Email Marketing Benchmark 2026: real open and click rates by country, industry and list size
What does a normal newsletter achieve in 2026? We measured 113 million campaign emails sent with Mailpro™ between January and September 2026. Here are the averages, and how they change with where you send from, what you do and how big your list is.
113 million campaign emails · 1 January to 30 September 2026
Six things the 2026 numbers say
Small lists win
Lists under 1,000 contacts averaged a 32.6% open rate and a 4.94% click rate. Lists over 10,000 contacts reached 21.2% and 1.91%. Smaller, closer audiences read more.
Europe opens more
Senders in Italy (27.9%), Germany (27.8%), Switzerland (27.6%), Belgium (26.4%) and France (25.1%) all passed 25%. Senders in Mexico (10.5%) and Chile (10.1%) stayed near 10%.
Latin America barely unsubscribes
Unsubscribe rates in Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Argentina stayed between 0.02% and 0.04%, against 0.17% to 0.26% for senders in France, Switzerland and Belgium. Fewer opens, but almost no one leaves.
Non-profits lead
Non-profit senders averaged a 39.9% open rate, restaurants 40.9% and government bodies 49.0%.
Some sectors struggle
Pharmaceutical (10.7%), creative agency (11.7%) and home and garden senders (12.3%) had the lowest open rates in our data.
Complaints stay low
The average spam complaint rate was 0.022%, far under the 0.1% Google and Yahoo recommend. Political senders were the exception, at 0.085%.
Average email results in 2026
Across all Mailpro campaign senders, an email reached an open rate of 23.1% and a click rate of 2.47%. Of the people who opened, 10.7% clicked a link: that is the click-to-open rate, the best single measure of whether your content matched your subject line.
The average unsubscribe rate was 0.15% per campaign, and 0.022% of recipients marked an email as spam. If your numbers sit near these, your program is in line with the market. If you are well below, start with your list and your audience before rewriting your emails. Our guide to what a good open rate is explains how to read your own figures.
Email open rates by country
Country is where the sending company is based, not where its readers live. Countries with fewer than 10 senders in our data are not shown separately.
| Sender country | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe rate | Complaint rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | 27.9% | 2.38% | 8.5% | 0.12% | 0.007% |
| Germany | 27.8% | 4.26% | 15.3% | 0.16% | 0.019% |
| Switzerland | 27.6% | 2.75% | 9.9% | 0.24% | 0.015% |
| Belgium | 26.4% | 1.88% | 7.1% | 0.26% | 0.020% |
| France | 25.1% | 2.44% | 9.7% | 0.17% | 0.029% |
| Colombia | 19.9% | 2.59% | 13.0% | 0.04% | 0.006% |
| United States | 17.9% | 2.79% | 15.6% | 0.12% | 0.026% |
| Netherlands | 17.8% | 0.99% | 5.5% | 0.29% | 0.041% |
| Spain | 17.4% | 2.29% | 13.2% | 0.08% | 0.008% |
| Argentina | 16.8% | 1.69% | 10.0% | 0.03% | 0.004% |
| Mexico | 10.5% | 1.14% | 10.9% | 0.03% | 0.006% |
| Chile | 10.1% | 2.04% | 20.3% | 0.02% | 0.005% |
| All Mailpro senders | 23.1% | 2.47% | 10.7% | 0.15% | 0.022% |
European senders open at roughly twice the rate of senders in Mexico and Chile, with Spain in between. The second half of the story is loyalty: Latin American audiences open less but almost never unsubscribe. If you send to Latin America, judge your campaigns against senders in your own region, not against European averages.
Email open and click rates by industry
32 industries with at least 10 senders each, sorted by open rate. Industry is the one the sender chose for its Mailpro account.
| Industry | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe rate | Complaint rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | 49.0% | 2.19% | 4.5% | 0.10% | 0.009% |
| Restaurant | 40.9% | 3.30% | 8.1% | 0.51% | 0.019% |
| Non-profit | 39.9% | 2.84% | 7.1% | 0.11% | 0.009% |
| Agriculture | 34.4% | 3.72% | 10.8% | 0.25% | 0.010% |
| Real estate | 34.1% | 3.94% | 11.6% | 0.34% | 0.033% |
| Art and artists | 33.4% | 1.78% | 5.3% | 0.14% | 0.008% |
| Hobbies | 33.0% | 2.76% | 8.3% | 0.12% | 0.006% |
| E-commerce | 31.7% | 3.20% | 10.1% | 0.19% | 0.015% |
| Legal | 31.1% | 2.23% | 7.2% | 0.05% | 0.002% |
| Consulting | 30.9% | 5.19% | 16.8% | 0.17% | 0.010% |
| Entertainment and events | 24.8% | 2.49% | 10.0% | 0.26% | 0.025% |
| Manufacturing | 23.9% | 4.38% | 18.3% | 0.17% | 0.016% |
| Computers and electronics | 23.7% | 6.87% | 28.9% | 0.17% | 0.040% |
| Media and publishing | 23.5% | 4.70% | 20.0% | 0.10% | 0.010% |
| Medical and health care | 23.5% | 2.92% | 12.4% | 0.13% | 0.012% |
| Beauty and personal care | 23.3% | 1.67% | 7.1% | 0.08% | 0.010% |
| Technology | 23.0% | 3.73% | 16.2% | 0.13% | 0.029% |
| Construction | 21.8% | 3.15% | 14.4% | 0.12% | 0.014% |
| Business and finance | 21.8% | 3.65% | 16.8% | 0.09% | 0.011% |
| Professional services | 21.2% | 1.41% | 6.6% | 0.14% | 0.020% |
| Travel | 20.8% | 2.29% | 11.0% | 0.12% | 0.007% |
| Marketing and advertising | 19.5% | 1.97% | 10.1% | 0.16% | 0.019% |
| Sport | 18.4% | 1.62% | 8.8% | 0.12% | 0.007% |
| Health and fitness | 18.2% | 1.55% | 8.5% | 0.17% | 0.018% |
| Architecture / construction | 17.8% | 1.59% | 8.9% | 0.14% | 0.026% |
| Retail | 16.2% | 1.16% | 7.2% | 0.08% | 0.006% |
| Education and training | 16.1% | 2.31% | 14.4% | 0.16% | 0.013% |
| Political | 15.8% | 0.68% | 4.3% | 0.29% | 0.085% |
| Music | 13.9% | 1.27% | 9.1% | 0.16% | 0.017% |
| Home and garden | 12.3% | 0.86% | 7.0% | 0.06% | 0.004% |
| Creative agency | 11.7% | 1.71% | 14.6% | 0.06% | 0.009% |
| Pharmaceutical | 10.7% | 0.53% | 4.9% | 0.05% | 0.009% |
| All Mailpro senders | 23.1% | 2.47% | 10.7% | 0.15% | 0.022% |
Associations, public bodies and restaurants top the open-rate table. If you run a non-profit, see how others use newsletter software for associations; restaurants can start from our email marketing guide for restaurants. Political senders combine the largest lists with the highest complaint rate (0.085%) and unsubscribe rate (0.29%) in the study.
How list size changes your results
List size is the number of recipients of each campaign at the moment it was sent.
| List size | Open rate | Click rate | Click-to-open | Unsubscribe rate | Complaint rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1,000 contacts | 32.6% | 4.94% | 15.2% | 0.14% | 0.013% |
| 1,000 to 10,000 contacts | 26.0% | 3.37% | 13.0% | 0.16% | 0.014% |
| Over 10,000 contacts | 21.2% | 1.91% | 9.0% | 0.15% | 0.026% |
| All Mailpro senders | 23.1% | 2.47% | 10.7% | 0.15% | 0.022% |
The larger the send, the lower every engagement rate. Campaigns to fewer than 1,000 people were opened 32.6% of the time and clicked 4.94%; campaigns to more than 10,000 people reached 21.2% and 1.91%. Big senders can recover much of that gap by sending smaller, targeted messages: see our guide to email segmentation and how segmentation works in Mailpro.
How to beat these averages
- Send to fewer people at a time. The data is clear: smaller sends get opened and clicked more. Split your list by interest, activity or purchase history.
- Keep your list clean. Remove contacts who have not opened in months; they drag your rates down and your reputation with them. Our checklist: how to keep your email list clean.
- Watch complaints, not only opens. Stay well under 0.1%: how to keep your spam complaint rate below 0.1%.
- Make leaving easy. A visible unsubscribe link costs you a few contacts and saves you complaints. More ideas in 4 ways to reduce unsubscribe rates.
- Judge clicks, not just opens. Opens are inflated by automatic opens such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection, so the click rate and the click-to-open rate tell you more. Ideas to lift them: improve your email click-through rate.
Methodology
- Data: 113,449,495 email campaign messages sent through Mailpro, for campaigns sent between 1 January and 30 September 2026.
- What is included: regular email campaigns only. Automated emails, transactional emails (API and SMTP) and SMS are not included. Mailpro's own accounts and test accounts were removed.
- How rates are calculated: opens, clicks, unsubscribes and complaints are counted once per recipient per campaign, then summed over all campaigns. Rates are divided by delivered emails (sent minus bounces). Click-to-open rate = unique clickers ÷ unique openers. A recipient who unsubscribed and also complained counts as a complaint only.
- Segments: country and industry are those of the sending account. Countries and industries with fewer than 10 senders are not shown on their own but are included in all totals. Accounts with no industry are included in totals only.
- Limits: open rates include automatic opens (for example Apple Mail Privacy Protection), and some clicks may come from security filters that check links. Averages are weighted by volume, so large senders weigh more than small ones.
- Privacy: the study uses totals only. No individual sender, recipient or email address can be identified.
Use these figures
Journalists, bloggers and teachers are welcome to quote this benchmark. Please name the source and link to this page:
Source: Mailpro Email Marketing Benchmark 2026, https://www.mailpro.com/email-marketing-benchmark.asp
<a href="https://www.mailpro.com/email-marketing-benchmark.asp">Mailpro Email Marketing Benchmark 2026</a>
Email benchmark questions
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