Email Marketing Benchmarks by Platform: How MailerLite, Mailchimp, Brevo & More Actually Perform

Why Platform-Level Benchmarks Matter

You've seen the stat: average email open rate in 2026 is 40-44%. Average click rate is 2.0-2.5%. Gets quoted everywhere. Almost useless.

Here's what those averages hide — the platform you send from changes your numbers dramatically. MailerLite users average 43.46% open rates. Mailchimp users? Often lower. And it's not because MailerLite users are better writers or have some secret subject line formula. It's because each platform has a different user population, different deliverability infrastructure, different shared IP reputations, and — this is the big one — different list hygiene enforcement. MailerLite basically pre-screens you before you send anything. Mailchimp lets almost anyone through the door.

So if you're comparing your numbers against "industry averages" without factoring in your platform, you're doing it wrong. A 38% open rate on Mailchimp might mean you're crushing it. A 40% open rate on MailerLite might mean something's broken.

I spent weeks pulling benchmark data from five different sources to build this comparison. Every platform, side by side — open rates, click rates, deliverability scores, pricing. So you can see what "normal" actually looks like on the tool you're paying for.

For the cross-industry averages, see our email marketing benchmarks 2026 post. For industry-specific breakdowns, see benchmarks by industry.

Quick-Reference: All Platforms at a Glance

Before the deep dives — here is every platform side by side. Scan this, find your platform, then read the detailed section below.

*Brevo uses per-email pricing (20K emails/mo on Standard), not per-subscriber.

Scroll down for the full breakdown of each platform.

How We Sourced This Data

Eight sources, cross-referenced against each other. Updated March 2026.

Important caveat: each platform's benchmark data reflects its own users. MailerLite's averages come from MailerLite senders, who skew toward small businesses and creators. Klaviyo's data comes from ecommerce stores. Brevo's 500,000+ customers span everything from solo operators to enterprises. These are fundamentally different populations sending fundamentally different emails. You can't directly compare a MailerLite open rate to a Brevo open rate and draw useful conclusions about which platform is "better."

Deliverability testing is the exception. EmailToolTester and EmailDeliverabilityReport run standardised tests across platforms — same conditions, same methodology. Those numbers are actually comparable. But even here, the two sources often disagree significantly (more on that in each platform's section). Where I'm using deliverability data from a specific source, I've named it.

The Apple MPP thing: Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads tracking pixels, which inflates open rates on every platform. Every open rate in this post is inflated to some degree. Click rates are the only metric you can really trust. I'm still including open rates because they're useful for comparing between platforms (the inflation is roughly proportional), but don't confuse them with actual engagement.

The methodology shift: In December 2025, EmailToolTester stopped publishing percentage-based deliverability scores entirely, calling their old seed-list methodology "increasingly unreliable." They now rate platforms on deliverability features (authentication support, bounce handling, list cleaning, etc.) on a 5-star scale. I've included both the old test results and the new feature ratings where relevant — they tell very different stories.

MailerLite

MailerLite's numbers are suspiciously good — until you understand why.

They enforce a strict 5% bounce threshold on imported lists. Dirty list? MailerLite flags or terminates your account before you send a single email. That sounds annoying (and it is, if you're the one getting rejected), but the result is that their entire user base has cleaner lists than basically any other platform. The averages go up because the worst senders never make it in.

The 43.46% is a median open rate — not a mean — from their 2025 benchmark report covering December 2024 to November 2025. That distinction matters: means get dragged up by outliers, medians represent the typical sender. MailerLite is the only major platform that publishes median data, which makes their numbers more honest but harder to compare directly against everyone else's means.

Their 2025 report also breaks out 46 industries and 7 regions. The range is massive: Religion at 55.71% open rate versus E-commerce at 32.67%. Australia leads regionally at 47.69%, while LATAM trails at 31.97%. If you're comparing yourself against the 43.46% headline without accounting for your industry and region, you're doing it wrong.

89.8% deliverability across EmailToolTester's January 2024 round — sixth out of 15 platforms tested, behind ActiveCampaign (94.2%), Constant Contact (91.7%), GetResponse (90.9%), Moosend (90.1%), and CleverReach (90.0%). Not the best single-round score, but their 3-round average was 94.41% — the highest of any platform across the final three seed-list tests. But EmailDeliverabilityReport tells a different story: 78.24% inbox placement from ~65,000 test emails, putting them mid-pack alongside Mailchimp (78.35%). That 11-point gap between the two testing sources reflects different methodologies — small seed-list tests versus high-volume inbox placement. Both are valid. Neither is the whole truth.

One quirk in the new ETT feature ratings: MailerLite scores just 3.5/5 for deliverability features — lower than Klaviyo (5.0), Omnisend (4.5), and Brevo (4.5). They don't offer a dedicated deliverability dashboard or health score indicator. So the platform with some of the best actual test results has middling deliverability tooling. Make of that what you will.

Who this matters for: Small businesses and creators under 10K subscribers where deliverability is the priority. If you're on MailerLite and seeing open rates below 35%, something's wrong on your end — you're underperforming the platform median by a wide margin.

The catch: That strict approval process cuts both ways. Legitimate businesses get rejected sometimes. And if you're in finance, health, dating, or gambling — expect worse numbers than what's shown here. EmailDeliverabilityReport found that deliverability varies significantly by content category across all platforms, with Dating consistently hitting 5–8 points lower than Health. MailerLite performs best in "safe" niches. Which is part of how they keep the averages so clean.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp's data situation tells you everything you need to know about where this platform is headed.

Their benchmark data — 35.63% open rate, 2.62% click rate, Non-Profits at 40.04%, Ecommerce at 29.81% — hasn't been updated since December 2023. Over two years. MailerLite published a 2025 report from 3.6 million campaigns. Brevo published a 2025 report from 44 billion emails. ActiveCampaign published 2026 benchmarks. Even Omnisend published a 2026 report from 150,000 brands. Mailchimp — the most famous email platform in the world — just hasn't. I'll let you speculate about why a company stops publishing performance data.

EmailToolTester measured 89.3% deliverability in January 2024. Not terrible, but look at the trajectory: they hit 95.5% in June 2023 and dropped 6 points in six months. EmailDeliverabilityReport found 78.35% inbox placement from ~65,000 test emails — mid-pack, scoring 92/100 overall but with 20.03% of emails landing in spam. On Gmail specifically, only 75.36% reached the inbox. One in four emails to Gmail users isn't making it.

Then there's the new ETT feature ratings from December 2025. Mailchimp scored 3.0 out of 5 for deliverability features — dead last among all 10 platforms rated. They lack a deliverability dashboard, don't provide a sender health score, don't offer built-in list cleaning, and don't enforce DMARC. Every other major platform scored higher. Klaviyo got 5.0/5. Omnisend got 4.5/5. Even beehiiv got 3.5/5. Mailchimp is behind all of them on the tooling that helps you land in inboxes.

The shared IP infrastructure remains the core problem. Your sender reputation depends partly on what other Mailchimp senders on your IP are doing. Since Mailchimp has the largest user base, that's a lot of unknown senders you're sharing reputation with. Want a dedicated IP? Premium plan. $350+/month.

Who this matters for: If you're on Mailchimp seeing open rates below 30% or click rates below 1.5%, the platform might be part of the problem. Worth testing the same campaign on a different platform before assuming your content's the issue.

The hard truth: Brand recognition is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. At $13/mo starting (and it scales steep), you're paying for worse deliverability tooling than MailerLite at $10/mo and stale benchmark data that tells you nothing about current performance. The math doesn't work in 2026.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign has the most contradictory data of any platform in this comparison. And both sides are telling the truth.

EmailToolTester measured 94.2% deliverability in January 2024 — the highest score in that round, beating MailerLite (89.8%), Mailchimp (89.3%), and everyone else. They also had the most consistent trajectory: climbing from 85.8% in 2017 to 94.2% across 12 test rounds, with only one dip below 90% (73% in September 2020). Historically, ActiveCampaign is the most reliable deliverer in this comparison.

Then EmailDeliverabilityReport, testing ~64,940 emails across 14 mailbox providers, placed ActiveCampaign 20th out of 24 platforms. 76.59% inbox placement. 21.25% spam. On Gmail specifically, 74.01% — meaning one in four emails to Gmail users isn't reaching the inbox. That's below Brevo (76.00%), below Mailchimp (75.36%), below MailerLite (74.61%)... actually, almost everyone clusters between 73-78% on Gmail. The gap between "best" and "worst" on Gmail is just 5 percentage points.

So what's real? Both. The ETT seed-list test uses ~80 addresses and measures whether emails arrive. The EDR test uses 65,000 emails across 13 content categories and measures where they land (inbox vs spam vs missing). Small-sample controlled test vs. large-sample real-world simulation. ActiveCampaign excels at the former and struggles at the latter.

Their 2026 report (covering Jan–Dec 2025) shows 39.26% average open rate and 6.21% click rate. That click rate looks incredible — but there's a catch. ActiveCampaign's glossary page, citing 3.3 million campaigns, shows 42.35% open rate and 2.62% click rate. Same company, wildly different numbers. The 6.21% is likely click-to-open rate (CTOR), not click rate — completely different metrics. The 2.62% from 3.3M campaigns is more comparable to other platforms' click rates.

Industry breakdown from their 2026 report: Media/Publishing leads opens at 43.16%. Blogger/Author leads clicks at 7.73%. Ecommerce/Retail: 35.66% open, 5.07% click. Their user base skews toward experienced marketers running targeted automations — not people blasting their whole list with a coupon code.

Who this matters for: B2B companies, agencies, anyone running complex multi-step automations. The automation builder is genuinely the best on this list — 135+ triggers, built-in CRM, lead scoring, predictive sending. G2: 4.5/5 from over 14,000 reviews, and automation is consistently the reason why.

The trade-off: $19/mo at 1,000 subscribers (vs. $10 for MailerLite), and inbox placement that looks mid-tier at scale. You're paying for automation depth, not raw deliverability. If you're just sending newsletters, this is the wrong tool.

Brevo

Brevo finally published real benchmark data in April 2025 — and the numbers are telling.

31.22% average open rate from 44 billion emails across 500,000+ customers. That's the lowest headline open rate of any platform in this comparison. MailerLite: 43.46%. ActiveCampaign: 39.26%. Mailchimp: 35.63%. Brevo: 31.22%. Before you panic, context matters: Brevo's unlimited-contacts model attracts a completely different user base. Big lists, infrequent sends, more transactional usage. Their population skews toward businesses that store every contact they've ever collected — which drags engagement metrics down. That's not necessarily "worse," it's a different use pattern.

Their report also breaks out inbox placement by mailbox provider — data nobody else publishes at this level of transparency. Gmail: 88.1% inbox, 3.8% spam. Yahoo: 87.4% inbox. Microsoft: 82.5% inbox. Apple: 66.3% inbox (22.9% going to spam — brutal). That Apple number is interesting: if a meaningful chunk of your subscribers use Apple Mail, one in three of your emails isn't making it.

But here's the contrast: EmailDeliverabilityReport independently measured Brevo at 78.96% inbox placement overall and 76.00% on Gmail specifically. Brevo's own report says 88.1% on Gmail. That's a 12-point gap between what Brevo reports and what independent testing shows. Methodology differences explain some of it (Brevo tests their own traffic; EDR tests standardised test emails), but it's a big enough gap to note.

The deliverability history still looks like a heart monitor. EmailToolTester's 12 rounds: 83.9% (2017) → 75.6% → up to 95.4% (Feb 2020) → down to 76% → up to 96.3% (March 2021) → catastrophic 67.7% (June 2023) → 88.3% (January 2024). Twenty-eight points of swing. No other platform comes close to that variance.

One bright spot: ETT's new feature-based ratings gave Brevo 4.5/5 for deliverability features — tied with Omnisend for second place behind Klaviyo. That's a significant upgrade from their actual test results. They've invested in the tooling even if the outcomes haven't stabilised.

Regional breakdown from their 2025 report: EMEA leads at 33.21% open / 4.05% CTR. North America: 29.42% / 3.38%. APAC: 26.84% / 3.07%. LATAM trails at 26.32% / 2.91%.

Who this matters for: Budget-conscious senders with big lists who need unlimited contacts. $9/mo is genuinely unbeatable. But go in with eyes wide open about the deliverability variance — both historical and between what they report versus what independent tests show.

The real risk: That 67.7% in June 2023 wasn't ancient history. It was less than two years ago. And the gap between Brevo's self-reported Gmail performance (88.1%) and independent testing (76%) suggests the current "good" numbers might be more fragile than they look.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo finally published real benchmark data in February 2026 — and the numbers tell a more nuanced story than "35-42% open rate."

The most interesting paradox in this entire comparison. Klaviyo scores a perfect 5.0/5 on EmailToolTester's new deliverability feature ratings — the highest of any platform tested. And yet they have never submitted to ETT's actual deliverability tests. They're also absent from EmailDeliverabilityReport's 24-provider comparison.

That 5.0/5 feature score means Klaviyo has the best deliverability tooling: authentication enforcement, bounce suppression, feedback loop data, deliverability dashboards, list cleaning, strict policies. The infrastructure to deliver well. What we don't have is third-party data confirming whether that infrastructure actually translates to inbox placement.

Klaviyo self-reports "exceeding 95%" deliverability. Every other major platform in this comparison submits to independent testing. Klaviyo doesn't. For a platform charging premium prices, that absence says something. It might say "we know our numbers are good and we don't need external validation." It might say something else.

What we do have is user reports — and they're mixed. A Trustpilot reviewer documented 22.5% to 60% bounce rates during Black Friday. The single most important sending day for ecommerce. The issue was shared IP bans hitting multiple Klaviyo senders simultaneously. Trustpilot overall: 1.9/5 from 348 reviews, with 54% one-star — though Trustpilot skews negative for B2B tools. Shopify App Store: 4.5/5 from 2,573 reviews.

Their 2026 benchmarks (183,000+ brands) show 31% average campaign open rate — lower than MailerLite (43.46%), ActiveCampaign (39.26%), even Mailchimp (35.63%). But that's apples to oranges. Klaviyo's user base is ecommerce stores blasting promotional emails to customers who bought once. MailerLite's user base is niche creators emailing engaged subscribers. Different audiences, different expectations. The top 10% of Klaviyo senders hit 45.1% open rates, proving the platform can deliver.

Where Klaviyo's data gets genuinely impressive: flows. 5.3% of send volume generates 41% of total email revenue. Flow click rates (5.58%) are 3x higher than campaigns (1.69%). Placed order rates are 13x higher (2.11% vs 0.16%). Top 10% flows hit $7.79 revenue per recipient and 10%+ click rates. Abandoned cart flows average 50.5% open rate and $3.65 RPR — top 10% hit $28.89. And nearly 48% of flow-driven revenue comes from new buyers, versus just 16% from campaigns.

Industry breakdown: Clothing & accessories leads campaign opens at 33.1%. Food & beverage leads placed orders at 0.26% campaigns, 2.46% flows. Sporting goods leads flow clicks at 6.13%.

Who this matters for: Shopify and ecommerce stores that need deep behavioural automation, product feeds, and revenue attribution. Nothing else matches Klaviyo's ecommerce feature set — that's not hype, it's true. From 5+ years of hands-on experience managing Klaviyo for D2C brands: the segmentation is deep, the Shopify integration is unmatched, and the revenue attribution actually works. But the pricing scales aggressively and contract auto-renewal is a real trap.

The honest take: Best deliverability features (5.0/5). Zero independent deliverability data. Those two facts should sit side by side in your decision. Budget for a dedicated IP from day one — don't leave your Black Friday revenue on a shared IP.

GetResponse

GetResponse is the quiet overachiever in this data.

EmailDeliverabilityReport ranked them #1 among all 24 platforms tested — 81.10% inbox placement from 64,855 test emails. Best overall inbox rate. Best Gmail inbox rate at 78.34%. That's not a marginal win — the next closest platform on Gmail is AWeber at 77.05%. GetResponse gets more emails into the primary inbox than Mailchimp, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Brevo, and everyone else independently tested.

EmailToolTester backs this up: 90.9% in January 2024, third place behind ActiveCampaign (94.2%) and Constant Contact (91.7%). Their trajectory has been steadily upward: 75.6% in March 2018 → 91.3% in June 2023 → 90.9% in January 2024. Not flashy, but consistent. ISP breakdown from ETT: 97.8% Gmail, 100% Outlook, 100% Yahoo. Those are excellent numbers.

Their own benchmark report shows a 42.53% average open rate. The data's credible — they have a large enough user base to generate meaningful benchmarks. But their feature rating from ETT is just 3.5/5, same as MailerLite and beehiiv. Good at getting emails delivered; less invested in giving you the tools to monitor and optimize that delivery yourself.

GetResponse bundles more features per dollar than anything else here — email, webinars, courses, landing pages, conversion funnels. All at $19/mo. No competitor matches that combination. The trade-off is predictable: none of those features are the strongest in their category. Jack of all trades, master of none. But if you'd otherwise be paying for three or four separate tools, the math can work.

Who this matters for: Small businesses that want one dashboard instead of five logins. Deliverability is genuinely strong — the data backs it. Feature breadth is the pitch. GetResponse should be getting more attention than it does based purely on the inbox placement data.

The warning: 27% of GetResponse Trustpilot reviews are one-star. Most are about billing disputes — auto-renewal, cancellation friction, that kind of thing. Read the billing terms before you commit. Seriously.

Omnisend

Omnisend just published their 2026 Ecommerce Marketing Report covering 150,000 brands, 27 billion emails, and 321 million SMS messages sent in 2025. The automation numbers are staggering. The deliverability numbers are not.

30.7% average open rate — lowest in this comparison, though Brevo (31.22%) and Klaviyo (31%) are nearly identical. The gap to MailerLite (43.46%) is massive; the gap to Brevo is half a percentage point. But open rates are a misleading metric for Omnisend's user base. These are ecommerce stores sending transactional and promotional emails to customers who may have purchased once and never opted in to marketing content. Different universe from MailerLite's niche creators.

Where Omnisend shines: click-to-conversion jumped to 9% in 2025, up 53% from 5.9% in 2024. Automated emails generate $2.87 revenue per send vs $0.18 for campaigns — 16x. Automations drive 30% of total email revenue from just 2% of send volume. Back-in-stock emails hit 6.46% conversion rate. Birthday messages produced $744.37 average order value — 4x the platform average. Overall: merchants generate $79 for every $1 spent on Omnisend, up from $68 in 2022.

The deliverability problem hasn't gone away. 75.1% from EmailToolTester in January 2024 — lowest of any major platform. Gmail is fine at 93.8%. But Outlook? 38.46%. Hotmail? 40%. Six out of ten emails to Microsoft addresses going to spam or getting blocked. That's a broken channel. The feature rating of 4.5/5 suggests Omnisend has invested heavily in deliverability tooling since that test — but there's no new seed-list data to confirm whether the tooling translated to actual improvement.

Ecommerce order growth on Omnisend hit +98% YoY in 2025 (Q4 peaked at +146%). 58% of brands increased order volume. But the top 5% of brands drove 57% of total growth — so the headline number flatters most users.

Who this matters for: Ecommerce stores where the customer base is predominantly Gmail. Check your email domain distribution before committing — seriously, export it and look. If Microsoft is a significant chunk, look at Klaviyo or Drip instead.

The value proposition: $16/mo vs. Klaviyo's $20/mo (and Klaviyo scales faster). $79 ROI per dollar spent. If your audience is on Gmail and you need ecommerce automation on a budget, the math works. Just go in with your eyes open about that Microsoft gap and don't let the 30.7% open rate scare you — it's an apples-to-oranges comparison with newsletter-focused platforms.

Smaller Platforms: Kit, beehiiv, AWeber, Drip

Less data available on these four, but the picture is clearer than it was six months ago thanks to the new ETT feature ratings and updated EDR testing.

Kit (ConvertKit) — $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers. Kit was dropped from EmailToolTester's January 2024 seed-list round (their last round was June 2023 at 91.3%). EmailDeliverabilityReport currently shows 77.77% inbox placement from ~64,900 test emails, with 74.97% on Gmail — mid-pack performance. ETT's new feature rating: 4.0/5 for deliverability features. Kit self-reports 99.8% delivery rate, which measures server acceptance, not inbox placement — very different things. They also claim 40% average open rates, but don't publish a formal benchmark report and their analytics don't filter out bot clicks. Kit is for creators who want dead-simple email tools and don't mind paying a premium for simplicity. The free plan gives you 10,000 subscribers, which is genuinely generous. Rating: 7.2/10.

beehiiv — $43/mo for the Scale plan. Still no seed-list deliverability data from ETT or EDR. They self-report 98.9% delivery rate. Can't verify it. ETT gave them a 3.5/5 feature rating for deliverability — same as MailerLite and GetResponse. beehiiv is genuinely great for newsletter operators: the ad network monetisation, referral programs, and growth features are things nobody else offers. But paying $43/mo while flying blind on independent deliverability data is a choice. Their 2026 report claims 41%+ average open rates across their network of 255 million readers — but they don't publish open rate, click rate, or engagement benchmarks that you can compare against. Rating: 7.0/10.

AWeber — $15/mo starting. EmailToolTester measured 82.8% deliverability in January 2024 — 11th out of 15 platforms. But EmailDeliverabilityReport ranked them 2nd overall at 79.86% inbox placement from ~64,700 emails, with 77.05% Gmail inbox (second only to GetResponse's 78.34%). That's a genuine surprise. AWeber's historical ETT range tells a different story though: 71.8% (2022) to 93.2% (June 2023) — a 21-point swing across rounds. The EDR data suggests AWeber's deliverability may have stabilised more than the historical volatility implies. ISP breakdown from ETT: 81% Gmail, 93.85% Outlook, 100% Yahoo. AWeber doesn't publish open rate or click rate benchmarks from their user base — their most recent data (2020) focused on small business survey results, not platform-level engagement metrics. Rating: 6.2/10.

Drip — $39/mo at 2,500 subscribers. 87.7% deliverability from EmailToolTester in January 2024. Gmail is strong at 96.9%, but Yahoo sits at 60%. That's bad. ISP-by-ISP: Outlook 84.62%, AOL 80%. The Yahoo hole is the problem — if any meaningful portion of your list is on Yahoo, you're losing them. Drip doesn't publish benchmark data from their user base. Drip is purpose-built for ecommerce — strong Shopify integration, visual workflow builder, pre-built cart abandonment templates. But $39/mo for 2,500 subscribers when Omnisend starts at $16/mo and Klaviyo at $20/mo? Hard to justify unless Drip's specific workflow builder is exactly what you need. Rating: 6.8/10.

Platform Comparison Table

All platforms side by side. Three data columns for deliverability now — the small-sample seed-list test (ETT Jan 2024), the large-sample inbox placement (EDR, ~65K emails), and the new feature-based rating (ETT Dec 2025). They tell very different stories.

°ActiveCampaign's 2026 report shows 6.21%, but their glossary (3.3M campaigns) shows 2.62%. The 6.21% is likely click-to-open rate (CTOR), not click rate. I'm using the 2.62% for comparability. †Omnisend reports click-to-conversion (9.0%), not click rate. Their metrics are conversion-focused, making direct comparison to other platforms' click rates misleading.

Stare at this table long enough and three things jump out.

The two deliverability tests disagree wildly. ActiveCampaign ranks #1 on ETT's seed-list test and #20 on EDR's large-sample test. AWeber ranks #11 on ETT and #2 on EDR. GetResponse is the only platform that performs consistently well on both (#3 and #1). If someone tells you a platform "has great deliverability" without specifying which test, push back.

Feature ratings don't match test results. Klaviyo has the best deliverability features (5.0/5) and zero independent test data. Mailchimp has the worst features (3.0/5) but tested at 89.3% / 78.35%. MailerLite has the highest 3-round average in testing history (94.41%) but only 3.5/5 on features. Good tooling ≠ good deliverability, and vice versa.

The pricing gap is wider than the performance gap. MailerLite at $10/mo delivers 78.24% to inbox. Mailchimp at $13/mo delivers 78.35%. Functionally identical. But Mailchimp at 10,000 subscribers costs $135/mo vs MailerLite's $73/mo. You're paying 85% more for 0.11 percentage points of inbox placement. That's brand tax, not performance.

Four platforms don't publish benchmark reports. AWeber, Drip, Kit, and beehiiv don't release open rate or click rate data from their user bases. Kit and beehiiv self-report headline numbers (40% and 41%+ respectively) but don't back them with formal reports you can dig into. I've marked these as "Not published" in the table rather than guessing — because unsourced estimates dressed up as data is the kind of thing that makes review sites useless.

Brevo is the wildcard that got more interesting. Their first benchmark report (31.22% open from 44B emails) gives us real data instead of estimates. Lowest open rate, but highest click rate (3.64%). And Gmail inbox at 88.1% by their own testing — though independent testing shows 76-79%. Cheapest at $9/mo with unlimited contacts. The deliverability variance is the risk you're taking for that price.

Deliverability by Mailbox Provider: The Gmail Problem

Every platform looks decent in aggregate. The ISP-level data is where things get ugly.

EmailDeliverabilityReport tests across 14 mailbox providers. Here's how the major platforms perform on the three that matter most — Gmail, Microsoft (Outlook/Hotmail), and Yahoo:

The entire range is just 5.2 percentage points. GetResponse at the top (78.34%) and Moosend at the bottom (73.12%). That's narrow enough to question whether "platform deliverability" matters as much as we think it does — at least on Gmail, which is where most of your subscribers are.

From EmailToolTester's January 2024 ISP breakdown, the Microsoft picture is more dramatic:

Omnisend's Microsoft problem is severe: 38.46% Outlook inbox. If even 15% of your list is on Microsoft domains, you're losing a meaningful chunk of potential revenue. Export your subscriber domains before committing to any platform — the aggregate scores hide ISP-specific gaps that matter more than the headline number.

The New Deliverability Ratings (December 2025)

In December 2025, EmailToolTester fundamentally changed how they evaluate deliverability. They stopped running seed-list inbox placement tests entirely — calling the old methodology "increasingly unreliable" — and switched to rating deliverability features on a 5-star scale.

The ratings evaluate 10 features (each worth 0.5 stars): SPF/DKIM/DMARC enforcement, authentication wizard, automatic bounce/complaint suppression, feedback loop data access, deliverability team access, deliverability dashboard, health score indicator, list cleaning tools, strict purchased-list policy, and IP warmup guidance.

The disconnect is striking. The platform with the worst feature rating (Mailchimp, 3.0/5) tested at 89.3% on actual deliverability. The platform with the best feature rating (Klaviyo, 5.0/5) has never been independently tested. MailerLite, with the highest 3-round deliverability average in ETT history (94.41%), only gets 3.5/5 for features.

What does this mean? Having the right tools doesn't guarantee results. And getting good results doesn't require sophisticated tools. GetResponse ranks #1 on inbox placement with 3.5/5 features. Omnisend ranks near the bottom on inbox placement with 4.5/5 features. The correlation between deliverability tooling and actual deliverability is weak at best.

But the feature ratings aren't useless. They tell you which platforms give you the most visibility into your own deliverability. If something goes wrong, Klaviyo gives you a dashboard to diagnose it. Mailchimp gives you nothing. That matters when you're troubleshooting a sudden spam spike.

What These Numbers Actually Mean for You

Two reasons to care about platform benchmarks: figuring out if you're underperforming on your current tool, and deciding if switching could actually move your numbers.

Clicks matter more than opens. I'll keep saying it. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates every open rate on every platform. A 43% open rate on MailerLite and a 31% on Brevo might reflect very different things — or identical real-world engagement with different user populations. Click rate is the only metric you can actually trust. Everything else has an asterisk.

The deliverability gap is narrower than you think on Gmail. Every platform lands between 73-78% on Gmail according to EmailDeliverabilityReport. Five percentage points. The platform choice matters less for Gmail deliverability than your list hygiene, authentication setup, and sending patterns. Where it matters enormously: Microsoft. The gap between ActiveCampaign (100% Outlook) and Omnisend (38.46% Outlook) is a 61-point canyon.

No single deliverability test tells the truth. ActiveCampaign: #1 on ETT, #20 on EDR. AWeber: #11 on ETT, #2 on EDR. GetResponse is the only platform that performs well on both. If you're making a decision based on deliverability, check both sources and look at the ISP breakdown for your specific subscriber mix.

Automation revenue dwarfs deliverability gains. Omnisend's data: automated emails generate $2.87/send vs $0.18 for campaigns. That 16x gap in revenue per send is worth more than a few points of deliverability improvement. The best email program is one where emails reach the inbox AND the automation drives revenue. If you're choosing between 89% deliverability with basic automation and 76% deliverability with flows that generate $79 per dollar spent — the math isn't as obvious as it looks.

What to do with this:

1. Export your subscriber domain distribution. What percentage is Gmail? Microsoft? Yahoo? This determines which platforms you can and can't use. 2. Compare your rates to your platform's benchmarks — not "industry averages." Below your platform's numbers? The problem is your content, segmentation, or list hygiene. Not the tool. 3. Beating your platform's benchmarks but frustrated? Look at the ISP breakdown. You might be crushing it on Gmail and hemorrhaging on Microsoft. 4. Before you switch: migration hurts. Rebuilding automations, re-authenticating domains, warming up sender reputation. Budget 2-4 weeks of worse performance. Don't do it in Q4.

If I had to pick one platform for a new email program today — no ecommerce requirements, just reliable email that reaches inboxes — it'd be MailerLite. Best long-term deliverability track record, reasonable price, strict list hygiene that protects you from yourself. If I needed ecommerce automation, Klaviyo, with a dedicated IP from day one and a data integration tool like Elevar for accurate attribution. If budget were the hard constraint, Brevo — knowing I'm trading consistency for savings. And if I wanted the best all-around deliverability with the most features per dollar, GetResponse deserves more attention than it gets.