Skip to content
Security Integrations Features Pricing Use Cases Learn Blog Log In Start Free Trial Search
Glossary

What is open rate?

Open rate is the percentage of sent emails that get opened. Once the canonical email metric — increasingly unreliable since Apple Mail's 2021 privacy changes silently "open" most emails for most users.

Why open rate is broken

Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) preloads remote images, which historically were how open tracking worked. Roughly half of email recipients now show as opened regardless of whether they actually opened the email.

What to track instead

Reply rate (still works). Click-through rate (works if links are unique per recipient). Calendar bookings or trial sign-ups (the actual outcome).

Why we mention it

Some sales tools still optimize for open rate. Don't. Optimize for replies and meetings booked.

Want to put this into practice?

Try Infonet free for 14 days. AI-personalized LinkedIn outreach with home IP protection. From $39/mo.

Start free trial