Deliverability Benchmarks (Quantitative Reference)
Dated, vendor-attributed benchmark tables — Validity seed-measured inbox/spam/missing rates by provider, country, region, and industry; Marigold and Freshworks per-industry engagement rates; and Sinch's sender-adoption and maturity figures.
Reference12 min read
Who it is for Senders, ESP operators
Applies to senders on any platform
ContentsOn this page — 5 sections
If you want to know whether your inbox rate is normal, what open rate your industry sees, or how many senders have DMARC, the figures below give the published answers. They come from vendor reports, so they are directional context, not ground truth. Use them to judge whether your program is roughly within the normal range, never as a target to game or as a promise of what you will achieve.
For what these metrics mean and the thresholds that call for action, see Metrics & Benchmarks. For how placement and engagement are measured, and why each method is biased, see Placement Measurement Methodology and Tracking & Measurement Distortion. Measurement is not explained again here.
How to read every number here (guardrails)
- Every figure is dated and attributed. A benchmark with no year and no publisher is worthless, so read past it. Every number below has both.
- Never combine Validity's seed data with Sinch's survey data. They measure different things with different methods:
- Validity figures measure placement with seed addresses: test mailboxes report whether mail reached the inbox, went to spam or went missing. This shows where mail landed, but there is no engagement from real recipients (Placement Measurement Methodology lists the structural weaknesses of seed data).
- Marigold and Freshworks figures are engagement rates (opens, clicks, unsubscribes) calculated from real sends. Engagement is not placement. A high open rate does not prove that mail reached the inbox, and both measures are inflated or distorted by the effects described in Tracking & Measurement Distortion (Apple Mail Privacy Protection, clicks by security scanners). Open-rate benchmarks from before and after MPP cannot be compared.
- Sinch figures are answers to a survey in which senders describe their own practices. They are subject to selection bias (the respondents are ESP customers) and to reporting error. They describe what senders say they do, not measured outcomes.
- Directional, not authoritative. Each vendor measures its own customer base with its own method. Absolute rates change from year to year and differ between reports that measure "the same" thing. The relationships between figures last longer than the exact percentages: Microsoft is harder than Gmail, Apple is worst on placement, Finance does worse than Real Estate, and engagement varies by ~2x across industries.
- No invented figures. Only figures printed in the source reports appear here. Where a report gives a range or a caveat, it is reproduced.
1. Inbox-placement benchmarks: Validity (seed data, 2022)
Source: Validity, 2023 Email Deliverability Benchmark.
Method: seed data. Customers of Validity Everest send campaigns to seed addresses at hundreds of mailbox providers (MBPs) and spam filters worldwide. Software records whether each message reached the inbox, went to spam or went missing, and the results are combined in the Everest Mailbox Provider Community.
Period: the report is dated 2023, but the placement data covers calendar year 2022 ("inbox placement rates were just below 85 percent in 2022"). Only senders who agreed to have their data combined are included, and the figures are a snapshot in time.
Three metrics are used throughout:
- Inbox placement rate (IPR): messages delivered to the inbox, divided by all messages sent.
- Spam placement rate: messages delivered to the spam or junk folder, divided by all messages sent.
- Missing rate: messages accepted and then deferred or blocked, which never arrived in the inbox or in spam.
Compare this with the "delivered rate" that ESPs show. Validity puts the average combined bounce rate (hard+soft) for permission-based programs at ~1.5%, so the "delivered" rate an ESP reports is ~98.5%. That figure only measures acceptance, not placement.
Global
| Metric | Rate |
|---|---|
| Inbox | 84.8% |
| Spam | 6.1% |
| Missing | 9.1% |
The headline: roughly 1 in 6 legitimate, permission-based marketing emails never reached the inbox (15.2% went to spam or went missing), and ~1 in 10 was not accepted at all.
By global mailbox provider (MAGY and Apple)
"MAGY" stands for Microsoft, AOL, Gmail and Yahoo. The combined MAGY IPR was 86%, above the global average. Gmail performed best of the global MBPs and Microsoft was the hardest, while Apple did substantially worse than all of them.
| Provider | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 88.1% | 3.8% | 8.1% |
| Yahoo (incl. AOL) | 87.4% | 3.8% | 8.8% |
| Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail) | 82.5% | 6.6% | 10.9% |
| Apple (iCloud and me.com) | 66.3% | 22.9% | 10.8% |
Validity attributes Apple's low IPR, and its spam rate of ~3x the average, largely to how hard it has become to measure engagement since Mail Privacy Protection (MPP): senders who rely on opens end up mailing lists that respond less. The Apple figure covers subscribers on Apple domains, but the effect reaches further, because many Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo users read their mail in Apple Mail (see Apple iCloud Mail and Tracking & Measurement Distortion).
Mailbox provider market share (share of a typical list)
| Provider | Relative market share |
|---|---|
| Gmail | 47% |
| Yahoo | 17% |
| Microsoft | 16% |
| AOL | 6% |
| Other | 14% |
MAGY holds 87% of relative market share ("seven of every eight emails"). At least ~75% of a typical list is with these four providers, which are effectively three, since Yahoo and AOL are one company.
By country (9)
| Country | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 97.8% | 0.3% | 1.9% |
| China | 92.7% | 3.6% | 3.7% |
| Canada | 90.0% | 3.9% | 6.1% |
| United Kingdom | 89.8% | 2.2% | 8.0% |
| Australia | 89.7% | 2.4% | 7.9% |
| France | 88.7% | 2.0% | 9.3% |
| Brazil | 86.9% | 6.6% | 6.5% |
| United States | 84.6% | 6.3% | 9.1% |
| India | 68.9% | 5.7% | 25.4% |
Validity's interpretation: the best performers (Germany, Canada) have strict consent regimes (double opt-in is the norm in Germany, and Canada has CASL). The US lags because permission is still mostly opt-out. India's very high missing rate reflects widespread email scams and poorer data quality. The report's global map labels India 69.8%, while the country detail page gives the full breakdown of 68.9% / 5.7% / 25.4% used here.
By region
Each region has an overall figure (all MBPs, including MAGY) and a figure for regional MBPs only (excluding MAGY). Regional providers filter more on rules than on engagement, and their figure is consistently lower than the overall one.
| Region | Overall Inbox | Overall Spam | Overall Missing | Regional-only Inbox | Regional-only Spam | Regional-only Missing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 91.0% | 2.0% | 7.0% | 80.2% | 9.9% | 9.9% |
| Latin America | 87.4% | 6.4% | 6.2% | 81.1% | 3.8% | 15.1% |
| North America | 84.6% | 6.3% | 9.1% | 87.9% | 3.0% | 9.1% |
| Asia Pacific | 78.2% | 3.6% | 17.2% | see split below |
Europe performed best of the regions (91%), and Asia Pacific worst (78%). Asia Pacific splits sharply:
| Asia Pacific sub-group (regional MBPs, excl. MAGY) | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia & New Zealand MBPs | 90.6% | 1.1% | 8.3% |
| Asian MBPs (excl. Oceania) | 58.0% | 8.5% | 33.5% |
The main regional MBPs named for each region: North America: AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Bell, Shaw, Telmex. Latin America: BOL, Terra, UOL. Europe: Alice, BT Mail, GMX, Orange, Virgin Media, T-Online. Asia Pacific: Telstra/Bigpond, QQ (Tencent), 126 (Netease).
By industry (15 verticals)
Industry sectors were assigned using ZoomInfo, and a sector needed at least 10 customers to appear.
| Industry | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | 97.1% | 0.8% | 2.1% |
| Media & Internet | 94.9% | 1.9% | 3.2% |
| Travel & Hospitality | 94.5% | 2.6% | 2.9% |
| Holding Companies | 91.6% | 3.5% | 4.9% |
| Construction | 90.9% | 3.3% | 5.8% |
| Healthcare | 89.8% | 6.9% | 3.3% |
| Consumer Services | 89.7% | 4.3% | 6.0% |
| Education | 89.5% | 4.6% | 5.9% |
| Software | 89.1% | 2.7% | 8.2% |
| Retail | 87.7% | 2.4% | 9.9% |
| Manufacturing | 84.7% | 3.3% | 12.0% |
| Nonprofit Organizations | 83.5% | 5.9% | 10.6% |
| Business Services | 83.4% | 7.0% | 9.6% |
| Telecoms | 80.8% | 8.4% | 10.8% |
| Finance & Insurance | 80.0% | 8.4% | 11.6% |
Business Services, Telecoms, and Finance & Insurance performed worst, with a combined spam and missing rate on average ~33% above the global benchmark. Real Estate led at 97.1%.
B2B: hosting platform and filtering gateway
B2B mail passes through a hosting platform and often also a separate third-party filtering gateway. That is two layers, and either one can send mail to spam or block it. B2B IPRs are lower than B2C, with substantially higher missing rates. Validity notes that B2B inbox placement could be as low as 68% once the hosting platform and the filtering application are considered together.
Global share of B2B hosting (95% of B2B marketing mail goes to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365):
| Hosting platform | Share |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Office 365 | 48% |
| Google Workspace ("Google Apps") | 47% |
| Other | 5% |
Global placement at hosting platforms: Inbox 79.6%, Spam 4.1%, Missing 16.3%.
Global share of filtering gateways:
| Gateway | Share |
|---|---|
| Proofpoint | 46% |
| Barracuda | 15% |
| Mimecast | 15% |
| Cisco Email Security | 13% |
| Other | 11% |
Global placement at filtering gateways: Inbox 84.9%, Spam 4.6%, Missing 10.5% (close to the global averages). See B2B Gateway Deliverability for how these gateways filter, rewrite links and handle delisting.
2. Engagement benchmarks by industry
These figures measure engagement, not placement. Opens, clicks and unsubscribes are calculated from real sends. They are distorted by Apple MPP (which inflates opens), by clicks from security scanners and bots, and by false negatives when images are turned off (see Tracking & Measurement Distortion). Treat them as rough context for comparing yourself with peers within a stable mix of audiences, not as indicators of placement. The two vendors below are kept in separate, attributed tables because they use different lists of industries and different methods. Do not merge or average them.
Marigold (Campaign Monitor by Marigold), 18 verticals
Source: Marigold, The Essential Guide to Deliverability: "Campaign Monitor by Marigold analyzed billions of emails." The metrics are open rate, click-through rate (CTR), click-to-open rate (CTOR) and unsubscribe rate. Marigold cites Litmus for the email return on investment (ROI) of $36 per $1, and gives an average CTR of "2.3% across regions."
| Industry | Open | Click-Through | Click-to-Open | Unsubscribe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising & Marketing | 20.5% | 1.8% | 9.0% | 0.2% |
| Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, Hunting | 27.3% | 3.4% | 12.5% | 0.3% |
| Consumer Packaged Goods | 20.0% | 1.9% | 11.1% | 0.1% |
| Education | 28.5% | 4.4% | 15.7% | 0.2% |
| Financial Services | 27.1% | 2.4% | 10.1% | 0.2% |
| Restaurant, Food & Beverage | 18.5% | 2.0% | 10.5% | 0.1% |
| Government & Politics | 19.4% | 2.8% | 14.3% | 0.1% |
| Healthcare Services | 23.7% | 3.0% | 13.4% | 0.3% |
| IT/Tech/Software | 22.7% | 2.0% | 9.8% | 0.2% |
| Logistics & Wholesale | 23.4% | 2.0% | 11.7% | 0.3% |
| Media, Entertainment, Publishing | 23.9% | 2.9% | 12.4% | 0.1% |
| Nonprofit | 26.6% | 2.7% | 10.2% | 0.2% |
| Other | 19.9% | 2.6% | 13.2% | 0.3% |
| Professional Services | 19.3% | 2.1% | 11.1% | 0.2% |
| Real Estate, Design, Construction | 21.7% | 3.6% | 17.2% | 0.2% |
| Retail | 17.1% | 0.7% | 5.8% | 0.1% |
| Travel, Hospitality, Leisure | 20.2% | 1.4% | 8.7% | 0.2% |
| Wellness & Fitness | 19.2% | 1.2% | 6.0% | 0.4% |
| Average totals | 21.5% | 2.3% | 10.5% | 0.1% |
Freshworks, 12 verticals
Source: Freshworks, Email Deliverability Best Practices, "data compiled from multiple industry reports". No measurement period is given, so treat the figures as undated. The metrics are open rate, click-through rate, hard bounce, soft bounce and unsubscribe. Because of the bounce columns, this table is partly a benchmark of list quality, not only of engagement.
| Industry | Open | Click-Through | Hard Bounce | Soft Bounce | Unsubscribe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food Services | 23.1% | 3.1% | 0.40% | 0.61% | 0.23% |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 16.5% | 1.8% | 0.25% | 0.32% | 0.30% |
| Computers and Electronics | 21.4% | 2.1% | 0.45% | 0.80% | 0.27% |
| E-Commerce | 16.2% | 2.01% | 0.21% | 0.25% | 0.27% |
| Education and Training | 32.4% | 2.85% | 0.29% | 0.54% | 0.21% |
| Financial Services | 28.57% | 1.26% | 0.55% | 0.34% | 0.29% |
| Games and Sports | 29.44% | 3.44% | 0.37% | 0.44% | 0.20% |
| Health and Fitness | 21.42% | 2.83% | 0.31% | 0.40% | 0.36% |
| IT and Software | 23.1% | 2.12% | 0.40% | 0.43% | 0.27% |
| Media, Marketing, and Advertising | 23.9% | 3.12% | 0.21% | 0.28% | 0.18% |
| Real Estate, Design, and Construction | 18.97% | 1.68% | 0.41% | 0.59% | 0.28% |
| Restaurant and Dining | 24.01% | 1.47% | 0.32% | 0.51% | 0.31% |
The two tables disagree on levels for verticals with similar names (for example, an open rate of 17.1% for Marigold's Retail against 16.2% for Freshworks' E-Commerce, and 28.5% for Marigold's Education against 32.4% for Freshworks' Education). That shows directly why engagement figures from different vendors must not be pooled.
3. Sender adoption and maturity: Sinch (survey, July 2024)
Source: combined from Sinch Mailgun, State of Email Deliverability 2025 and Sinch Mailjet, Road to the Inbox 2025. Both reports use the same survey, which Sinch ran in July 2024 with 1,100+ email senders in the US, UK, France, Germany and Spain. Respondents were users of Mailjet, Mailgun and Email on Acid, invited by email or in the app, with one prize as an incentive.
The figures are self-reported by ESP customers. Read them as what senders say they do, not as measured outcomes, and do not compare them with the Validity placement data above. Where both reports cite the same statistic (e.g. DMARC 53.8%), it is one figure from one survey, and it is reported once below.
The sample leans toward small senders, which matters if you generalize from it: 62.5% send fewer than 50,000 emails a month, and 52.3% have ≤10 employees.
Authentication adoption
| Metric | Value | Source detail |
|---|---|---|
| Using DMARC (2024) | 53.8% | Up from 42.6% in 2023 (a rise of 11.2 points, or ~26% in relative terms, attributed to the Google and Yahoo requirements of Feb 2024) |
| Bulk or highest-volume senders using DMARC | ~56% (2023), rising to ~70%+ (2024) | Adoption rose fastest among high-volume senders |
| Using both SPF and DKIM | 66.2% | ~9% use only one; >25% are unsure |
DMARC policy is p=none |
~31.8% | The most common policy |
DMARC policy is p=quarantine |
~19.3% | |
DMARC policy is p=reject |
~17.7% | |
| Unsure of their DMARC policy | ~31.3% | Down from >40% in 2023 (awareness rose with adoption) |
| Implemented BIMI | <6% | A further 11.4% are "working on it"; 24.5% are unsure |
Most DMARC users stay at p=none, which enforces nothing. Sinch and the experts it cites point to this as the gap in maturity: adoption rose, but most senders have not moved to a policy that enforces. See DMARC Deployment for how to roll out a policy, and BIMI, which requires p=quarantine or p=reject. Google and Yahoo required only p=none at launch, and a stricter minimum is expected (see Gmail Sender Requirements and Yahoo Sender Requirements).
The misunderstanding about delivery rate
Sinch's headline finding is that senders consistently misunderstand what "delivery rate" measures. When asked to define it:
| Belief about "delivery rate" | Share |
|---|---|
| The % of emails that reach the inbox (wrong) | 50.9% |
| Overall deliverability (wrong) | 22.8% |
| "Don't know" | 11.6% |
| The total number of emails sent (wrong) | 2.5% |
| Correct: the % delivered to any folder (including spam) | 12.3% |
~88% could not correctly say what delivery rate measures. Delivery rate counts mail accepted into any folder, spam included, so a 98% delivery rate says nothing about reaching the inbox. Metrics & Benchmarks and Placement Measurement Methodology warn about exactly this confusion between delivered and inboxed mail, and the survey puts a number on it.
Monitoring and list hygiene
| Practice | Value |
|---|---|
| Rate the importance of deliverability at 8/10 or higher | 78.5% |
| Feel "very confident" in their deliverability knowledge | 27% |
| Call "staying out of spam" a major challenge | 48% |
| Do not monitor their reputation with major MBPs (e.g. Gmail Postmaster Tools) | 70% |
| Started using Google Postmaster Tools after the 2024 requirements | 19.2% |
| Actively monitor open and click rates | 57.4% |
| Actively monitor delivery rate | 53.1% |
| Actively monitor bounce rate | 46.5% |
| Actively monitor unsubscribe rate | 39.5% |
| Actively monitor spam complaint rate | 32% |
| Monitor email blocklists | 32.7% (>50% do not; 14.5% are unsure) |
| Rarely or never clean their lists | 39% |
| Have a sunset policy for unengaged subscribers | ~24% (~59% have none; ~17% are unsure) |
| Admit buying a list or scraping addresses | 9.4% |
| Use double opt-in to confirm new subscribers | ~40% |
| Separate transactional and promotional mail streams | ~37% (50.3% do not; 12.6% are unsure) |
Actions senders reported taking after the requirements: 37% began closely monitoring their spam complaint rate, 35.8% increased list hygiene, 33.1% implemented one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058), 19.2% adopted Google Postmaster Tools, 18.6% adjusted how often they send, and 12.5% changed their opt-in process. Fewer than a quarter (23%) reported any deliverability trouble caused by the changes at Google and Yahoo.
Only 32% monitor their spam complaint rate, even though Gmail and Yahoo enforce a threshold of 0.3%. The metric most directly tied to the requirement is one of the least watched. See Google Postmaster Tools, List-Unsubscribe & One-Click, and List Hygiene & Sunset Policies.
Apple Branded Mail and BIMI (Marigold)
Source: Marigold, The Essential Guide to Deliverability. This is a comparison of features, not survey data. There are two ways to show a brand logo in the inbox:
| BIMI | Apple Business Connect — Branded Mail | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it displays | Several providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, Fastmail and Apple Mail | Apple Mail only (the Apple ecosystem) |
Requires DMARC at p=quarantine or p=reject |
Yes | Yes |
| Certificate cost | A Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), which must be purchased, is required to display in Gmail and Apple | Free |
| Benefit | Brand recognition, trust, sender authenticity | Same |
Both require a DMARC policy that enforces, which is why the majority at p=none above cannot use either yet. See BIMI.
Related articles
- Metrics & Benchmarks, on what each metric means and the thresholds for action
- Placement Measurement Methodology, on the known bias of seed, panel, pixel and dashboard figures (context for Section 1)
- Tracking & Measurement Distortion, on why the engagement rates in Section 2 are distorted
- B2B Gateway Deliverability, on the filtering gateways behind the B2B figures
- DMARC Deployment, behind the adoption figures in Section 3
- BIMI
- Gmail Sender Requirements, on the 2024 bulk-sender rules that drove adoption
- Yahoo Sender Requirements
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- Deliverability Glossary
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- DNS Blocklists and the Spamhaus Zones
- Spamhaus Listings Deep Dive — SBL, CSS, PBL, DBL Policy and Delisting