Email Marketing Benchmark By Region

What is a good email open rate, click rate and unsubscribe rate. See our global email marketing benchmark report by industry, with a free comparison tool for you.

Anushka Gupta

9/22/20264 min read

Email Marketing Benchmark By Region

Open your email dashboard and you will see a percentage next to every campaign. Whether that number is good news or a warning sign depends entirely on what industry you are in, and increasingly, on how your email provider counts an "open" in the first place.

We built this benchmark report around one large, consistent dataset, over 3.6 million campaigns sent from more than 181,000 accounts between December 2024 and November 2025, broken down across 46 industries and 7 global regions. Because it all comes from a single source measured the same way, the industry comparisons are genuinely reliable, even though the absolute numbers will differ from other providers' reports, for reasons we explain below.

Use the tool to find your industry and region benchmark, then read on to understand what the numbers actually mean.

How to Use the Benchmark Tool

1. Choose your industry from the list.

2. Choose your region, or leave it on the global average.

3. Press "Show my benchmark" to see typical open rate, click rate, click-to-open rate and unsubscribe rate for both your industry and your region, side by side.

4. Compare these against your own campaign reports. Being close to or above the benchmark on click rate and click-to-open rate is the most meaningful sign of a healthy list.

What the Data Shows

Across all 46 industries in this dataset, open rates ranged from 30.1% in travel and transportation up to 55.71% in religion, with the overall median sitting at 43.46%. Passion driven categories, religion, hobbies and non-profits, consistently top the open rate table, while e-commerce and travel sit near the bottom, likely because these industries send higher volumes of promotional content that recipients skim rather than deliberately open.

Click rate tells a different story. Legal topped the click rate table at 4.90%, followed by manufacturing at 4.22% and media at 4.10%, all industries where a single email often contains a specific, high value piece of information worth clicking through for. E-commerce, despite reasonable open rates, posts one of the lowest click rates at 1.07%, since promotional volume tends to dilute engagement per email.

Unsubscribe rates stayed low everywhere, ranging from 0.09% in legal up to 0.40% in photo and video, meaning even the highest unsubscribe industry only loses about 4 people per 1,000 recipients per send. Regionally, Australia combined the highest open rate, at 47.69%, with the highest unsubscribe rate, at 0.37%, a pattern that makes sense once you consider that people can only unsubscribe from emails they actually open.

Why Your Open Rate Number Probably Doesn't Match This Report, Or Any Other

If you have ever compared open rate benchmarks across two different sources, you have likely noticed the same industry showing wildly different numbers. This report's overall open rate benchmark is 43.46%. A separate widely cited 2026 report puts the equivalent figure at 19.21%. Another puts it at 21%. The gap is not a mistake in either report, it comes down to Apple Mail Privacy Protection.

Apple Mail automatically preloads images in every email sent to an Apple Mail user, which registers as an "open" in most email platforms whether or not a human ever looked at the message. Since Apple Mail accounts for roughly half of all email clients, this single technical change has inflated reported open rates across the industry by, in some studies, close to 20 percentage points. Some providers report open rates that include this inflation, some strip it out, and some report both figures separately. Always check which method a benchmark is using before comparing it to your own numbers.

This is exactly why click rate and click-to-open rate matter more than ever. Neither depends on Apple's image preloading, since both require an actual human to click a link, which makes them the most trustworthy engagement signals in any modern email report, including this one.

How to Read Your Own Numbers Against This Benchmark

If your open rate sits below your industry benchmark, look first at subject lines, sender reputation and list quality before assuming a deeper problem, since open rate is the metric most distorted by Apple Mail Privacy Protection.

If your click rate sits below benchmark despite a healthy open rate, the issue is more likely inside the email itself, the offer, the layout, or how clearly the call to action stands out, rather than whether people are opening your emails at all.

If your unsubscribe rate sits noticeably above your industry figure, check your sending frequency and list hygiene first. Every industry in this dataset keeps unsubscribes under half a percent, so a much higher figure usually points to content that no longer matches what your list originally signed up for.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good email open rate?

It depends heavily on your industry and how your provider counts opens. In this dataset, industry benchmarks range from 30% to over 55%, with a global median of 43.46%, though this figure includes Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflation.

What is a good email click rate?

Across the industries in this report, click rates range from under 1% to just under 5%, with a global median of 2.09%. Click rate is a more reliable engagement signal than open rate, since it requires an actual click.

What is a good unsubscribe rate?

Every industry in this benchmark keeps unsubscribe rates under 0.5%, with a global median of 0.22%. Rates meaningfully above your industry benchmark usually signal a mismatch between your content and what subscribers expect.

Why do different email benchmark reports show such different numbers?

Mostly due to how each provider handles Apple Mail Privacy Protection, which can automatically inflate open rates by opens that were never genuinely seen by a person. Always check whether a benchmark includes or excludes this before comparing it to your own results.

Which industries have the highest email engagement?

Passion led categories such as religion, hobbies and non-profits post the highest open rates, while legal, manufacturing and media post the highest click rates, reflecting content that recipients have a specific, strong reason to act on.

Final Thoughts

There is no single good email open rate, click rate or unsubscribe rate, only a realistic benchmark for your industry and region, measured consistently. Use the tool above to find yours, then focus on click rate and click-to-open rate as your most trustworthy signals of genuine engagement.

Want help improving your own email performance? Send BrightNest Studio your current numbers and industry, and we will show you exactly where the opportunity is.