Email open rate
The share of recipients who opened your email, measured against messages successfully delivered. Inflated since Apple Mail Privacy Protection launched in 2021.
It is tracked by an invisible one-pixel image loaded when the message is opened. If the image loads, an open is counted.
Since 2021 and Apple Mail Privacy Protection, this metric has become approximate: Apple pre-fetches images for all recipients, whether the message was opened or not. The rate displayed is therefore inflated, across all tools, by a margin that depends on how many Apple users are on your list.
It remains useful as a trend: compared to itself from one campaign to the next, it tells you something. Compared to an industry average, much less.
In Mailcheer, the first open is the one that counts. Later opens are recorded, but they do not overwrite the original date. The rate is calculated against delivered messages, never sent messages: a bounce does not inflate the denominator against you.
Why it matters
It is the first signal that a subject line worked — or that mail is no longer reaching the inbox. A sharp drop is almost always a deliverability issue, not a writing problem.
The industry-wide average is 19.2% (WebFX & ClickMinded, 2026) — that is the benchmark shown in your dashboard. Above 60%, be cautious: it is often Apple's pre-fetching, not your subject line.