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Keep it under 2%. The median cold email sender bounces at 1.54%, and the top 25% stay at 0.73% or lower. A quarter of senders bounce at 3.21% or more, and the worst 5% at 10.85% or more.
Share of each sender's emails that bounced. Built from more than 850 million emails sent through Smartlead.
| Sender | Bounce rate | Bounces per 1,000 emails |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% | 0.28% or lower | 3 |
| Top 25% | 0.73% or lower | 7 |
| Median | 1.54% | 15 |
| Bottom 25% | 3.21% or higher | 32 |
| Bottom 10% | 6.71% or higher | 67 |
| Bottom 5% | 10.85% or higher | 109 |
Most senders stay under 2%. The median bounce rate is 1.54%, about 15 bounces for every 1,000 emails sent.
The 2% line falls between the median and the bottom 25% mark. That means more than a quarter of senders, but fewer than half, bounce above it.
The spread is widest at the bad end. The worst 25% of senders bounce at 3.21% or more, about twice the median. The worst 5% bounce at 10.85% or more, roughly one email in nine.
The best senders are close to zero. The top 10% bounce at 0.28% or less, under 3 bounces per 1,000 emails.
They measure different things. Email bounce rate is the share of sent emails that a mail server rejects. Website bounce rate, the figure in Google Analytics, is the share of visits that leave without engaging.
A 20% or 42% bounce rate can be normal for a website. For cold email, 20% would sit far beyond the worst 5% of senders, who bounce at 10.85% or more.
Most guides call a bounce rate under 2% normal, 2% to 5% a warning and above 5% critical. Against those lines, the median sender is in the normal band, the bottom 25% mark of 3.21% is in the warning band, and the bottom 10% of senders, at 6.71% or more, are past the critical line.
It shows how often emails bounced, not why. The data doesn't split hard bounces from soft ones, and it doesn't link bounce rate to inbox placement or reply rate.
Under 2%. The median cold email sender bounces at 1.54%, and the top 25% stay at 0.73% or lower. A rate of 0.28% or lower puts you in the top 10%.
Not for email. The worst 5% of cold email senders bounce at 10.85% or more, so 20% is far outside the normal range. For a website, where bounce rate means visits that leave without engaging, 20% is low.
Above 2% is where most guides start to warn, and above 5% is treated as critical. A quarter of cold email senders bounce at 3.21% or more, and one in ten at 6.71% or more.
More than 850 million emails sent through Smartlead, using combined, anonymous platform data only. Only senders with at least 500 emails sent in the period are included. Each sender's rate is the share of their sent emails that bounced.
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