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What are B2B Cold Email Response Rates? (2026 Study)
belkins.io
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Lower-performing industries “Cold email into these sectors isn’t impossible, but it requires exceptional targeting and messaging precision to break through.” 📌 The practical read: If your product or service applies to multiple industries, allocate your highest-effort, most personalized campaigns to the sectors that historically respond. Calibrate expectations and campaign volume accordingly for lower-performing verticals.
📌 A note on methodology: Our reply rates look dramatically lower than the figures we’ve published in previous years. That’s not because cold email fell off a cliff overnight — it reflects a change in measurements. In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email. “A 5% reply rate against openers and a 0.45% reply rate against total sends can describe the same campaign; they’re just measuring different things.” We made this shift because open rate data became unreliable once we stopped tracking it — the rate tracking pixel was hurting deliverability throughout the industry in 2024, whereas total sends are a consistent baseline. Going forward, Belkins’ email benchmark reports will use this methodology.
For this year’s study, we analyzed 7.5 million cold emails sent across our client campaigns throughout 2025. This report breaks down reply rates by month, seniority, company size, industry, geography, and timing — giving you a ground-level view of how cold email actually performed last year. “In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email.” This year, we’re reporting the reply rate as replies divided by total emails sent. It’s a stricter and, frankly, more honest denominator. A 5% reply rate against openers and a 0.45% reply rate against total sends can describe the same campaign; they’re just measuring different things.
📌 A note on methodology: Our reply rates look dramatically lower than the figures we’ve published in previous years. That’s not because cold email fell off a cliff overnight — it reflects a change in measurements. In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email. “This year, we’re reporting the reply rate as replies divided by total emails sent.” We made this shift because open rate data became unreliable once we stopped tracking it — the rate tracking pixel was hurting deliverability throughout the industry in 2024, whereas total sends are a consistent baseline. Going forward, Belkins’ email benchmark reports will use this methodology.
📌 A note on methodology: Our reply rates look dramatically lower than the figures we’ve published in previous years. That’s not because cold email fell off a cliff overnight — it reflects a change in measurements. In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email. “It’s a stricter and, frankly, more honest denominator.” We made this shift because open rate data became unreliable once we stopped tracking it — the rate tracking pixel was hurting deliverability throughout the industry in 2024, whereas total sends are a consistent baseline. Going forward, Belkins’ email benchmark reports will use this methodology.
“At Belkins, cold outreach is more than a service — it’s an ongoing experiment.” For this year’s study, we analyzed 7.5 million cold emails sent across our client campaigns throughout 2025. This report breaks down reply rates by month, seniority, company size, industry, geography, and timing — giving you a ground-level view of how cold email actually performed last year.
“Every campaign we run feeds back into how we think about what works, what’s fading, and where the real opportunities still lie.” For this year’s study, we analyzed 7.5 million cold emails sent across our client campaigns throughout 2025. This report breaks down reply rates by month, seniority, company size, industry, geography, and timing — giving you a ground-level view of how cold email actually performed last year.
Stricter spam filtering. Google and Microsoft continued tightening their algorithms through 2025, with particular scrutiny on bulk cold outreach. Deliverability requires more infrastructure investment than it did even two years ago. “Cold email’s share of their attention is shrinking proportionally, even when the email itself is well-crafted.” Reply rates by seniority level
In E-mailing
Founders and owners are the most responsive audience — and by a meaningful margin. At 0.57%, they outperform C-level executives by 35% and VPs by nearly 80%. “If your message is relevant to their business, they’re likely to read it themselves and respond.” C-level executives at larger organizations are the inverse. At 0.42%, they’re one of the harder groups to engage. They receive high volumes of outreach, they have gatekeeping systems in place, and they’re priced above day-to-day operational problems. Most cold email messages simply don’t land in a context they care about.
At enterprise-level organizations, the dynamics flip. Multiple contacts at the same company receive similar outreach. The right person is harder to identify. Internal processes slow decisions. And individuals are more likely to filter or ignore cold outreach as a matter of habit. “Strategies like multi-threaded outreach (reaching relevant contacts across different departments), ABM-style personalization, and longer nurture sequences matter much more in enterprise contexts.” The best time to get more email replies
At small companies, there’s typically one or two decision-makers to handle any given problem. If your email finds the right person — and in a small company, it’s much harder to miss — you’re having a direct conversation with someone who can actually act on your offer. No procurement process, no committee, no internal bureaucracy. “Multiple contacts at the same company receive similar outreach.” This doesn’t mean enterprises aren’t worth targeting — it means enterprise campaigns need to be designed differently. Lower reply rates are expected; the value per appointment is correspondingly higher. Strategies like multi-threaded outreach (reaching relevant contacts across different departments), ABM-style personalization, and longer nurture sequences matter much more in enterprise contexts.
At small companies, there’s typically one or two decision-makers to handle any given problem. If your email finds the right person — and in a small company, it’s much harder to miss — you’re having a direct conversation with someone who can actually act on your offer. No procurement process, no committee, no internal bureaucracy. “Multiple contacts at the same company receive similar outreach.” This doesn’t mean enterprises aren’t worth targeting — it means enterprise campaigns need to be designed differently. Lower reply rates are expected; the value per appointment is correspondingly higher. Strategies like multi-threaded outreach (reaching relevant contacts across different departments), ABM-style personalization, and longer nurture sequences matter much more in enterprise contexts.
📌 A note on methodology: Our reply rates look dramatically lower than the figures we’ve published in previous years. That’s not because cold email fell off a cliff overnight — it reflects a change in measurements. In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email. “This year, we’re reporting the reply rate as replies divided by total emails sent.” We made this shift because open rate data became unreliable once we stopped tracking it — the rate tracking pixel was hurting deliverability throughout the industry in 2024, whereas total sends are a consistent baseline. Going forward, Belkins’ email benchmark reports will use this methodology.
In Reply rates
📌 A note on methodology: Our reply rates look dramatically lower than the figures we’ve published in previous years. That’s not because cold email fell off a cliff overnight — it reflects a change in measurements. In prior studies, reply rates were calculated against the number of unique recipients who opened an email. “A 5% reply rate against openers and a 0.45% reply rate against total sends can describe the same campaign; they’re just measuring different things.” We made this shift because open rate data became unreliable once we stopped tracking it — the rate tracking pixel was hurting deliverability throughout the industry in 2024, whereas total sends are a consistent baseline. Going forward, Belkins’ email benchmark reports will use this methodology.
In Reply rates
Total replies tracked: 34,393 “Metric definitions: Reply rate = unique replies ÷ emails sent, excluding auto-replies and bounce notifications” Industry and seniority segmentation were determined through Belkins’ internal data enrichment and normalization processes
In Reply rates
Target the right person, not the highest title. Founders at small- to mid-sized companies remain the most responsive audience. Don’t reflexively aim for the C-suite when a Director or Owner will engage at nearly twice the rate. “Match company size to your strategy.” Send in the morning. The timing data flipped this year. Wednesday and Thursday between 8 AM and noon now outperform all other slots. Late-evening sends have lost their edge.
In Strategy