What's a good Email Open Rate?
A good Email Open Rate is 35.63% or higher — at or above the Mailchimp all-user average open rate of 35.63%. Percentage of delivered emails that were opened. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, so read this alongside click rate. Excellent is 40.0% or higher (Karbon target), and the minimum acceptable tier is 15.0% or higher (Karbon target).
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The three tiers Karbon grades against — and where each comes from
| Tier | Value | What it means | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 15.0% | The floor. Below this, something is broken. | Karbon target |
| Recommended | 35.63% | The tier a healthy campaign should hit. | At or above the Mailchimp all-user average open rate of 35.63% |
| Excellent | 40.0% | Top-tier performance worth defending. | Karbon target |
| Published average | 35.63% | Mailchimp all-user average (data last updated December 2023). Source (2023-12) | |
Higher is better for this metric.
How it's calculated
(Opens / Delivered) * 100Why Email Open Rate matters
Open rate reflects subject line effectiveness and sender reputation. Without opens, nothing else in your email matters.
Sources
The three tiers on this page are Karbon Agency's grading targets. These published figures are the outside reference points for Email Open Rate, so you can check our tiers against them.
- Mailchimp — Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics by Industry (December 1, 2023; read September 26, 2026)All-industry averages (data last updated December 2023): 35.63% open rate, 2.62% click rate, 0.22% unsubscribe rate. Mailchimp notes Apple Mail Privacy Protection can inflate open rates.
Where does your Email Open Rate land?
Karbon Agency grades every client campaign against these exact tiers, live on a dashboard — no guessing, no quarterly PDFs.