Email Marketing Benchmarks 2026: Open & Click Rates by Platform

Last checked: October 4, 2026 (editorial review). Definitions, calculations and unsupported comparisons were reviewed. Unless a section names a newer source, external figures and product references retain their stated historical dates; this is not a fresh audit of every vendor term.

Editorial correction, October 2, 2026: citation links, CTOR interpretation and campaign/flow comparisons were clarified. The underlying benchmark sources remain the May 10 verification snapshot; these edits are not a new data collection.

Direct Answer

Email benchmarks differ materially by platform and population. Klaviyo’s 2026 all-vertical campaign benchmark is a 31% open rate and 1.69% click rate across more than 183,000 customers. Mailchimp’s historical table, recorded here on May 10, 2026 and marked updated December 2023 by the publisher, reports 35.63% opens and 2.62% clicks for all users, including 29.81% and 1.74% for ecommerce. ActiveCampaign reports 39.26% opens and 6.21% clicks across customer campaigns sent during 2025. Do not average these figures: each platform uses its own customer mix, campaign definitions, and measurement environment.

Klaviyo’s automation comparison provides lifecycle context within its platform population: flow click rates average 5.58% versus 1.69% for campaigns, and flows generated nearly 41% of email revenue from only 5.3% of sends. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, so use click, conversion, and revenue metrics for cross-program decisions.

Key takeaways before reading the full tables:

• Klaviyo campaign open rate: 31% across its measured verticals; top 10% of senders reach 45.1%. Treat raw open rate as a directional signal rather than a hard KPI, given Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflation.
• Click rate: Salesforce gives a directional 2% to 5% range for general marketing emails. Klaviyo reports a 1.69% campaign average and 5.58% flow average in its separate platform dataset.
• CTOR: Salesforce gives 10% to 25% as general marketing guidance and says transactional messages often exceed 30%; the guide does not disclose a measured panel.
• Placed order rate: 0.16% for campaigns; 2.11% for automated flows.
• Revenue concentration: Flows punch far above their send volume, producing roughly 41% of email revenue from 5.3% of sends.
• Mailchimp: The table recorded on May 10 reports 35.63% opens and 2.62% clicks for all users. Its publisher update date is December 2023; it is not a new 2026 sample.
• ActiveCampaign: 39.26% opens and 6.21% clicks for campaigns sent from January 1 through December 10, 2025; platform-specific, not an industry-wide average.

For a deeper look at how email fits into the broader email marketing strategy and which platforms drive these results, see the linked guides below.

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Cite This Report

Use this section when you need a stable citation for 2026 email open rates, click rates, CTOR ranges, flow performance, or industry benchmarks.

Use this section if you are writing a tool comparison, lifecycle email guide, ecommerce report, or agency audit and need a stable reference.

Canonical URL: https://konabayev.com/blog/email-marketing-benchmarks-2026/

Machine-readable datasets:

• CSV dataset
• JSON dataset
• JSONL claims feed

HTML attribution snippet:

<a href="https://konabayev.com/blog/email-marketing-benchmarks-2026/">
  Email Marketing Benchmarks 2026
</a> (sources: Klaviyo 183k-brand dataset, Salesforce Marketing Benchmarks)

Plain-text citation:

Konabayev, T. (2026). Email Marketing Benchmarks 2026: Open & Click Rates by Platform. konabayev.com. Sources: Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Salesforce.

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Top Citable Claims

The most useful citation targets are campaign open rate, campaign click rate, flow click rate, placed order rate, CTOR range, and flow revenue share.

Each anchor below links to its section. Copy the claim, include the source, and link back here or to the primary source.

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Source Quality at a Glance

These are platform benchmarks, not one universal email average. Match the source population and metric definition to your program before setting a target.

Citation rule: always attach the platform, population, year, and denominator. A Mailchimp open rate cannot be substituted for a Klaviyo campaign target, and neither should be treated as a reliable human-read count when Apple MPP exposure differs.

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Email Benchmarks by Metric

Use this section to compare open rate, click rate, CTOR, placed order rate, and flow performance without mixing campaign types.

Open Rate

Open rate measures what share of delivered emails registered at least one open. Since Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches email content to protect user privacy, raw open rates for senders with a significant Apple Mail audience are inflated. Use open rate for trend analysis within your own list, not for cross-list or cross-platform comparison.

Data covers campaigns sent by 183,000+ brands on the Klaviyo platform.

What 31% means in practice: Use the 31% average and 45.1% top-performer threshold as comparison points, but treat them as directional because list quality, sender mix, and Apple Mail Privacy Protection exposure can differ by brand.

Click Rate (CTR)

Click rate measures unique clicks divided by delivered emails. It is less affected by privacy policy changes than open rate and gives a more reliable read on message relevance and offer strength.

Klaviyo summarizes the observed difference as 3x higher click rates, with flows averaging 5.58% versus 1.69% for campaigns. Flows and campaigns differ in audience, trigger, timing and purpose. Those differences are hypotheses to investigate; this comparison does not isolate the causal effect of targeting or automation.

For platform-specific click rate data and how sending infrastructure affects deliverability, see the Klaviyo vs Mailchimp comparison and best email marketing tools guide.

Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)

CTOR divides unique clicks by unique opens. It can help compare message engagement when open measurement is consistent, but it does not isolate message quality from deliverability or tracking effects. Apple Mail Privacy Protection can inflate the opens denominator and mechanically suppress CTOR; compare click rates and downstream conversions alongside it.

Reading the table: Salesforce supplies different guidance ranges for promotional, educational and transactional messages. These ranges do not establish why recipients act or prove that switching message type causes a lift. Compare the same message purpose and tracking conditions, including Apple MPP exposure.

Placed Order Rate (Conversion)

Placed order rate measures the share of delivered emails that resulted in a purchase. It is the most direct revenue signal available in e-commerce email programs and the cleanest substitute for click rate when evaluating revenue impact.

The reported flow average is about 13 times the campaign average. These groups differ in audience and trigger conditions, so this is an observational comparison, not a promised lift from enabling automation. See the marketing automation statistics for 2026 for broader automation ROI context.

Revenue per Recipient

Klaviyo’s product benchmark page adds revenue-per-recipient context for automated flows. Because the charted RPR values vary by vertical, this page uses the published all-vertical summary claims for RPR comparisons.

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Campaign vs Automated Flow Benchmarks

Automated email flows outperform one-time campaigns on click rate, placed order rate, and revenue concentration in the audited Klaviyo data.

Campaigns are one-time or scheduled sends to a segment. Flows (also called automations or sequences) are triggered by subscriber behavior or lifecycle events. The reported differences describe this dataset; they do not establish what a new flow will earn.

The revenue concentration finding is the most important number on this page: Email flows generated nearly 41% of email revenue from just 5.3% of sends in the 2026 publication; the edition year does not establish that the sends occurred in calendar 2026. This aggregate comparison does not predict the revenue of an individual abandoned-cart or post-purchase flow; use your own delivered-message and order data to assess it.

For practical setup guidance on flows in platforms like ActiveCampaign, see ActiveCampaign pricing and plans and the email marketing strategy guide.

If you want to model expected revenue from your current list size and send volume, the email ROI calculator lets you enter your own rate assumptions and compare scenarios.

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Industry and Campaign Type Benchmarks

Industry benchmarks vary by platform, so use ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp rows as source-specific comparisons rather than universal market averages.

By Campaign Type

Salesforce separates its directional CTR and CTOR guidance by campaign type. The other sources also report platform and industry differences. These tables do not establish that targeting matters more than industry; use comparable cohorts to investigate your own performance.

By Industry

ActiveCampaign’s 2026 benchmark article gives industry-level open and click rates from customer campaigns sent between 1/1/2025 and 12/10/2025. Use these as platform-specific benchmarks, not as a universal market average.

Mailchimp also publishes industry benchmarks based on campaigns in its system, with the page noting the data was last updated in December 2023. Treat these as a wider historical comparison layer, not a 2026-only dataset.

For broader B2B performance comparisons, the B2B marketing benchmarks 2026 page covers engagement rates across channels including email, without duplicating the tables on this page.

How to Use These Benchmarks Without Over-trusting Open Rates

Anchor decisions on delivered-message click rates and downstream outcomes. Use CTOR only alongside its open-measurement limitations.

Step 1: Anchor to click rate and order rate, not open rate

Open rate is the most widely reported email metric and the least reliable one in this set. Salesforce flags Apple Mail Privacy Protection as a measurement issue because it can inflate opens for senders with large Apple Mail audiences.

Use open rate to track trends within your own list over time. Do not use it to compare your program to industry benchmarks or competitors, since their Apple Mail exposure may differ significantly from yours.

Step 2: Compare yourself to the right peer group

The Klaviyo dataset covers 183,000+ brands, most of which are in ecommerce. If you run a B2B program with a different sales motion, your placed order rate benchmark is not 0.16%. Your relevant conversion event might be a demo request or a trial signup. Define that event and denominator, then use a matching B2B cohort or your own baseline. Renaming an ecommerce order metric does not make its numeric benchmark transferable.

Step 3: Read CTOR with its limits

Read CTOR alongside its denominator and tracking limits. It divides unique clicks by unique opens; it does not isolate copy quality or deliverability. A low value can reflect weak relevance, inflated opens, audience differences or tracking. Inspect those possibilities alongside clicks per delivered message and downstream outcomes before changing the subject line or body.

Step 4: Calculate your flow revenue opportunity before scaling campaigns

The 41%-of-revenue from 5.3%-of-sends finding is a high-impact signal. Before spending time on broadcast frequency, audit whether you have the core flows in place: welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase, browse abandonment, and win-back. Prioritize a missing flow only when eligible audience volume, implementation effort and your own outcome data support the opportunity. The aggregate revenue split does not rank every missing flow above a campaign improvement.

Step 5: Set realistic targets by type

Do not hold a promotional send to the same click rate standard as a transactional confirmation. Use the campaign-type table in the CTOR section to set appropriate targets per send type. A promotional campaign hitting 2% CTR can be healthy for that category, while transactional messages often sit above the usual promotional range.

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Methodology and Source Notes

Four publishers are source-locked for numeric benchmark claims: Klaviyo, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and Mailchimp. The separate Klaviyo product benchmark page supports the revenue-per-recipient claims.

Klaviyo (primary, 4/5 quality rating)

• URL: klaviyo.com/uk/blog/email-marketing-benchmarks-open-click-and-conversion-rates
• Methodology: Klaviyo analyzed data from over 183,000 brands sending on the Klaviyo platform.
• Scope: All-industry averages and top 10% thresholds for campaign open rate, click rate, placed order rate, and automated flow click rate and placed order rate.
• Limitation: Dataset skews toward ecommerce brands. B2B or enterprise email programs may see different results on order-based metrics.

Klaviyo product benchmark page (primary, 4/5 quality rating)

• URL: klaviyo.com/products/email-marketing/benchmarks
• Methodology: Klaviyo says the benchmark page is based on over 183,000 customers.
• Scope: Revenue per recipient, send-volume share, flow revenue share, new-buyer revenue share, and AI product recommendation click-rate benchmarks.
• Limitation: Charted RPR values vary by vertical, so this article uses the page’s all-vertical summary claims for RPR comparisons.

Salesforce (secondary, 3/5 quality rating)

• URL: salesforce.com/marketing/email/benchmarks
• Methodology: Salesforce notes that Apple Mail Privacy Protection affects open rate measurement; specific panel or dataset size is not published in the reviewed page.
• Scope: CTR ranges and CTOR ranges by email type (promotional, transactional, educational).
• Limitation: Range-based rather than point estimates; methodology not fully disclosed.

ActiveCampaign

• URL: activecampaign.com/blog/activecampaign-email-benchmarks
• Scope: Customer campaigns sent January 1 through December 10, 2025; platform and industry open/click rates.
• Limitation: The retained page does not disclose the number of accounts or campaigns. These figures are not an industry-wide panel.

Mailchimp

• URL: mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks
• Scope: Historical platform and industry table, recorded on May 10, 2026; the publisher marks its data updated December 2023.
• Limitation: This is a historical comparison layer, not a 2026-only cohort or a directly comparable sample of Klaviyo customers.

What is not in this article

• Inbox placement and deliverability rates (covered in the email deliverability statistics report)
• Spam complaint and list-hygiene benchmarks (covered in the email deliverability statistics report)

For data on broader marketing automation performance, see marketing automation statistics 2026.

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FAQ

These answers summarize the benchmark ranges most readers need before comparing their own email program.

What is the average email open rate in 2026?

In Klaviyo’s platform cohort of over 183,000 brands, the all-vertical campaign open rate is 31%; the top 10% of senders reach 45.1%. This is not an average across all email platforms. Apple Mail Privacy Protection can inflate open counts, so interpret opens as a directional trend rather than an exact engagement count.

What is a good click rate for an email campaign?

Salesforce gives 2% to 5% as directional guidance for general marketing emails. Separately, Klaviyo reports a 1.69% campaign average, 3.38% for the top 10% and a 5.58% flow average. Match platform, message type and denominator; the difference does not prove a causal automation lift.

What is CTOR and what should mine be?

CTOR (click-to-open rate) measures clicks divided by opens. It depends on measured opens, so Apple MPP and tracking differences can distort it. Read it alongside clicks per delivered message and downstream outcomes. Salesforce gives 10% to 25% as guidance for general marketing emails, 5% to 15% for promotional emails and says transactional messages often exceed 30%. The guide does not disclose a measured panel; these are directional ranges, not population estimates.

What email conversion rate should I expect?

For ecommerce, the average campaign placed order rate is 0.16%, and the average automated flow placed order rate is 2.11%. Top 10% flows reach 4.3%. For B2B, define a relevant event and use a matching B2B cohort or your own baseline; do not transfer these ecommerce percentages to demo requests or trial signups.

Why do flows outperform campaigns so much?

Possible explanations include differences in triggers, audience, timing and message purpose: a cart-abandonment flow and a broadcast campaign reach different groups under different conditions. These are hypotheses, not mechanisms established by the comparison. The published rates imply observed ratios of about 3.3× for clicks and 13.2× for orders; they do not isolate the causal effect of automation.

Do email flows really drive most of the revenue?

No: Klaviyo reports nearly 41% of email revenue from flows, which is a substantial minority, from 5.3% of sends. That concentration is a reason to inspect relevant flows; it does not establish the best investment for every program.

Should I still track open rates?

Yes, but only as an internal trend metric on your own list. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates raw open counts, making cross-list or cross-platform comparison unreliable. Prioritize click rates per delivered message and relevant downstream outcomes; use CTOR with the same open-measurement caveat.

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Source snapshot last verified: May 10, 2026. Sources: Klaviyo (183,000+ customers, 2026 benchmark publication), ActiveCampaign (2025 customer campaign data), Mailchimp (historical platform table marked updated December 2023), and Salesforce Marketing Benchmarks. Figures are attributed to their publishers; the comparison table and FAQ also show explicitly calculated, rounded ratios. Editorial corrections on October 2 do not constitute a new collection of benchmark data.