying new sign-ups cuts that share.
- Net growth after unsubs and complaints
- Monthly, quarterly or yearly periods
- Compounds the rate to a yearly figure
- Option to leave hard bounces out
- Growth rate
- Churn
- Net change
By SimpleVerifier Team · Last updated · Runs in your browser; nothing you paste is sent to us
How do I calculate my email list growth rate?
- Enter the list size at the start of the period, and pick the period: a month, a quarter or a year.
- Enter new subscribers, then each kind of loss from your email platform's report: unsubscribes, hard bounces removed, spam complaints and any contacts you pruned.
- Leave Count hard bounces as losses on to match the full formula, or turn it off to compare with platforms that leave bounces out.
- Read the growth rate, the net change, the list size at the end, and the rate compounded over a year.
Example
- You enter
- A month starting at 10,000 contacts with 600 new subscribers, 120 unsubscribes, 150 hard bounces removed and 10 complaints.
- You get
- 3.20% growth, a net gain of 320 to 10,320 contacts, or 45.93% compounded over a year. Bounces were 53.6% of the 280 lost, and leaving them out would give 4.70%.
- Limits
- No limit; runs in your browser.
How do you calculate email list growth rate?
Subtract every loss from the new subscribers and divide by the starting list size: ((new − unsubscribes − bounces − complaints) ÷ starting subscribers) × 100. With the example numbers, (600 − 120 − 150 − 10) ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 3.2% for the month.
In a spreadsheet, with the starting size in B1, new subscribers in B2 and the losses in B3 to B5: =(B2-SUM(B3:B5))/B1, formatted as a percentage. The calculator above shows the same sum with your numbers in it, so you can check it.
What is the calculation for the list growth rate metric?
The common definition counts unsubscribes and spam complaints as losses; the fuller one, used here by default, also counts hard bounces and contacts you remove. Platforms differ, which is why the same list can report two different growth rates. Turn bounces off above to match a platform that leaves them out.
Monthly rates compound when you project a year: 3.2% a month is not 38.4% a year but (1.032^12 − 1) = 45.9%, if the month repeats. The calculator does that projection for you.
What is a good email list growth rate?
There's no reliable public benchmark, so the useful comparison is your own list month over month. Growth figures published by email platforms are drawn from their own customers, defined in their own ways, and rarely say whether bounces were counted. Any positive rate means you're adding contacts faster than you lose them.
Watch the loss side as closely as the gains. A high complaint count matters on its own: Google's sender guidelines ask bulk senders to keep spam complaints under 0.3%, whatever the list is doing overall.
Why count bounces as list losses?
Because a bounced address was never a subscriber you could reach. It counted toward the list until the first send to it failed, and then it had to be removed. A list that grows fast from a signup form with typos, or from imported data, can show strong growth that turns into bounces a month later.
Seeing bounces as a share of losses tells you how much of the churn was avoidable. Checking addresses as they're collected, with a list decay estimate for the older part of the list, is how you keep that share low.
Growth rate or list decay: which number do I need?
| Growth rate (this tool) | List decay | |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | Net change from adds and known losses | Addresses that went stale without telling you |
| Inputs | Counts from your platform's report | List size, age and a decay rate |
| Tool | This page | List decay calculator |
Who uses this tool, and for what?
- Newsletter writers
- Track net growth each month with losses included, instead of the new-subscriber count a dashboard leads with.
- Marketing teams
- Report list growth with the formula and inputs shown, so the number survives a question from finance.
- Ecommerce stores
- Compare months with and without a signup promotion, and see whether the extra signups stayed or bounced.
- Agencies
- Show clients how much of their list churn came from bounces, the avoidable part.
What can’t this tool tell you?
- It takes the counts you enter; platforms define unsubscribes, bounces and cleaned contacts differently.
- The yearly figure assumes the same rate every period, which lists rarely keep up.
- It doesn't know how many of the remaining addresses are still deliverable; decay builds up between sends.
Common questions
- How to calculate email list growth rate?
- ((New subscribers − unsubscribes − hard bounces − spam complaints) ÷ subscribers at the start) × 100. Measure it over the same period each time, usually a month.
- What is the email list growth rate formula?
- (New − lost) ÷ starting list size × 100, where lost is unsubscribes plus complaints and, in the fuller definition, hard bounces and removals.
- What is the average email list growth rate?
- No reliable public figure exists; platforms publish averages from their own customers, measured in their own ways. Compare your own rate month over month instead.
- How do you calculate the list growth rate?
- Take the subscribers you added in the period, subtract everyone who left, divide by the size at the start, and multiply by 100. The calculator above shows each step.
- How to grow your email list?
- Offer something worth signing up for, ask in the places your audience already is, and keep the people you add: confirm signups, send what you promised, and remove dead addresses so they don't bounce.
Sources
Every address left in your cleaned list still need a mailbox check.
This tool removed what can be found without contacting a mail server. Whether each remaining mailbox actually exists can only be answered by asking the server that hosts it — an SMTP check — and that is what the paid plan does.
- Upload the cleaned file as it is — CSVs up to 100,000 rows
- A real SMTP mailbox check on every row, with catch-all detection
- Valid, risky and invalid exported as separate files
One plan, cancel anytime, no contract. Sign in with Google and your first 100 email checks are free, no card. The free tools stay free either way.