What is a good open rate for a newsletter?
An open rate of 35 to 45 percent is average these days for a healthy list; above 50 percent you are doing great. Note that open rates have become less reliable since Apple and Google began prefetching emails. Click-through rate (2 to 5 percent is healthy) tells you more.
Open rates have been artificially inflated in recent years because mail clients like Apple Mail open messages in the background for privacy reasons. What used to be 20 percent now easily reads as 40 without anything changing. So compare your numbers against your own history, not against old benchmarks.
Click-through rate is the more honest metric: how many people click a link in your email. Two to five percent is healthy, above that is strong. And your unsubscribe rate should stay under half a percent per send; if it spikes, you are mailing too often or missing the mark on relevance.
What actually improves the numbers: a recognizable sender name, a subject line that sparks curiosity without clickbait, and above all consistency. A list that receives something useful every week keeps opening. Every serious tool, from MailerLite to ActiveCampaign, shows these stats per send.