Email Open Rate: What Counts as Good Now That Apple Opens Your Mail for You

An open is an image download, not a pair of eyes

Every marketing email carries a tiny transparent image. When the recipient's mail app fetches it, the sending platform writes down an open. Mailchimp's own explanation of open and click rates describes exactly this, and admits the two ways it goes wrong: if a mail app blocks images, a real reader never registers, and if someone clicks a link, Mailchimp counts the click as an open even though the image never loaded.

The math is simple. Take unique opens (each person once, however often they reopened), divide by delivered emails (sent minus bounces), and multiply by 100. Send to 1,000 addresses, lose 20 to bounces, record 392 unique opens, and you have a 40% open rate on 980 deliveries. Total opens, the bigger number some dashboards show first, counts the same person three times and flatters everyone.

For a decade that interpretation was good enough. Then the mail app that ships on every iPhone started requesting the image on its users' behalf.

June 2021: Apple starts reading the pixel for its users

On June 7, 2021, Apple announced Mail Privacy Protection for iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey. Its announcement says the feature stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user, helps prevent senders from knowing when a message is opened, and masks the reader's IP address.

The mechanism matters more than the press release. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection privacy page says Protect Mail Activity downloads remote content in the background, regardless of whether you engage with the email, and routes it through two relays run by different entities. Remote content includes your tracking image. So the image loads, your platform records an open, and the subscriber may never have looked.

• Opens inflate. Apple Mail users with the setting on can show as opened whether they read the message or deleted it unread.
• Open times turn useless. The download happens in the background, not when the reader looks, so send-time reports built on opens drift toward fiction.
• Location reports lose their footing. Apple masks the IP address so it cannot be used to work out where the reader is.
• Open-based automations misfire. A follow-up that fires on an open, or a resend to non-openers, now treats many Apple users as readers.

The platforms say so plainly. Klaviyo labels these events with an Apple Privacy Open property and its help article on Mail Privacy Protection opens concedes it has no way to tell a true human open from an automated one when the feature is on. Mailchimp warns that bot activity, Apple's feature included, can inflate both opens and clicks.

Average email open rate, according to the people who send the email

Open rate benchmarks come from email providers, measured across their own customers, with their own rules about which campaigns count. That makes them useful for a rough bearing and useless as a target. Here are three, each from the provider's own published page, with the year the data describes.

Read the fine print before you quote any of them. MailerLite's methodology says it shows the median for every benchmark, though the article calls the figures averages; its open rate rose from 42.35% in its 2024 report. GetResponse's report gives slightly different all-industry totals in its country and industry tables than in its headline. Mailchimp says its page may differ from the benchmarks inside its own app. All three warn that Apple's feature distorts open data.

Industry splits move the number further. In MailerLite's 2025 data, construction sits at 39.95%, real estate at 40.37%, restaurants and cafes at 44.32%, medical, dental and healthcare at 43.75%, retail at 37.47% and e-commerce at 32.67%. A wider set of email numbers, each with its source, lives on our email marketing statistics page.

A benchmark tells you how other people's lists behaved last year on someone else's software.

So what is a good open rate for your list?

A good open rate is one that holds steady or rises against your own last twelve sends, on the same platform, to the same kind of audience. The provider tables above are a sanity check, not a scoreboard. Your figure depends on how many of your subscribers use Apple Mail, how old the list is, and how your platform treats machine activity, and none of that shows up in an industry average.

If your rate sits far below every provider figure, treat it as a delivery problem first. Mail that lands in spam folders is rarely opened, and no subject line fixes a folder. Our list hygiene and deliverability guide covers the checks.

Numbers that still describe human beings

MailerLite's own report calls click rate the most accurate engagement signal, since it does not rely on opens. Clicks are not pure either: Klaviyo's guide to tracking bot clicks notes that inbox providers, mobile carriers and security software follow links to check them for phishing. Still, a click takes more than a background download, and the metrics below take more still.

Click-to-open rate deserves a warning label. It divides clicks by opens, and when Apple pads the opens, the ratio drops for reasons that have nothing to do with your email. MailerLite says the same: real click-to-open rates run higher than dashboards show.

Filter the machine opens before you judge a campaign

Most platforms now let you separate privacy-protected opens from the rest. The menu names differ, but the routine is the same everywhere.

1. 1

   Find your platform's machine-open setting

   Klaviyo marks each open with Apple Privacy Open set to true or false. Mailchimp recommends excluding Apple's feature and other bot activity from reports through its bot filtering settings. Search your platform's help center for its equivalent.

2. 2

   Report two open rates

   One with everything, one with privacy-protected opens removed. The second is smaller and closer to the truth for the readers it covers.

3. 3

   Rebuild your engaged segment

   If 'engaged' means 'opened in 90 days', Apple users stay engaged forever. Define it by clicks, replies, purchases, or opens with the machine flag removed.

4. 4

   Retire open-triggered automations

   Resends to non-openers and follow-ups fired by an open now misfire for many Apple readers. Trigger on clicks or site visits instead, as covered in our guide to marketing automation.

5. 5

   Tag every link

   Add utm_source, utm_medium=email and utm_campaign to links so GA4 can tie visits and conversions to each send. If your analytics already disagree with reality, start with our tracking problems page.

6. 6

   Compare like with like

   Track the same campaign type over time: newsletter against newsletter, promotion against promotion. Then the trend means something even when the absolute number does not.

How to raise engagement that is real

Tricks that lift the open rate on the dashboard are easy. A subject line that teases, a fake 'Re:', an all-caps deadline. They raise the number once and train readers to distrust the next one. What moves clicks and replies is duller and works longer:

• Send from a name people recognize, and keep it. The from-line is the first thing a reader checks, and a change resets what readers and mailbox providers recognize. One brand learned what a cute new sender address costs, a story we told in the most expensive rebrand in email.
• Say what is inside. A subject line that names the offer, the date or the answer beats a riddle, because the reader can decide in a second that it is worth a tap. Our copywriting guide goes further.
• Make one point per email. A send with one idea and one link earns more clicks than a digest of six. The newsletter guide shows how to build an issue around a single idea.
• Mail only people who asked. Purchased and scraped lists drag every rate down and invite complaints. Building a list from real signups is the subject of our list building guide.
• Retire the silent. Addresses that never respond still count against you when mailbox providers judge your sending. A sunset policy, explained in the list hygiene guide, removes them after one last attempt.
• Keep a schedule. Readers learn when your email arrives. A monthly send that shows up on the same week is easier to expect, and easier to open on purpose.

When the open rate collapses overnight

A gradual slide is a content problem. A cliff is almost always technical. If last month's newsletter opened at 38% and this month's at 9% with the same list and the same kind of content, assume the mail stopped reaching inboxes and work through the likely causes.

1. 1.The website moved and took the DNS records with it. A new host or a new DNS provider can drop the SPF and DKIM records your platform depends on. Our page on email that stopped working after a website move covers the repair.
2. 2.The sending domain or address changed. Reputation is earned by a domain and a sender over time; a fresh one starts with none.
3. 3.A bulk import added stale or unconsented addresses. Bounces and complaints rise, and providers respond by filtering the rest of your mail.
4. 4.The platform changed how it counts. Turning on bot filtering lowers the number without changing a single reader. Check the release notes before you panic.

If you would rather hand the whole thing to someone who reads these numbers every week, our email marketing service covers the list, the sends, the automations and the reporting, measured in replies and sales rather than opens. For the wider view, start at the email marketing guide, or run a free site audit if the problem may be the website your emails point to.