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Benchmarks

Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry 2026: Every Report, One Table

Klaviyo, Omnisend and Mailchimp each publish their own email benchmarks, measured on different brands with different definitions. I put all three into one sortable table and marked exactly where the numbers stop being comparable.

By The Retentionist  ·  July 29, 2026  ·  7 min read  ·  AI-drafted from sourced data

Printed spreadsheet pages with columns of percentages on an ivory desk, a terracotta pen resting on top
Photo: bluefountainmedia (BY) via Openverse

Every year the same thing happens. Klaviyo publishes its benchmarks, Omnisend publishes its benchmarks, Mailchimp keeps its long-running table online, and store owners quote whichever number flatters them. The reports measure different brands, define industries differently, and do not even agree on what a conversion is. So instead of quoting one, I put all three into one table, with each figure labeled by its source, and marked where comparison is fair and where it is fiction.

The headline first: on campaigns, the reports agree more than their marketing departments would like. Klaviyo’s all-industry campaign average is a 31% open rate and 1.69% click rate across 183,000+ brands. Omnisend’s 2025 dataset, covering more than 20 billion campaign emails from 27,000+ brands, lands at 30.22% open and 0.88% CTR. Mailchimp’s ecommerce line reads 29.81% open and 1.74% click. Three datasets, three methodologies, one conclusion: a promotional email to your list opens around 30%, and roughly one to two readers per hundred delivered click something.

Three reports, one story All-industry campaign averages as published by each vendor. Bars scaled per metric. Open rate Klaviyo 2026 31% Omnisend 2025 data 30.22% Mailchimp ecommerce 29.81% Click rate Klaviyo 2026 1.69% Omnisend 2025 data 0.88% Mailchimp ecommerce 1.74% The number none of the bars show: automation. Flows convert 13x better than campaigns (Klaviyo) and earn 22x more per email (Omnisend).
Averages across all industries in each vendor's report. Every underlying figure appears in the table below with its source.

The one table

Click any header to sort. The source column matters: a Klaviyo row and an Omnisend row are honest neighbors, not interchangeable ones. Klaviyo reports campaign placed order rate, Omnisend reports campaign conversion rate, and Mailchimp reports no conversion metric at all, so blank cells are real gaps, not laziness.

Industry Source Open rate Click rate Conversion / placed order
Clothing & accessoriesKlaviyo33.1%1.83%0.12%
AutomotiveKlaviyo29.4%1.83%0.11%
ElectronicsKlaviyo29.3%1.85%0.09%
Food & beverageKlaviyo31.2%1.7%0.26%
Hardware & home improvementKlaviyo30.9%1.84%0.11%
Health & beautyKlaviyo30.5%1.24%0.19%
Home & gardenKlaviyo32.5%1.78%0.13%
JewelryKlaviyo32.5%1.6%0.08%
Mass merchantKlaviyo28.7%1.77%0.14%
Office suppliesKlaviyo28.9%1.88%0.14%
SpecialtyKlaviyo32%1.65%0.18%
Sporting goodsKlaviyo31.9%1.88%0.11%
Toys & hobbiesKlaviyo31.7%2.03%0.19%
WeddingOmnisend52.43%0.77%0.04%
Holidays & seasonalOmnisend47.62%1.17%0.03%
TravelOmnisend44.84%1.21%0.05%
Jobs & educationOmnisend39.55%0.58%0.05%
GamesOmnisend36.85%1.13%0.19%
Arts & entertainmentOmnisend34.15%1.35%0.10%
People & societyOmnisend31.63%1.12%0.07%
ApparelOmnisend31.10%0.86%0.05%
Toys & hobbiesOmnisend30.66%1.13%0.09%
SportsOmnisend30.62%0.99%0.09%
Home & gardenOmnisend30.60%0.87%0.04%
Food & drinkOmnisend30.03%0.96%0.15%
Pets & animalsOmnisend30.09%0.78%0.10%
Beauty & fitnessOmnisend29.33%0.72%0.07%
HealthOmnisend28.64%0.79%0.12%
Business & industrialOmnisend28.66%1.47%0.13%
Consumer electronicsOmnisend25.70%0.99%0.04%
ComputersOmnisend23.41%0.97%0.04%
FinanceOmnisend20.25%0.99%0.17%
Smoking & vapingOmnisend19.27%0.67%0.18%
All industries (campaigns)Klaviyo31%1.69%0.16%
All industries (campaigns)Omnisend30.22%0.88%0.08%
EcommerceMailchimp29.81%1.74%
All usersMailchimp35.63%2.62%

Note that Klaviyo’s UK-published table spells it “jewellery”; I normalized it to jewelry, and the numbers are untouched.

What the merged table actually teaches

Open rate is the least honest metric on the page. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection preloads tracking pixels, so a chunk of every open rate is machines, not people. Both Klaviyo and Omnisend say so themselves in their reports. That is also why Omnisend’s wedding category can post a spectacular 52.43% open rate and a nearly invisible 0.04% conversion rate: people who plan a wedding browse a lot, buy once, and never return. Sort the table by conversion instead of opens and the whole ranking inverts, with games at 0.19%, smoking and vaping at 0.18%, and finance at 0.17% rising to the top while the high-open categories sink.

The industry spread is smaller than people assume. In Klaviyo’s campaign data, eleven of thirteen industries open between 28.7% and 33.1%. That is a four-point band. If your open rate is ten points below your industry line, your problem is deliverability or list quality, not your vertical. Klaviyo’s own summary makes the same point: metrics vary by up to about 2% between most industries.

Conversion definitions do not travel between reports. Klaviyo measures placed order rate attributed to the email. Omnisend measures its own conversion rate on its own attribution window. That is the single biggest reason Klaviyo’s campaign average (0.16%) is double Omnisend’s (0.08%), and why you should pick the report from the platform you actually run, then stay inside it when judging your numbers.

Flows are the real benchmark gap. Klaviyo’s flow averages are a 5.58% click rate and 2.11% placed order rate, versus 1.69% and 0.16% for campaigns, with flows producing nearly 41% of email revenue from 5.3% of send volume. Omnisend’s automation table tells the same story in dollars: $3.41 revenue per automated email against $0.155 per campaign email. If you are below benchmark on campaigns but have no welcome flow, fixing campaigns first is optimizing the smaller lever.

Flow benchmarks by industry

For completeness, Klaviyo’s 2026 automated flow figures by industry, since these are the numbers your welcome, cart and win-back automations should be judged against:

IndustryFlow click rateFlow placed order rate
Clothing & accessories5.54%2.15%
Automotive5.45%1.94%
Electronics6.11%1.95%
Food & beverage5.8%2.46%
Hardware & home improvement5.65%2.07%
Health & beauty4.8%1.96%
Home & garden5.96%2.12%
Jewelry5.42%1.85%
Mass merchant5.55%1.95%
Office supplies5.81%2.18%
Specialty5.47%2.06%
Sporting goods6.13%2.13%
Toys & hobbies5.96%2.14%
All industries5.58%2.11%

The top 10% of flows reach a 10.48% click rate and a 4.3% placed order rate, roughly double the averages. That doubling pattern holds across almost every metric in the Klaviyo report and is the most useful rule of thumb it contains: good is the average, excellent is twice the average.

Methodology: where every number comes from

Klaviyo figures are from its benchmark article published February 24, 2026, based on data from more than 183,000 brands; it reports open rate, click rate and placed order rate, split by campaigns and automated flows, across 13 retail industries. Omnisend figures are from its benchmarks article published May 12, 2026, based on its 2025 dataset of over 20 billion campaign emails and 470 million automated sends from 27,000+ brands; it reports open rate, CTR, CTOR and conversion rate across 25 categories (its conversion table omits a few categories present in the open rate table, and Internet appears in opens and clicks but not conversions, so those cells follow the published tables exactly). Mailchimp figures are from its long-running benchmarks page as displayed on July 17, 2026, with data the page says was last updated in December 2023; it reports open, click and unsubscribe rates only. No figure in this article was interpolated, averaged across sources, or estimated by me.

How to actually use this table

Pick the report that matches your stack, find your industry row, and write down three numbers: open, click, conversion. Those are your par scores. Then check your flow metrics against the flow table separately, because a store whose campaigns are average and whose flows are absent is leaving the larger share of email revenue unclaimed. And recheck annually, not monthly: benchmarks move slowly, your own trend line is the metric that deserves weekly attention. When the 2027 editions land, this table gets rebuilt.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good email open rate in 2026?

Around 30% for a promotional campaign. Klaviyo's 2026 benchmark puts the all-industry campaign average at 31%, Omnisend's 2025 dataset says 30.22%, and Mailchimp's ecommerce figure is 29.81%. If your campaigns open above 35% you are in genuinely strong territory, and Klaviyo's top 10% hit 45.1%.

Why do Klaviyo and Omnisend report such different click rates?

Different customer bases and different math. Klaviyo's 1.69% campaign click rate comes from brands that skew larger and more established, while Omnisend's 0.88% CTR reflects its own merchant mix. Neither is wrong. Benchmark against the platform whose merchants look most like you, and track your own trend line above all.

Which industry has the best email numbers?

Depends on the metric. In Klaviyo's campaign data, clothing and accessories leads opens at 33.1% while toys and hobbies leads clicks at 2.03% and food and beverage leads placed orders at 0.26%. In Omnisend's data, wedding brands open at 52.43% but convert at almost nothing, while games converts best at 0.19%. High opens and high conversions rarely live in the same industry.

Should I benchmark my flows against campaign numbers?

Never. Flows reach one person at a high-intent moment and campaigns reach everyone at once, so they live in different statistical worlds. Klaviyo's averages are 2.11% placed order rate for flows versus 0.16% for campaigns, a 13x gap that says nothing about quality and everything about timing.

Sources & data

  1. Klaviyo, Email Marketing Benchmarks 2026: open, click and conversion rates by industry (published February 24, 2026; data from 183,000+ brands)
  2. Omnisend, Email Marketing Benchmarks: What Good Looks Like in 2026 (published May 12, 2026; 2025 dataset of 20+ billion campaign emails from 27,000+ brands)
  3. Mailchimp, Email Marketing Benchmarks and Metrics (page checked July 17, 2026; data last updated December 2023)
Cite this piece: The Retentionist (2026). “Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry 2026: Every Report, One Table.” https://theretentionist.com/benchmarks/email-marketing-benchmarks-by-industry/