About a third of American adults get news from email newsletters. Pew Research Center's 2026 news platform survey puts it at 34% who often or sometimes do, so for a good share of readers the inbox is a news habit as well as a marketing channel.
I've split this page into the figures people tend to need: how many people email reaches, how newsletter readers behave, the sender rules Gmail and Yahoo now set, what US and UK law allows, and the open and click benchmarks the email industry publishes. Independent figures are linked to the original page. Benchmarks published by email companies and industry bodies are named but not linked, and older figures are marked as older.
Last checked 12 November 2026.
The figures at a glance
| Measure | Figure | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| US adults who use the internet | 97% | 2026 | Pew Research Center |
| US adults who own a smartphone | 91% | 2026 | Pew Research Center |
| EU internet users who send or receive emails | 87% | 2025 | Eurostat |
| US adults who often or sometimes get news from email newsletters | 34% | 2026 | Pew Research Center |
| Gmail bulk sender threshold (messages per day) | 5,000 | 2024 | |
| Spam rate Google asks senders to stay under | 0.10% | 2024 | |
| Time Yahoo gives bulk senders to honour unsubscribes | 2 days | 2024 | Yahoo |
| Maximum CAN-SPAM penalty per email | $53,088 | 2026 | Federal Trade Commission |
| Time allowed to honour a CAN-SPAM opt-out | 10 business days | 2026 | Federal Trade Commission |
| Average UK email open rate | 35.9% | 2024 | DMA |
| Average UK unique click rate | 2.3% | 2024 | DMA |
| Marketing leaders not measuring email ROI | 21% | 2025 | Litmus |
How many people email can reach
Email depends on people being online, and in the US and Europe almost everyone is. The phone figures matter for design: if a reader only has a smartphone, every email you send them is read on a small screen.
- 97% of US adults say they use the internet (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 91% of US adults own a smartphone (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 78% of US adults subscribe to home broadband (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 16% of US adults are smartphone-only internet users (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 80% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU used the internet for e-mails (2024 data, base is all people in that age group). Source: Eurostat.
- 87% of EU internet users sent or received emails (2025 data, base is internet users, so it runs higher than the 80% above). Source: Eurostat.
- 92% of UK adults were recent internet users, from a discontinued bulletin that's still the latest in the series and measures internet use, not email (2020 data). Source: Office for National Statistics.
Newsletters as a news habit
Pew has asked about email newsletters twice in a row. The 2026 figure of 34% replaces the 30% from 2025; the two use slightly different wording, so quote the newer one as the current number and the older one only with its year.
- 34% of US adults often or sometimes get news from email newsletters, about a third (2026 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 30% of US adults got news from newsletters at least sometimes in Pew's earlier survey (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 6% of US adults often get news from email newsletters (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 62% of US newsletter readers don't end up reading most of the newsletters they receive (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
- 71% of US newsletter news readers subscribe to fewer than five newsletters (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
The Reuters Institute's most recent report with a section on email is from 2022, so treat these as the latest it gives rather than this year's position.
- 17% of people across Digital News Report countries used email newsletters weekly on average (2022 data, the latest year available). Source: Reuters Institute.
- 22% of US respondents used newsletters or email alerts each week (2022 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
- 9% of UK respondents used email news weekly, one of the lowest levels in the survey (2022 data). Source: Reuters Institute.
For a writer, the 62% and 71% figures point the same way: readers keep a short list and skim what's on it, so the newsletters that get read are the ones that earn a place on that list. If you're planning the content behind a newsletter, my content marketing statistics cover how marketers spend their time and budgets on it.
Open rates, click rates and returns
These come from email platforms, research firms and industry bodies, so they're named but not linked. Open rates need care: Apple Mail Privacy Protection has inflated them since 2021, so read them as a trend line rather than a true count of people who read the email.
- 35.9% was the UK email open rate in the DMA benchmarking report, inflated by Apple's privacy changes (2024 data). Source: DMA (Data and Marketing Association).
- 2.3% was the UK unique click rate, its third yearly rise in a row (2024 data). Source: DMA.
- 98% was the UK email delivery rate, after a rise (2024 data). Source: DMA.
- 64% of consumers in a survey of over 2,000 ranked email first for brand offers and sales (2023 data). Source: DMA Consumer Email Tracker.
- 35.63% was the average open rate across all Mailchimp users, last updated in December 2023 (2023 data). Source: Mailchimp.
- 2.62% was the average click rate across all Mailchimp users in the same December 2023 table (2023 data). Source: Mailchimp.
- 21.5% open rate and 2.3% click-through rate on average, an older figure based on emails sent in 2021 (2021 data). Source: Campaign Monitor.
- 35% of marketing leaders got $10 to $36 back for every $1 spent on email (2025 data). Source: Litmus State of Email survey.
- 21% of marketing leaders didn't measure email ROI, down from 36% in 2023 (2025 data). Source: Litmus.
- About 75% of marketers plan to maintain or increase email investment in 2026, as quoted on HubSpot's own statistics page (2026 data). Source: HubSpot State of Marketing.
Gmail and Yahoo sender rules
Google and Yahoo tightened their rules for bulk senders in 2024, with Google's requirements starting on 1 February 2024. These aren't survey results, they're the thresholds the two mailbox providers publish.
- 5,000 messages: Google treats a sender as a bulk sender at close to 5,000 messages or more to personal Gmail accounts in 24 hours (2024 rules). Source: Google.
- 0.10% is the spam rate Google tells senders to stay below in Postmaster Tools, never reaching 0.30% (2024 rules). Source: Google.
- 48 hours is how quickly Google recommends honouring unsubscribe requests (2024 rules). Source: Google.
- 0.3% is the spam rate Yahoo requires all senders to stay below (2024 rules). Source: Yahoo Sender Hub.
- 2 days is the time Yahoo gives bulk senders to honour unsubscribes (2024 rules). Source: Yahoo Sender Hub.
Low spam complaints and fast unsubscribes come down to the same thing: sending to people who asked for your email. That's the inbox version of earning attention in search, which my SEO statistics page covers from the Google side.
What US and UK law allows
- $53,088 is the maximum penalty for each email that breaks the US CAN-SPAM Act; the FTC adjusts it for inflation, so check its page for the current amount (2026 data). Source: Federal Trade Commission.
- 10 business days is the time CAN-SPAM gives senders to honour an opt-out request (2026 data). Source: Federal Trade Commission.
- 30 days is how long an opt-out mechanism must keep working after a message is sent under CAN-SPAM (2026 data). Source: Federal Trade Commission.
- 17.5 million pounds or 4% of global turnover is the most the UK ICO can fine for PECR breaches, which cover email marketing, since February 2026 (2026 data). Source: Information Commissioner's Office.
Common email marketing questions
What is a good email open rate?
The DMA reported 35.9% for UK email in 2024 and Mailchimp reported 35.63% in December 2023, while Campaign Monitor's 2021 figure was 21.5%. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates open rates, so compare like with like.
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What is the average email click rate?
The DMA put the UK unique click rate at 2.3% in 2024, and Mailchimp's December 2023 all-users average was 2.62%.
Who counts as a bulk sender for Gmail?
Google defines a bulk sender as one sending close to 5,000 messages or more to personal Gmail accounts in 24 hours, and asks for spam rates below 0.10%.
How many people use email?
Eurostat found 80% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU used the internet for e-mails in 2024, and 87% of EU internet users sent or received emails in 2025.
How many Americans get news from email newsletters?
Pew found 34% of US adults often or sometimes get news from email newsletters in 2026, and 62% of newsletter readers don't read most of the newsletters they receive.
How fast must you process an unsubscribe?
CAN-SPAM allows 10 business days, Google recommends 48 hours and Yahoo gives bulk senders 2 days.
Citing and checking
How to cite this page
Quote any figure you need. Please name the original source beside it and link back here so your readers can follow the trail.
Page URL: https://www.lilachbullock.com/email-marketing-statistics/
Suggested citation: Lilach Bullock, 'Email marketing statistics', lilachbullock.com/email-marketing-statistics/, 2026. Cite the original source named beside each figure.
How this page was checked
An original source here is the organisation that ran the survey, wrote the rule or published the benchmark: Pew Research Center, Eurostat, the Office for National Statistics, the Reuters Institute, Google, the Federal Trade Commission and the ICO, plus the DMA, Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Litmus, Yahoo and HubSpot for industry figures. Every quote was read from the source page itself and matched against the saved text; roundup sites and secondary write-ups weren't used. Company-published figures are named but not linked. Last checked 12 November 2026.
