What is a good cold email response rate?

Based on 850 million+ emails · Smartlead platform data

The median sender gets a reply from 0.74% of the people they contact, about one reply per 135 contacts. The top 25% reach 1.43%, the top 10% reach 2.63% and the top 5% reach 3.85%. The bottom 10% sit at 0.16% or lower, 625 contacts per reply or more.

Check your reply rate

Your reply rate (%)

Cold email reply rate by percentile

Built from more than 850 million emails sent through Smartlead.

Sender	Reply rate	Contacts per reply
Top 5%	3.85%	26
Top 10%	2.63%	38
Top 25%	1.43%	70
Median	0.74%	135
Bottom 25%	0.37%	270
Bottom 10%	0.16% or lower	625+

What the data shows

The spread is wide. The top 10% need 38 contacts to earn a reply, the median sender needs 135 and the bottom 10% need 625 or more. That is a 3.5× gap between the top 10% and the median, and a 16× gap between the top and bottom 10%.

The median barely moves. It held between 123 and 147 contacts per reply month to month, and the gap to the top 10% held with it.

Most senders sit below 1%. A reply rate above 3.85% is higher than what 95% of senders achieve.

Why published reply rates look higher

Published reports put the average cold email reply rate anywhere from under 0.5% to 5-9%. Much of that gap comes from what gets counted: replies per email sent, per contact or per opened email, and whether the sample is one agency's campaigns or a whole platform.

This page counts replies per contact across every sender with at least 500 emails, and reports the median rather than the average. The full report explains why cold email benchmarks differ between reports.

What this data can't tell you

It measures replies, not meetings or revenue. It doesn't break results down by industry, offer or deal size, so a niche with a small audience can sit lower on this scale and still be healthy.

How to move up the scale

Clean the list first. The median sender bounces at 1.54%, so verify addresses before a campaign goes out.
Keep the first email short. Emails under 50 words earn a reply every 68 contacts, against 97 at 100-149 words.
Put the effort into email one. The first email earns a reply every 85 contacts, and the seventh needs 303.
Check your provider mix. Gmail senders need 90 contacts per reply, Outlook senders 120 and custom servers 179.
Send in the morning. Reply rates peak at 1.34% around 7am in the recipient's time zone.
Personalize with a purpose. The median sender personalizes 75% of emails, and the variables that earn replies are worth the setup.

The step-by-step fixes are in the guide on how to raise a low reply rate.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good cold email reply rate?

Anything above 0.74% beats the median sender. 1.43% puts you in the top 25%, 2.63% in the top 10% and 3.85% in the top 5%. Below 0.37% is the bottom quarter.

What is the average cold email response rate?

The median sender gets a reply from 0.74% of contacts, about one reply per 135 people. This page uses the median because a few very high performers can pull an average up.

Is a 10% response rate good?

On this data, 10% sits far above the top 5% of senders, whose cutoff is 3.85%. If a report or tool shows 10%, check what it divides by. Replies per opened email, or a small hand-picked list, will read much higher than replies per contact across a whole platform.

Methodology

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. Reply rate is replies divided by contacts. Contacts per reply is the same number turned around, so a 0.74% reply rate is 135 contacts per reply.