What Is a Good Open Rate for Email? Benchmarks & Tips for 2025
If you're sending cold outreach email campaigns, chances are you've asked yourself what is a good open rate for email—at least more often than you'd like to admit. It's one of the most pervasive performance metrics within email marketing, and yet, simultaneously, one of the most misunderstood.
At face value, a 45% open rate could be considered an epic success. You're freaking out with a 12% rate. But is one of them necessarily telling you the truth?
In the email world today—where privacy settings obscure true behavior, bots distort tracking data, and inboxes are busier than ever—open rates may be deceptive at best and irrelevant at worst. The truth? Pursuing a "good" open rate may be diverting your attention away from metrics that truly count.
In this article, we’ll unpack what a good open rate really looks like in 2025, why yours might be fooling you, and how to interpret and improve it within the broader context of your cold outreach strategy.
The Origins of the Open Rate—and Why It Became the Go-To Metric
Before AI-powered outreach and data science, marketers had but one question to ask once they'd sent: Did anyone even open this? That's where open rates came into play.
With a tiny tracking pixel added to emails, marketers could track when a message was opened. It was an innovation, in some respects—a way of measuring whether your emails were reaching inboxes and being opened. Naturally, open rate became the default measure for email performance.
It made sense at the time. Email clients weren't blocking images, privacy programs weren't munging data, and there weren't any robots checking all emails. A 30% open rate actually meant something.
Things have come a long way since then.
Open rates today may be artificially manipulated with bots, concealed behind privacy settings, or caused by image previews without real engagement. It was even shown in a ResearchGate study how subject line tweaks will increase opens without impacting clicks or conversions—showing that open rate doesn't tell the entire story.
If you're committed to cold email success, open rate is only half the story. What really counts is whether your emails generate responses, conversations, and outcomes. We break down what that means in our full guide to cold email success.
So, What Is a Good Open Rate for Email in 2025? (It Depends)
Okay, let's get something straight: there is no universal "good" open rate. It depends wildly on what type of email you're sending, what list you're sending it to, and how you're measuring success. But before we dive into the numbers, let's establish what we're even talking about.
What Is an Open Rate?
Your open rate is the percentage of recipients who "open" your email—usually calculated when a small, invisible image (tracking pixel) is downloaded in the recipient's email client. The formula is simple:
Open Rate = (Unique Opens ÷ Emails Delivered) x 100
However, as we've pointed out previously, 2025 open rates are increasingly not to be trusted. Apple Mail Privacy Protection, filtering by bots, and image blocking make this metric fuzzier than ever. Still, it's a useful directional benchmark—especially when viewed in conjunction with other measures like reply rate, bounce rate, and conversions.
Cold vs. Warm Emails: Why the Difference Matters
All email campaigns are not the same. Comparing a cold outbound campaign to a warm opt-in subscriber newsletter is like comparing apples and oranges.
- Cold emails are unsolicited messages sent to people who have never reached out to your firm in the past. They will have lower open rates because the recipient has no knowledge of your name or domain.
- Warm emails—like email nurture campaigns—are being sent to those who have opted in, downloaded something, or otherwise signaled interest. They are being sent from a known sender and often have useful or expected content.
- Obviously, warm emails do tend to find higher open rates simply because the audience is more familiar and receptive.
So… What is a Good Open Rate for Email in 2025?
Are you wondering what is a good open rate for email right now? Based on industry insights and trends across sales and marketing platforms, here’s how open rates typically stack up in 2025:
Campaign Type | Typical Range | Good | Great | Watch Out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Outreach Emails | 15% – 28% | 20% – 25% | 30%+ | <10% |
| Email Nurture Campaigns | 25% – 45% | 30% – 40% | 50%+ | <20% |
| Re-Engagement Campaigns | 10% – 20% | 15% | 25%+ | <10% |
| Event Follow-Ups | 20% – 35% | 25% – 30% | 40%+ | <15% |
| Product Launch Emails | 25% – 40% | 30%+ | 45%+ | <20% |
How to Interpret These Figures
- 20% within a cold email program can be perfectly acceptable—particularly if it translates to replies.
- 50% within a nurture program is excellent, but isn't really useful if no one's converting or clicking.
- Low open rates are not necessarily an issue, particularly in hyper-targeted campaigns with a strong conversion objective.
This is where email marketing optimization comes in. Instead of going after high open rates overall, look at the metrics that are consistent with your campaign's objective. For some campaigns, that will be open. For others, it will be replies, meetings scheduled, or deals closed.
Why Open Rates Are Getting More Unreliable (and Often Misleading)
You sent out an email campaign and it's got a 40% open rate—time to celebrate, right?
Hold on.
That shiny number might be full of noise, not real engagement. Here's why open rates have become one of the most misleading metrics employed in email marketing—especially as we find ourselves deeper into 2025.
Apple's Mail Privacy Protection & Pixel Blocking
Apple flipped the feature on its head when it introduced Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). MPP loads mail and tracking pixels before a user even opens up the message, producing fake "opens" in your analytics.
It's wonderful for user privacy—but a marketer's worst dream to attempt to gauge actual behavior.
Worst of all, some inbox plugins and privacy apps block tracking pixels entirely, so real opens are never counted and false ones are reported. If you're not following Inbox Placement Best Practices, it's unclear if your message was ever opened by an individual or just circulated in automated systems.
Security Bots Are Clicking First
If you're doing any cold emailing or emailing professional domains, your emails are often run through bot scanners and security filters.
They will open your email occasionally to check for threats, and those actions count as true opens. So your campaign may appear to be generating interest, while in reality, you're only generating firewalls.
Which is why Mastering Your Lead Conversion Rate is more crucial than ever. Open rates are no longer the only thing you can rely on to indicate success. What you truly want to know is what follows the open—do people click, reply, or get further along your funnel?
Users Skimming Without Clicking
Modern email clients even show a preview of your message—the subject line and preheader text—when viewed in the inbox. And lots of users make decisions without ever proceeding on to view the email fully.
Some will skim and hit delete, others will internally mark it and disregard. Either way, your pixel might still be loaded, counting it as an "open."
But come on: a skim isn't a win. It's not engagement. It's only inbox traffic.
Device and Tracking Glitches
With a multi-device world, people open emails on phones, tablets, smartwatches, and desktops. Based on privacy settings, an email opened on one device may track differently—or even not at all—on another.
This results in inconsistent open tracking and even duplicate metrics, particularly if users switch between devices before acting.
How to Improve Your Open Rate (Without Playing Games)
By now, you're aware open rates aren't ideal—but they're still important. If nobody opens your emails, you won't achieve clicks, replies, or conversions. So the solution is to increase open rates in a legitimate manner, without relying on dodgy tricks that destroy trust or damage deliverability.
Here's how to increase your open rate the correct way in 2025.
Master the Subject Line Game
Subject lines are your initial, and typically lone, impression. Make them count.
Focus on curiosity, brevity, and relevance. Ask yourself: "What would make me stop and click?" Not "What yells 'marketing blast'?"
Avoid spammy triggers like:
- ALL CAPS
- Words like “FREE,” “Act Now,” or “Exclusive Deal”
- 🚨 Emojis 🚨 (which often land you in the promo or spam tab
Instead, aim for subject lines that feel human and intriguing.
Example:
Before: “Special Offer! Act Now for FREE Access!”
After: “Quick question about your Q3 goals”
Sender Reputation and Domain Health Matter More Than You Think
Top copy can't save a sender with a bad rep. Your domain needs to be healthy, authenticated, and authorized by inbox providers.
Kick off with:
- Warming up your sending domain is crucial for cold outreach—Mailgo’s automated warmup feature helps you build sender reputation gradually, improving inbox placement and reducing the risk of landing in spam
- Authenticating your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records
- Sending from a custom sending domain, not "[email protected]"
You'll want to run an Inbox Placement Test on the regular to ensure your emails aren't being spam-flagged—yes, even if they're technically being "delivered."
Timing Is Still Underrated
You may have the greatest message, but it will not be read if you send it when your readers are asleep or overwhelmed by other messages.
Best email send times in 2025 (for most industries):
- Tuesday and Thursday mornings (local time around 8–10 AM)
- For B2B: Avoid weekends and Monday inboxes
- For eCommerce: Try out evenings and Sundays when users are browsing casually
But don't guess—A/B test like a scientist. Try two send times, monitor results, and refine.
Targeting and Personalization Trump Clever Tricks
No subject line gimmick can beat a message that feels relevant to the recipient. If your email feels like it was written for them—not the masses—they’ll open it.
Use list segmentation, dynamic fields, and platform tools like Apollo to personalize based on industry, job role, or even tech stack. If you haven’t already, check out Master Cold Email with Apollo for smart personalization ideas and automation tips.
Also: If you’re working with a database like ZoomInfo, be strategic. Here’s How to Turn Your ZoomInfo Email List into High-Impact Email Campaigns:
- Clean your list (remove bad fits and duplicates)
- Segment by firmographic or behavioral data
- Pair with relevant copy that speaks to each group’s actual needs
Don't Chase the Open—Track the Whole Funnel
Getting opens is great, but it's just half the war. How they react subsequently is all the more important.
That's where Email Marketing Metrics like click-through rate, reply rate, and lead-to-close ratio give you the whole picture.
So sure—improve your opens. But never lose sight: open rate is but one stop on the way to conversions.
Key Takeaways: When to Trust Open Rate—and When to Ignore It
Let's bring it all back around to what's most important.
- Open rate isn't a standalone metric — it's part of the puzzle, not the whole picture.
- Work with it as a directional guide, not gospel.
- The metrics that really drive action? Reply rate, conversion rate, and booked calls.
- Be cautious of false positives—e.g., Apple Mail Privacy Protection or random spikes that don't equate to action.
- Want more opens? Spend on great subject lines, improved targeting, and good deliverability practices.
Open rates can guide you—but real cold email success comes when people don’t just open... they respond.
FAQs on What Is a Good Open Rate for Email
- What is a good open rate for cold email in B2B?
Answer: For cold B2B emails, a 20–30% open rate is generally a good thing. Anything higher could be bots or Apple MPP unless you are completely dialed in on targeting and deliverability.
- Can email open rates be faked?
Answer: Not intentionally by most senders—but yes, they can be misleading. Apple Mail privacy changes, spam filters, and bots can create false opens, making your data look stronger than it really is.
- Is a 10% open rate bad?
Answer: It's not great—but it's not the end of the world, either. For cold outreach, it usually indicates bad targeting, bad subject lines, or deliverability issues. Time to review your email list and subject line strategy.
- How do I measure email performance if open rates are untrustworthy?
Answer: Peak out. Track replies, click-throughs, and conversions. Those are the statistics that actually tell you if your emails work—especially in GDPR Email Marketing, where consent and engagement are king.
- Which is more important—open rate or click-through rate?
Answer: Click-through rate (CTR) gets the win. Opens only tell you that someone may have looked at your subject line. Clicks show they were sufficiently interested to do something.