Top 10
- Validity reports that one in six legitimate marketing emails failed to reach the inbox in 2024.
- Validity's 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark found that 83.5% of legitimate marketing emails reached the inbox worldwide in 2024.
- Google tells bulk senders to keep their user-reported spam rate below 0.1% and never let it reach 0.3%.
- Google defines a bulk sender as one that sends close to 5,000 or more messages to personal Gmail accounts in 24 hours, counting all mail from the same primary domain.
- Sales.co's cold email campaigns had a hard-bounce rate of 1.71% from June 19 to September 22, 2026: 5,047 hard bounces on 294,940 emails.
- Of 1,330 B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed in summer 2026, 59.8% ran their mail on Google Workspace and 30.6% on Microsoft 365.
- 14.4% of the B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed had no DMARC record, and 37.2% had one set to p=none, which only monitors.
- In Validity's 2024 data, Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail) placed 75.6% of marketing emails in the inbox, the lowest of the large mailbox providers.
- Red Sift found that 83.9% of 73.3 million domains had no visible DMARC record in December 2025.
- ZeroBounce found 23% of the more than 11 billion email addresses it checked in 2025 were invalid, down from 28% in 2024.
Inbox placement rates
- 1
Validity's 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark found that 83.5% of legitimate marketing emails reached the inbox worldwide in 2024.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 2
Validity's 2025 benchmark found that 6.7% of marketing emails went to the spam folder in 2024.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 3
Validity's 2025 benchmark found that 9.8% of marketing emails went missing in 2024, meaning they were blocked or deferred before reaching either the inbox or the spam folder.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 4
Validity reports that one in six legitimate marketing emails failed to reach the inbox in 2024.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 5
In Validity's 2024 data, Gmail placed 87.2% of marketing emails in the inbox.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 6
In Validity's 2024 data, Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail) placed 75.6% of marketing emails in the inbox, the lowest of the large mailbox providers.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 7
In Validity's 2024 data, Microsoft sent 14.6% of marketing emails to spam, more than twice Gmail's 6.8%.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 8
In Validity's 2024 data, Yahoo and AOL placed 86.0% of marketing emails in the inbox.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 9
In Validity's 2024 data, Apple Mail placed 76.3% of marketing emails in the inbox.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 10
Gmail accounted for 48.5% of the mailboxes in Validity's 2024 marketing-email data.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 11
Validity found Gmail's inbox placement averaged 89.8% across 2024 but fell to 84.2% by the fourth quarter, after the new bulk sender rules took effect.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 12
Validity measured global inbox placement at 82.3% in the fourth quarter of 2024, down from just under 87% in February 2024.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 13
Europe had the highest inbox placement of any region in Validity's 2024 data, at 89.1%.
Source: Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2025 · Validity seed-list data from Everest customers, global, calendar year 2024
- 14
EmailToolTester's January 2024 test of 15 email marketing services found an average of 83.1% of test emails reached the inbox.
Source: EmailToolTester, email deliverability test (January 2024 round) · 2024 · EmailToolTester's own seed test of 15 email service providers (vendor/affiliate test, results last updated 8 April 2024)
- 15
In EmailToolTester's January 2024 test of 15 email services, 10.5% of test emails landed in spam.
Source: EmailToolTester, email deliverability test (January 2024 round) · 2024 · EmailToolTester's own seed test of 15 email service providers
- 16
In EmailToolTester's January 2024 test of 15 email services, 6.4% of test emails went missing altogether.
Source: EmailToolTester, email deliverability test (January 2024 round) · 2024 · EmailToolTester's own seed test of 15 email service providers
- 17
EmailToolTester's summary of Validity's 2026 benchmark puts inbox placement in the United States at 86.8%.
Source: EmailToolTester summary of Validity 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark (report is gated) · 2026 · Validity 2026 benchmark (gated); figure seen only in EmailToolTester's summary · secondary source, original not public
- 18
EmailToolTester's summary of Validity's 2026 benchmark puts Microsoft's inbox placement at 77.4%, with 15.1% going to spam.
Source: EmailToolTester summary of Validity 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark (report is gated) · 2026 · Validity 2026 benchmark (gated); figure seen only in EmailToolTester's summary · secondary source, original not public
- 19
In Mailtrap's seed test of transactional email providers, SendGrid placed 61.0% of test emails in the inbox, with 20.9% missing.
Source: Mailtrap, Email Deliverability Comparison · 2025 · one tester's seed-list test of transactional email providers on free accounts, no domain warm-up, same template (vendor test by Mailtrap, which is one of the providers tested)
- 20
In Mailtrap's seed test of transactional email providers, Postmark placed 83.3% of test emails in the inbox and 14.3% in spam.
Source: Mailtrap, Email Deliverability Comparison · 2025 · one tester's seed-list test of transactional email providers on free accounts, no domain warm-up, same template (vendor test by Mailtrap, which is one of the providers tested)
Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook sender rules
- 21
Google defines a bulk sender as one that sends close to 5,000 or more messages to personal Gmail accounts in 24 hours, counting all mail from the same primary domain.
Source: Google, Email sender guidelines FAQ · 2024 · Google policy document
- 22
Google tells bulk senders to keep their user-reported spam rate below 0.1% and never let it reach 0.3%.
Source: Google, Email sender guidelines FAQ · 2024 · Google policy document
- 23
Since June 2024, Gmail bulk senders with a user-reported spam rate above 0.3% are ineligible for Google's delivery mitigation.
Source: Google, Email sender guidelines FAQ · 2024 · Google policy document
- 24
Gmail's sender requirements have applied since February 1, 2024 to every sender that mails Gmail accounts, with extra rules above 5,000 messages a day.
Source: Google, Email sender guidelines · 2024 · Google policy document
- 25
Google says that from November 2025 Gmail began ramping up enforcement, with temporary and permanent rejections for mail that fails its sender requirements.
Source: Google, Email sender guidelines FAQ · 2025 · Google policy document
- 26
Yahoo requires bulk senders to keep their spam rate below 0.3% and to honor unsubscribe requests within 2 days.
Source: Yahoo Sender Hub, Best practices · 2024 · Yahoo policy document
- 27
Microsoft Outlook requires SPF, DKIM and DMARC from domains that send more than 5,000 emails a day, with enforcement starting May 5, 2025.
Source: Microsoft, Outlook's new requirements for high-volume senders (Tech Community) · 2025 · Microsoft policy announcement
- 28
Microsoft says Outlook rejects non-compliant mail from high-volume domains with the error code 550 5.7.515 instead of routing it to Junk.
Source: Microsoft, Outlook's new requirements for high-volume senders (Tech Community) · 2025 · Microsoft policy announcement
- 29
Amazon SES places an account under review when its bounce rate reaches 5% and may pause sending at 10%; it advises staying below 2%.
Source: Amazon Web Services, Amazon SES enforcement FAQ · 2026 · AWS policy document
SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI adoption
- 30
14.4% of the B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed had no DMARC record, and 37.2% had one set to p=none, which only monitors.
Source: Sales.co · sends 2026-06-19 to 2026-09-22; DNS checked 2026-09-23 · 1,330 recipient domains with a mail server (same sample as f04) · method
- 31
All 57 active Sales.co sending domains publish SPF and a DMARC policy at quarantine or reject.
Source: Sales.co · domains that sent in the sample of 2,000 sends, 2026-06-19 to 2026-09-22; DNS checked 2026-09-23 · 60 sending domains in the sample; 3 no longer resolve and were excluded · method
- 32
EasyDMARC's 2026 report found 52.1% of the top 1.8 million domains publish a DMARC record, up from 47.7% in 2025.
Source: EasyDMARC, 2026 DMARC Adoption Report · 2026 · top 1.8 million domains globally (vendor analysis)
- 33
EasyDMARC counted 411,935 of the top 1.8 million domains at an enforcing DMARC policy (p=quarantine or p=reject) in 2026.
Source: EasyDMARC, 2026 DMARC Adoption Report · 2026 · top 1.8 million domains globally (vendor analysis)
- 34
EasyDMARC found that 95% of Fortune 500 companies have DMARC in 2026 and more than 80% enforce it.
Source: EasyDMARC, 2026 DMARC Adoption Report · 2026 · Fortune 500 domains (vendor analysis)
- 35
EasyDMARC found only about 9% of top domains combine an enforcing DMARC policy with aggregate reporting.
Source: EasyDMARC, 2026 DMARC Adoption Report · 2026 · top 1.8 million domains globally (vendor analysis)
- 36
Valimail's 2026 DMARC Report found 78% of domains have a DMARC record but only 42% are at enforcement.
Source: Valimail, 2026 DMARC Report · 2026 · domains analyzed by Valimail; the press release does not state how many (vendor analysis)
- 37
Valimail's 2026 DMARC Report puts BIMI adoption at 4%.
Source: Valimail, 2026 DMARC Report · 2026 · domains analyzed by Valimail (vendor analysis)
- 38
Red Sift found that 83.9% of 73.3 million domains had no visible DMARC record in December 2025.
Source: Red Sift, Global DMARC adoption guide · 2025 · 73.3 million domains, December 2025 (vendor analysis)
- 39
Red Sift found that only 2.5% of 73.3 million domains used the strictest DMARC policy, p=reject, in December 2025.
Source: Red Sift, Global DMARC adoption guide · 2025 · 73.3 million domains, December 2025 (vendor analysis)
- 40
Red Sift rates 81.2% of the Fortune 500 as BIMI-ready, meaning their DMARC policy is at least p=quarantine.
Source: Red Sift, Global DMARC adoption guide · 2025 · Fortune 500 domains (vendor analysis)
- 41
Mailgun's 2025 survey of over 1,100 senders found nearly 54% had implemented DMARC, up from under 43% in 2023.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 42
Mailgun's 2025 survey found 71% of high-volume senders (100,000+ emails a month) use DMARC.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 43
Of the emails tested through Unspam, 49% came from domains without DMARC.
Source: Unspam, Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2026 · aggregated results of deliverability tests run through Unspam, updated every 24 hours (value read 2026-09-23; vendor test data)
- 44
Of the emails tested through Unspam, 86% did not comply with List-Unsubscribe header requirements.
Source: Unspam, Email Deliverability Benchmark · 2026 · aggregated results of deliverability tests run through Unspam, updated every 24 hours (value read 2026-09-23; vendor test data)
- 45
Google says unauthenticated messages reaching Gmail users fell 75% after it began requiring some form of authentication in 2022.
Source: Google, The Keyword blog (October 3, 2023) · 2023 · Gmail traffic (Google statement)
Bounce rates and list decay
- 46
Sales.co's cold email campaigns had a hard-bounce rate of 1.71% from June 19 to September 22, 2026: 5,047 hard bounces on 294,940 emails.
Source: Sales.co · 2026-06-19 to 2026-09-22 · 294,940 emails sent from the Sales.co workspace · method
- 47
Counting every kind of bounce (hard, soft, policy block, departed, unclassified), 2.37% of Sales.co's cold emails bounced from June 19 to September 22, 2026.
Source: Sales.co · 2026-06-19 to 2026-09-22 · 294,940 emails sent; 6,999 bounce notices (5,047 hard, 580 soft, 984 unclassified, 221 'no longer at company', 167 policy blocks) · method
- 48
When Sales.co re-checked 10,499 prospect addresses that were more than 90 days old, 7.0% of the ones that got a definite answer had gone invalid.
Source: Sales.co · nightly runs 2026-08-19 to 2026-09-20 · 6,009 addresses with a definite answer (5,588 valid, 421 invalid) out of 10,499 checked; 4,490 (42.8%) returned catch-all or no answer · method
- 49
ZeroBounce found 23% of the more than 11 billion email addresses it checked in 2025 were invalid, down from 28% in 2024.
Source: ZeroBounce, Email List Decay Report · 2026 · more than 11 billion addresses processed by ZeroBounce in 2025 (vendor data)
- 50
ZeroBounce found more than 9% of the email addresses it checked in 2025 were catch-all addresses, which accept mail for any name.
Source: ZeroBounce, Email List Decay Report · 2026 · more than 11 billion addresses processed by ZeroBounce in 2025 (vendor data)
- 51
ZeroBounce flagged 0.01% of the addresses it checked in 2025 as spam traps.
Source: ZeroBounce, Email List Decay Report · 2026 · more than 11 billion addresses processed by ZeroBounce in 2025 (vendor data)
- 52
Mailgun's 2025 survey found 60% of senders clean their lists regularly, which leaves almost 40% who rarely or never do.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 53
Only 24% of senders in Mailgun's 2025 survey use a sunset policy to drop unengaged contacts.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 54
Mailgun's 2025 survey found 70% of senders do not use free tools such as Google Postmaster Tools to monitor sender reputation.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 55
Staying out of the spam folder was the top deliverability challenge in Mailgun's 2025 survey, named by 47.9% of senders.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
- 56
Nearly 88% of senders in Mailgun's 2025 survey could not correctly define what the delivery rate metric measures.
Source: Mailgun (Sinch), State of Email Deliverability 2025 · 2025 · Mailgun survey of more than 1,100 email senders worldwide (vendor survey)
Spam volume and filtering
- 57
Kaspersky measured spam at 44.99% of all email sent worldwide in 2025.
Source: Kaspersky (Securelist), Spam and phishing in 2025 · 2026 · Kaspersky mail traffic telemetry, 2025
- 58
Kaspersky measured spam at 47.27% of global email traffic in 2024.
Source: Kaspersky (Securelist), Spam and phishing in 2024 · 2025 · Kaspersky mail traffic telemetry, 2024
- 59
Google says Gmail's defenses block nearly 15 billion unwanted emails every day.
Source: Google, The Keyword blog (October 3, 2023) · 2023 · Gmail traffic (Google statement)
- 60
Google says Gmail's AI-powered defenses stop more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware.
Source: Google, The Keyword blog (October 3, 2023) · 2023 · Gmail traffic (Google statement)
Cold email: who you are sending to and what comes back
- 61
Of 1,330 B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed in summer 2026, 59.8% ran their mail on Google Workspace and 30.6% on Microsoft 365.
Source: Sales.co · sends 2026-06-19 to 2026-09-22; DNS checked 2026-09-23 · 1,330 distinct recipient domains with a mail server, from a random sample of 2,000 sends (1,363 domains) · method
- 62
Sales.co's reply data covers 1,288,605 cold emails sent from October 2025 to August 2026, with a raw reply rate of 2.66% and 1 interested reply per 421 emails.
Source: Sales.co · October 2025 to August 2026 · 1,288,605 emails
- 63
Instantly's 2026 Cold Email Benchmark Report puts the average cold email reply rate at 3.43%.
Source: Instantly, Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 · 2026 · Instantly platform data, 'billions of cold email interactions' (vendor data; no sample size or date range published)
- 64
Instantly's 2026 benchmark found the first email of a sequence gets 58% of all replies.
Source: Instantly, Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 · 2026 · Instantly platform data, 'billions of cold email interactions' (vendor data; no sample size or date range published)
Widely quoted numbers with no source we could find
“1 in 5 emails (20% or 21%) never reaches the inbox”
Followed the 'one in five' and '20%' versions back to Return Path's Global Email Deliverability Benchmark, reported by Website Magazine on 20 September 2011: 81% of permissioned email delivered, 7% to spam, 12% missing. Return Path was bought by Validity; Validity's current benchmark (2025 edition, 2024 data) says one in six (83.5% inbox).
Verdict: primary is a 2011 study sold as current; the current figure from the same data lineage is one in six (Validity 2025)
“Email lists decay 22.5% a year (sometimes 25% or 30%)”
Blogs cite HubSpot's Database Decay Simulation page. That page cites 'Marketing Sherpa' for B2B data decaying 2.1% a month, which compounds to 22.5% a year (1 - 0.979^12). The Wayback Machine copy from 2013 of the same HubSpot page said 'about 25% every year' with a footnote but no link. We found no MarketingSherpa study online that states 2.1% a month, its year or its sample.
Verdict: no primary found; the figure is at least 13 years old and changed from 25% to 22.5% on HubSpot's own page. ZeroBounce's measured figure is 23% of addresses invalid at upload in 2025, a different measurement.
“A bounce rate above 2% gets you blocked”
Checked Google's sender guidelines and FAQ, Yahoo's Sender Hub and Microsoft's high-volume sender post: none sets a bounce-rate threshold. Google only says to unsubscribe addresses with multiple bounces and slow down when bounces rise. The 2% comes from email platforms: Amazon SES advises staying below 2% but only reviews an account at 5% and may pause it at 10%.
Verdict: primary says something else: 2% is a sending-platform guideline, not a mailbox-provider block rule (AWS: 'maintain a bounce rate below 2%'; review at 5%)
“Cold emails under 80 words perform best”
Traced to Instantly's 2026 Cold Email Benchmark Report, which says 'Elite performers average fewer than 80 words per first-touch email'. The report publishes no reply rates by word count, no sample size and no date range. Saleshandy's statistics page gives different advice ('Keep first-touch emails under 100 words').
Verdict: primary says something else: an average length among top-decile campaigns, with no comparison published between short and long emails
“Spam trigger words cut deliverability by X%”
Searched for a measured effect of spam words on inbox placement. Word-list pages (ActiveCampaign, Mailjet, Clearout) give lists but no effect size. Mailtrap describes content filters as score-based (a phrase might add points; failing SPF adds more). Google's, Yahoo's and Microsoft's sender rules say nothing about individual words.
Verdict: no primary found
Frequently asked questions
What is a good email deliverability rate?
Measure inbox placement, not 'delivered'. Validity's 2025 benchmark put the global inbox placement rate at 83.5% for 2024, with Europe highest at 89.1% and Microsoft lowest of the big providers at 75.6%. A program that lands above the mid-80s is doing better than average.
What is an acceptable email bounce rate?
Amazon SES advises staying below 2%, reviews accounts at 5% and may pause sending at 10%. Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook publish no bounce threshold. Sales.co's own cold email campaigns had a 1.71% hard-bounce rate from June to September 2026.
What spam complaint rate is too high?
Google tells bulk senders to stay below 0.1% user-reported spam and never reach 0.3%; since June 2024, senders above 0.3% lose Google's delivery mitigation. Yahoo also sets 0.3% as the limit. 0.1% is one complaint per 1,000 emails.
Is DMARC now required?
Yes for bulk senders. Gmail and Yahoo have required DMARC from senders of 5,000+ messages a day since February 2024, and Microsoft Outlook added the same rule for 5,000+ a day from May 5, 2025. The minimum policy is p=none.
How many domains use DMARC?
It depends on the population. Red Sift found 83.9% of 73.3 million domains had no DMARC record in December 2025, while EasyDMARC found 52.1% of the top 1.8 million domains had one in 2026. Among B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed in 2026, 14.4% had no DMARC record.
What is the success rate of cold emailing?
Instantly's 2026 benchmark puts the average reply rate at 3.43%. Sales.co's own data across 1,288,605 cold emails shows a 2.66% raw reply rate, but most replies are automated, and 1 in 421 emails produced an interested reply.
Method
We searched Google and Perplexity for the questions writers ask about email deliverability, read the top-ranking statistics pages, and ranked every number by how many pages repeat it. Each number on this page was traced to the organisation that produced it and checked against that page on September 23, 2026. Sender-rule numbers come from Google's, Yahoo's, Microsoft's and Amazon's own documentation. Inbox placement tests run by email vendors are labelled with the vendor's name. Sales.co numbers come from our own sending database and from DNS lookups we ran on September 23, 2026; the method for each is listed below.
Sales.co numbers new on this page:
- Sales.co's cold email campaigns had a hard-bounce rate of 1.71% from June 19 to September 22, 2026: 5,047 hard bounces on 294,940 emails. Emails sent counted from the sending platform's sent log; bounces parsed from the bounce notices that land in our sending inboxes and classified hard/soft/policy. Rate = hard-bounce notices / emails sent. The 5,047 notices came from 2,642 distinct addresses.
- Counting every kind of bounce (hard, soft, policy block, departed, unclassified), 2.37% of Sales.co's cold emails bounced from June 19 to September 22, 2026. Same data as f01, all bounce classes summed.
- When Sales.co re-checked 10,499 prospect addresses that were more than 90 days old, 7.0% of the ones that got a definite answer had gone invalid. Addresses added to the Sales.co prospect list more than 90 days earlier are re-verified by SMTP check before they may be emailed again. Invalid = mail server rejected the address.
- Of 1,330 B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed in summer 2026, 59.8% ran their mail on Google Workspace and 30.6% on Microsoft 365. Primary MX record of each domain resolved via public DNS. 2.7% sat behind a security gateway (Mimecast, Proofpoint, Barracuda and others), which often front Microsoft 365, and 6.8% used other hosts.
- 14.4% of the B2B prospect domains Sales.co emailed had no DMARC record, and 37.2% had one set to p=none, which only monitors. _dmarc TXT record of each domain read via public DNS. Full split: 14.4% missing, 37.2% p=none, 29.4% p=quarantine, 18.9% p=reject, 0.1% invalid; 48.3% enforce (quarantine or reject).
- All 57 active Sales.co sending domains publish SPF and a DMARC policy at quarantine or reject. SPF, DMARC and MX records read via public DNS; 39 domains at p=reject, 18 at p=quarantine. DKIM keys found under common selectors for 55 of the 57.
All 64 statistics as a CSV: email-deliverability-statistics.csv.
Cite this page
Sales.co, “64 Email Deliverability Statistics for 2026 (Updated September)”, updated September 2026, https://sales.co/research/email-deliverability-statistics
To cite one number, link its anchor: each statistic has one, for example https://sales.co/research/email-deliverability-statistics#stat-1.