If you send a newsletter or offer emails to UK customers, sooner or later you will look at your open rate and wonder whether it is good. The honest answer is more complicated than one benchmark figure, because the way opens are measured changed in 2021 and has never gone back. This guide sets out the best UK figures available, what they leave out, and which numbers deserve more of your attention.
What is the average email open rate in the UK?
The Data and Marketing Association runs the longest-running UK benchmark. Its Email Benchmarking Report 2025, published in June 2025, says open rates "continued to climb post-Apple MPP, increasing to 35.9%". The same report gives a unique click rate of 2.3%, the third year in a row that unique clicks rose, and a delivery rate of 98% across 2024.
Those figures cover a wide mix of senders, from national retailers to membership bodies. A plumber with a few hundred past customers or a café with a loyalty list is a very different sender. Your list is smaller, more local and often more personal, which can push results in either direction. That is why the benchmark is a sense check, not a scorecard.
Why did open rates jump after 2021?
An email platform knows an email was opened because a tiny invisible image in the message gets downloaded from its server. When Apple Mail users switch on Mail Privacy Protection, Apple fetches that image in the background on their behalf. The platform sees the download and logs an open.
The DMA called out the change in its Email Benchmarking Report 2022, noting that "a big change to the channel occurred in September 2021, with the introduction of Apple's Mail Privacy Protection". In that report the 2021 open rate was 19.7%, with a click-to-open rate of 13.2%. By the 2025 report, the open rate was 35.9%. People did not start reading nearly twice as much email in three years. The measurement changed.
The practical effect for a small business is simple. If a large share of your list reads email on an iPhone using Apple Mail, your open rate will look flattering, and it will look flattering whether the email was useful or not.
Is open rate still worth tracking?
There are two jobs open rate still does well. The first is spotting trouble. If your open rate has sat in the same range for months and then falls hard on one send, something changed between you and the inbox. Check whether the email went to spam in your own Gmail and Outlook test accounts, and check whether your domain authentication still passes.
The second is comparison. When you split one list in half and send two subject lines at the same moment, any inflation from Apple affects both halves in roughly the same way. The difference between them is still meaningful. The guide to A/B testing for UK small businesses covers how to set up a fair split and how long to wait before picking a winner.
What open rate cannot do is tell you that an offer worked. For that, you need something a machine cannot fake on the reader's behalf.
Which email metrics matter more than opens?
A click means a person chose to follow a link. The DMA's 2025 figure of 2.3% for unique clicks gives you a rough UK reference, though again your own trend matters more than the national average.
Better still is tracking what happens after the click. Add UTM tags to the links in each email so your analytics shows which campaign brought each visit and enquiry. If you run a booking system, note which customers booked within a few days of a reminder or offer. A salon owner who can say "the October rebooking email filled the Tuesday gaps" has learned something no open rate could tell them.
Replies are underrated. An email signed by a named person, inviting people to reply with a question, often produces conversations that turn into work. Count them.
How do Gmail's sender rules affect your open rate?
Google published its email sender guidelines with requirements that took effect on 1 February 2024 for all senders to Gmail accounts. Every sender needs SPF or DKIM. Senders who send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts must also have SPF, DKIM and DMARC in place, and must support one-click unsubscribe on marketing emails.
Google also asks senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10%, and to avoid ever reaching 0.30%. Most small UK lists are nowhere near the daily volume threshold, but that does not make authentication optional. An unauthenticated email from a small domain is an easy thing for a filter to distrust.
If you have never checked, ask whoever manages your domain, or your email platform's support team, to confirm that SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are set up for the address you send from. It is a one-off job that protects every email afterwards.
Why is my open rate lower than the UK benchmark?
Work through the likely causes in order. Start with deliverability: send a test to a Gmail and an Outlook address and see where it lands. Then look at the age of your list. Addresses gathered years ago at a trade show or through an old website form are often abandoned, and each one drags your average down.
Audience mix matters too. A B2B list full of people on Outlook in an office will usually show fewer automatic opens than a consumer list where many people use iPhones. That is not a sign of weaker engagement. It is a sign of less inflation.
Finally, look at your sender name and subject lines. "Info" or a no-reply address gives readers little reason to trust the message. A named person at a business they recognise does better.
How can a UK small business improve its open rate honestly?
Here is a practical order of work:
- Authenticate your sending domain. Confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC, in line with Google's sender guidelines.
- Clean the list. Remove hard bounces straight away. Send a short "do you still want these emails?" message to long-inactive contacts, then remove anyone who ignores it.
- Use a human sender name. "Sarah at Harbour Dental" reads differently from "noreply".
- Write plain subject lines. Say what is in the email. "Half-term slots now open" beats a clever pun.
- Send email people asked for. Under PECR, marketing email to individuals generally needs their consent or must meet the soft opt-in rules for existing customers, and subscribers who chose to hear from you tend to open more anyway.
- Automate the useful messages. Triggered emails, such as a booking reminder or a basket follow-up, arrive when the reader cares. The guides to AI appointment reminders and abandoned cart emails show how these work in practice.
Should you compare your open rate with US benchmarks?
Search for "average open rate" and you will find figures from email platforms that pool customers worldwide. Some report a median, some a mean, and some strip out Apple's automatic opens while others leave them in. Two reports can disagree by a wide margin and both be accurate on their own terms.
If you do use a platform's benchmark, read the method notes first. Check whether it is UK or global, whether automatic opens are included, and which industries it covers. If those details are missing, treat the number as a rough guide and nothing more.
What should you report each month instead of open rate alone?
A simple monthly table is enough. One row per email, with columns for sends, delivered, opens, unique clicks, replies and the revenue or bookings you can attribute. Over a few months the patterns become clear: which kinds of email bring enquiries, which days work for your customers, and which subject line styles your list ignores.
That record is worth more than any national average, because it is about your customers, your offers and your town. The DMA benchmark tells you roughly where the UK sits. Your own numbers tell you what to send next.
Email Open Rates — FAQ
What is a good email open rate in the UK?
The most credible UK reference point is the DMA's Email Benchmarking Report 2025, which put the open rate at 35.9% for 2024 sends ([DMA](https://dma.org.uk/research/email-benchmarking-report-2025)). Treat that as context, not a target. The figure is inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection, which can log an open without anyone reading the email, and it blends large brands with small senders. A better test is your own trend. If your open rate holds steady across sends and your clicks and replies are healthy, your list is in good shape. If opens fall sharply from one month to the next, look at deliverability and list hygiene before you rewrite subject lines.
Why did UK email open rates jump after 2021?
Apple launched Mail Privacy Protection in September 2021, and the DMA flagged it as a big change to the channel ([DMA](https://dma.org.uk/research/email-benchmarking-report-2022)). When it is switched on, Apple's servers load an email's tracking pixel in the background, so many messages are logged as opened even if nobody looked at them. That is why the DMA's open rate went from 19.7% for 2021 to 35.9% for 2024 sends ([DMA](https://dma.org.uk/research/email-benchmarking-report-2025)). Most of that rise came from how opens are counted, not from people suddenly reading more email. Compare figures from before and after 2021 with care.
Should I stop tracking email open rates?
No, but stop treating them as proof that a campaign worked. Opens are still useful as a warning light. A sudden drop across every send often means your emails are landing in spam or a mailbox provider has started filtering you. Opens are also fine for comparing two subject lines sent to the same list at the same time, because any inflation affects both versions in roughly the same way. For judging results, use clicks, replies, bookings and sales. The DMA's 2025 report gives a unique click rate of 2.3% ([DMA](https://dma.org.uk/research/email-benchmarking-report-2025)), which is a harder number to inflate than opens.
Do Gmail's sender rules affect small UK businesses?
Yes. Since 1 February 2024, Google has required everyone sending to Gmail accounts to meet baseline rules, including SPF or DKIM authentication ([Google](https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126)). Senders who send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts must also set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC and support one-click unsubscribe on marketing emails. Google asks all senders to keep the spam rate shown in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and never to reach 0.30%. Most small lists are well under the daily threshold, but authentication still affects whether you reach the inbox, and that feeds straight into your open rate.
How can I improve my email open rate without gaming it?
Start with the parts that affect whether your email arrives at all. Authenticate your domain, remove addresses that bounce, and stop mailing people who have not engaged for a long time. Then send from a recognisable name, ideally a person at the business rather than a no-reply address. Write subject lines that say plainly what is inside, and test them against each other on the same list on the same day. Finally, send fewer, more useful emails. A list that expects something worth reading opens more over time, and that improvement shows up in your clicks and bookings as well.
