Email open rate calculator
Open rates have been unreliable since Apple Mail Privacy Protection began pre-loading tracking pixels in 2021. Treat opens as directional and judge campaigns on clicks and revenue.
Open rate is unique opens divided by delivered emails, not by emails sent: 3,920 opens from 9,800 delivered is 40%. Click rate uses the same denominator, so 245 clicks from 4,900 delivered is 5%. Bounces must come out of the denominator or every rate is understated.
How to calculate email rates
Since Apple Mail Privacy Protection started pre-loading images for a large share of recipients, open rates have been inflated by an unknown and shifting amount. A jump in opens can now mean nothing more than a change in the mix of mail clients on your list, which is why the first check on any apparent improvement is whether clicks moved too. Click-to-open rate inherits the same contamination in its denominator, so the two genuinely reliable numbers left are click rate against delivered, and revenue per email sent. Unique clicks rather than total clicks is the convention worth keeping, because total clicks double-count one enthusiastic reader opening three links. The other number to watch is the ratio between click rate and unsubscribe rate: a campaign that lifts clicks while also lifting unsubscribes is borrowing from the list rather than earning from it, and over enough sends that trade shows up as a shrinking audience and a rising cost per click. Delivery rate is the early warning underneath all of it, because a rate drifting below the mid-nineties usually means old addresses or a reputation problem rather than anything about the content.
What people use it for
- Reporting on a newsletter send
- Comparing subject line tests
- Tracking list health over time
- Spotting a deliverability problem early
- Reporting real engagement on a campaign
- Comparing content or layout tests
- Deciding whether send frequency is too high
Questions
Delivered. Including bounces in the denominator understates every rate.
Historically 15–25%, but the figure is now inflated by privacy pre-loading. Compare against your own recent sends only.
Unique clicks divided by delivered emails, multiplied by 100. Two hundred and forty-five clicks from 4,900 delivered is 5%. Email people say click rate where advertisers say CTR; it is the same click-through rate, measured against delivered mail rather than impressions.
Two to five per cent of delivered is typical for a broad newsletter; segmented and transactional mail runs much higher.
Clicks divided by opens: how compelling the content was to people who opened it. It inherits the open-rate reliability problem in its denominator.
A click is a deliberate action. An open can be a mail client pre-loading an image nobody looked at.
Often a shift in mail client mix rather than anything you did. Check whether clicks moved too; if they did not, the jump is not real.
Unique. Total clicks double-count one person clicking several links and flatter the number.
Click rate against delivered, and revenue per email sent. Both are measured directly and neither depends on a tracking pixel.
As a trend against your own recent sends, yes. As a benchmark against other companies, or as a verdict on a campaign, no.
Watch the ratio to clicks. Rising clicks with rising unsubscribes means you are spending the list rather than growing it.
Above 98% of what you sent for a permission-based list. Below 95% points at old addresses or a reputation problem rather than at the content.
A hard bounce is a permanent failure, usually an address that no longer exists. A soft bounce is temporary: a full mailbox or a server refusing at that moment. Both come out of the delivered figure.