Email Deliverability Statistics 2026: Inbox Placement, Spam Rates and DMARC
Marketing email reached the inbox 87.2% of the time worldwide in 2025, according to Validity, up from 83.5% in 2024. Another 6.6% went to spam and 6.1% never arrived. Gmail had the best inbox rate of the big four mailbox providers at 89.8%, and Microsoft the worst at 77.4%. Europe led the regions at 91.1%. Authentication is spreading fast. In our scan of the Tranco top 10,000 sites in November 2026, 82.7% of domains that receive mail published DMARC and 61.1% enforced it.
Key statistics
- The average global inbox placement rate for marketing email was 87.2% in 2025, according to Validity.
- Global inbox placement rose 3.7 percentage points in 2025, from 83.5% to 87.2%, a 4.4% relative gain, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
- Gmail placed 12.4 percentage points more marketing email in the inbox than Microsoft in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
- Europe had the highest regional inbox placement rate at 91.1% in 2025, according to Validity.
- 61.1% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains enforced DMARC with quarantine or reject in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
Email inbox placement rate worldwide
Validity measures deliverability as inbox placement, the share of emails that land in the inbox rather than spam or nowhere at all. Its data comes from seed-list tests that its customers run before and during campaigns.
Inbox placement recovered in 2025 after a dip in 2024. The global rate rose 3.7 points to 87.2%. Almost all of the gain came from fewer missing emails, which fell from 9.8% to 6.1%. Spam placement barely moved. In other words, mailbox providers blocked and deferred less mail, and passed the decision to the recipient.
Validity links the change to the bulk sender rules that Gmail and Yahoo brought in from February 2024 and Microsoft followed in 2025. Google's rules apply to anyone sending about 5,000 messages a day to personal Gmail accounts. They require SPF, DKIM and DMARC, one-click unsubscribe and a spam rate below 0.1%. Since November 2025 Gmail has stepped up rejections of mail that does not comply.
Senders seem to be keeping inside those limits. The average complaint rate in Validity's data was 0.06% in 2025, 40% below Google's target. Hard bounces averaged 1.46% and outright rejections 3.20%. For how open rates relate to this, see our email open rate benchmarks.
Source: Validity 2025 and 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Reports.
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The average global inbox placement rate for marketing email was 87.2% in 2025, according to Validity.
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6.6% of marketing emails tracked worldwide landed in the spam folder in 2025, according to Validity.
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6.1% of marketing emails tracked worldwide went missing, blocked or deferred by the mailbox provider, in 2025, according to Validity.
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The average global inbox placement rate for marketing email was 83.5% in 2024, according to Validity.
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9.8% of marketing emails tracked worldwide went missing in 2024, according to Validity.
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Validity's 2024 benchmark edition put the global inbox placement rate at 84.8%, according to Validity's 2025 report.
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Global inbox placement rose 3.7 percentage points in 2025, from 83.5% to 87.2%, a 4.4% relative gain, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 87.2% (2025, Validity 2026 report) minus 83.5% (2024, Validity 2025 report) = 3.7 points. 3.7 / 83.5 = 4.4% relative. Validity describes this as a 3.7 percent uplift.
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The global missing rate fell from 9.8% in 2024 to 6.1% in 2025, a 3.7-point drop, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 6.1% missing (2025, Validity 2026 report) minus 9.8% (2024, Validity 2025 report) = -3.7 points. Spam placement was 6.7% in 2024 and 6.6% in 2025, so almost all of the inbox gain came from fewer blocked or deferred emails.
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The average spam complaint rate across tracked senders was 0.06% in 2025, according to Validity.
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The average unknown user rate, or hard bounce rate, was 1.46% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Mailbox providers rejected an average 3.20% of tracked emails in 2025, according to Validity.
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The 2025 average complaint rate of 0.06% sat 40% below Google's 0.1% target for bulk senders, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity and Google data.
How we calculated it: (0.1% Google target - 0.06% Validity 2025 average) / 0.1% = 40%. Google sender guidelines: keep user-reported spam rate below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%. The two rates are measured differently: Validity uses its own complaint feeds, Google uses Postmaster Tools.
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Gmail treats senders of about 5,000 or more messages a day to personal Gmail accounts as bulk senders under rules in force since 2024, according to Google.
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Gmail asks bulk senders to keep user-reported spam rates below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%, under guidelines in force since 2024, according to Google.
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Mailbox providers received 70% of their inbound email activity in the first ten minutes of each hour in 2025, according to Validity.
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Just 2% of total email volume produced 37% of all email-driven sales in 2025, according to Validity.
| Year | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 83.5% | 6.7% | 9.8% |
| 2025 | 87.2% | 6.6% | 6.1% |
| Change (points) | +3.7 | -0.1 | -3.7 |
Email inbox placement rate by mailbox provider
Four providers, Microsoft, Apple, Gmail and Yahoo, handle most consumer email. Validity calls them MAGY. Each filters mail in its own way, so the same campaign can land very differently.
All four big providers improved in 2025, and the order did not change. Gmail stayed on top at 89.8%. Microsoft stayed at the bottom at 77.4%, 12.4 points behind Gmail. Microsoft is also the strictest junk filter. It sent 15.1% of tracked mail to junk, 2.4 times Gmail's share.
Apple made the biggest jump, 5.7 points. Apple has no bulk sender rules of its own. Validity puts the gain down to a halo effect, as senders cleaned up their programmes to meet Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft rules.
Smaller regional providers are a blind spot. Validity says their inbox rates trail the big four by about 10 to 25 points. The widest gap is in South America, where regional providers placed only 62.7% of mail in the inbox. Gmail's share of mailboxes in the data fell to 42.9% from 47.8%, so the long tail matters more than many senders assume.
Source: Validity 2025 and 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Reports.
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Gmail had an average inbox placement rate of 89.8% in 2025, the highest of the four biggest mailbox providers, according to Validity.
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Yahoo had an average inbox placement rate of 87.3% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Apple Mail had an average inbox placement rate of 82.0% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail) had an average inbox placement rate of 77.4% in 2025, the lowest of the big four, according to Validity.
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Microsoft sent 15.1% of tracked marketing emails to junk in 2025, according to Validity.
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Gmail had an average inbox placement rate of 87.2% in 2024, according to Validity.
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Yahoo had an average inbox placement rate of 86.0% in 2024, according to Validity.
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Apple Mail had an average inbox placement rate of 76.3% in 2024, according to Validity.
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Microsoft had an average inbox placement rate of 75.6% in 2024, according to Validity.
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Gmail placed 12.4 percentage points more marketing email in the inbox than Microsoft in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 89.8% Gmail minus 77.4% Microsoft inbox placement, Validity 2026 report (2025 data) = 12.4 points. In 2024 the gap was 87.2% - 75.6% = 11.6 points (Validity 2025 report).
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Microsoft junked 2.4 times as much tracked marketing email as Gmail in 2025, 15.1% against 6.4%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: Spam placement 15.1% Microsoft / 6.4% Gmail (Validity 2026 report, 2025 data) = 2.36, rounded to 2.4.
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Apple Mail improved inbox placement by 5.7 points in 2025, the biggest gain of the four largest mailbox providers, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 2025 minus 2024 inbox placement (Validity 2026 and 2025 reports): Apple 82.0 - 76.3 = 5.7; Gmail 89.8 - 87.2 = 2.6; Microsoft 77.4 - 75.6 = 1.8; Yahoo 87.3 - 86.0 = 1.3. Ranked largest first.
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Regional mailbox providers in South America placed 62.7% of tracked email in the inbox in 2025, 25.3 points below the big four, according to Validity.
| Mailbox provider | Inbox 2024 | Inbox 2025 | Change (points) | Spam 2025 | Missing 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 87.2% | 89.8% | +2.6 | 6.4% | 3.8% |
| Yahoo | 86.0% | 87.3% | +1.3 | 6.4% | 6.3% |
| Apple | 76.3% | 82.0% | +5.7 | 10.8% | 7.2% |
| Microsoft | 75.6% | 77.4% | +1.8 | 15.1% | 7.5% |
Email deliverability by region and country
Validity splits its seed data into five regions and nine spotlight countries. Every region improved in 2025.
Europe is still the best region for reaching the inbox, at 91.1%. Germany leads every country at 97.5%. Validity credits widespread double opt-in and strict legal rules. The UK reached 91.5%. Its lists carry about twice the global share of Microsoft addresses, so it gained when Microsoft's sender rules rewarded compliant senders.
South America and Asia improved most, by 10.6 and 8.3 points. The Asian average hides a split. China reached 88.9%, because most senders there run international programmes on the big four. Chinese providers such as QQ and NetEase placed only 57.9%. India came last of the countries at 71.0%.
The US sits below the global average at 86.8%. Canada, with stricter consent rules, reached 89.4%, 2.6 points higher. Validity rounds this to three points.
Source: Validity 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, country spotlight tables.
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Europe had the highest regional inbox placement rate at 91.1% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Oceania had an inbox placement rate of 87.9% in 2025, according to Validity.
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South America had an inbox placement rate of 88.0% in 2025, up 10.6 points, the biggest regional gain, according to Validity.
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North America had an inbox placement rate of 86.7% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Asia had an inbox placement rate of 86.4% in 2025, according to Validity.
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All five regions Validity tracks improved inbox placement in 2025, by an average of 5.1 percentage points, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 2025 minus 2024 regional inbox placement: Asia 86.4 - 78.1 = 8.3; Europe 91.1 - 89.1 = 2.0; North America 86.7 - 85.0 = 1.7; Oceania 87.9 - 84.9 = 3.0; South America 88.0 - 77.4 = 10.6. Mean of five = 25.6 / 5 = 5.12. Simple average, not weighted by volume.
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South America inbox placement rose 13.7% in relative terms in 2025, from 77.4% to 88.0%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: (88.0 - 77.4) / 77.4 = 13.7%. 2025 figure from the Validity 2026 report, 2024 figure (77.4%) from the Validity 2025 report.
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Germany had the highest inbox placement rate of the countries Validity monitors, 97.5% in 2025, according to Validity.
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The United Kingdom had an inbox placement rate of 91.5% in 2025, according to Validity.
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Canada had an inbox placement rate of 89.4% in 2025, according to Validity.
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The United States had an inbox placement rate of 86.8% in 2025, according to Validity.
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India had an inbox placement rate of 71.0% in 2025, the lowest of the countries in the report, according to Validity.
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Germany placed 26.5 percentage points more tracked email in the inbox than India in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 97.5% Germany minus 71.0% India inbox placement, Validity 2026 report country tables (2025 data) = 26.5 points. Countries covered: China, India, France, Germany, UK, US, Canada, Australia, Brazil.
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Canada placed 2.6 percentage points more tracked email in the inbox than the US in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 89.4% Canada minus 86.8% US, Validity 2026 report country table. Validity rounds this to a three percent gap in its text.
| Region | Inbox 2024 | Inbox 2025 | Change (points) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 89.1% | 91.1% | +2.0 |
| South America | 77.4% | 88.0% | +10.6 |
| Oceania | 84.9% | 87.9% | +3.0 |
| North America | 85.0% | 86.7% | +1.7 |
| Asia | 78.1% | 86.4% | +8.3 |
Email authentication statistics (DMARC, SPF and BIMI)
Authentication proves that a message comes from the domain it claims. Two sources measure adoption here. Sinch Mailgun asks senders in a survey. We checked the DNS records of the Tranco top 10,000 domains on 4 November 2026.
DMARC is now the norm on large websites. Of the 7,241 top 10,000 domains that receive mail, 82.7% publish a DMARC record and 92.6% publish SPF. Most go further than the monitor-only p=none that Gmail requires. 61.1% quarantine or reject failing mail, and 35.1% reject it outright. Bigger sites are stricter. Enforcement falls from 74.6% in the top 1,000 to 56.1% in ranks 5,001 to 10,000.
The survey and the scan agree on direction but not level. In Mailgun's survey, 61% of senders said they used DMARC in 2025, up from 43% in 2023. About 52% of those enforced it. In our scan, 73.9% of domains with DMARC enforce it. The gap is expected. Top domains are large, well staffed brands, and survey respondents include many smaller senders. 27% of Mailgun's DMARC users also did not know their own policy.
By domain type, US .gov sites are strictest, with 80.9% enforcing. Japanese .jp sites are the most relaxed of the large groups, at 38.3%. BIMI, which shows a brand logo in the inbox and needs an enforced DMARC policy, reached 22% of senders in the Mailgun survey. For outbound sales mail, see our cold email statistics.
Source: StatisticsGlobal DNS scan of the Tranco top 10,000 domains, 4 November 2026. Invalid or duplicate records (0.3%) not shown.
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82.7% of mail-enabled domains in the Tranco top 10,000 published a DMARC record in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. Mail-enabled (non-null MX): 7,241. With exactly one valid DMARC record (v=DMARC1 with p=none, quarantine or reject): 5,985. 5,985 / 7,241 = 82.7%.
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61.1% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains enforced DMARC with quarantine or reject in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. Of 7,241 mail-enabled domains: p=quarantine 1,883, p=reject 2,542. (1,883 + 2,542) / 7,241 = 61.1%. pct values below 100 are counted as enforced (126 domains).
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35.1% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains used the strictest DMARC policy, p=reject, in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. p=reject: 2,542 of 7,241 mail-enabled domains = 35.1%.
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21.5% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains had a monitor-only DMARC policy, p=none, in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. p=none: 1,560 of 7,241 mail-enabled domains = 21.5%.
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17.1% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains had no DMARC record at all in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. No v=DMARC1 record at _dmarc.<domain>: 1,237 of 7,241 = 17.1%. A further 19 had invalid or multiple records and are counted as neither valid nor missing.
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92.6% of mail-enabled top 10,000 domains published an SPF record in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. Exactly one apex TXT record starting v=spf1: 6,705 of 7,241 mail-enabled domains = 92.6%. 3,127 (43.2%) end in -all (hard fail) and 3,196 (44.1%) in ~all (soft fail).
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73.9% of top 10,000 domains that published DMARC enforced it in November 2026, against 52% of DMARC users in the Mailgun survey, calculated by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. Enforced (quarantine or reject) 4,425 / valid DMARC 5,985 = 73.9%. Mailgun 2026 Email Impact Report: 34% quarantine + 18% reject = 52% of senders using DMARC (survey, 2025).
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Among the top 1,000 sites, 74.6% of mail-enabled domains enforced DMARC in November 2026, against 56.1% for ranks 5,001 to 10,000, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. Ranks 1-1,000: 688 mail-enabled, 513 enforced = 74.6%; 612 with DMARC (89.0%); 346 p=reject (50.3%). Ranks 1,001-5,000: 2,858 mail-enabled, 1,840 enforced = 64.4%. Ranks 5,001-10,000: 3,695 mail-enabled, 2,072 enforced = 56.1%.
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80.9% of mail-enabled .gov domains in the Tranco top 10,000 enforced DMARC in November 2026, the highest of the 12 largest TLDs, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. .gov: 94 mail-enabled domains, 76 quarantine or reject = 80.9%; 68 p=reject (72.3%). Compared with the 12 TLDs with the most mail-enabled domains in the list. Small sample.
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38.3% of mail-enabled .jp domains in the Tranco top 10,000 enforced DMARC in November 2026, the lowest of the 12 largest TLDs, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. .jp: 162 mail-enabled domains, 62 quarantine or reject = 38.3%; 71 (43.8%) use p=none. Next lowest: .net 41.4% (166 of 401), .de 49.7% (82 of 165).
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87.2% of DMARC records on mail-enabled top 10,000 domains asked for aggregate (rua) reports in November 2026, counted by StatisticsGlobal.
How we calculated it: StatisticsGlobal queried MX, apex TXT and _dmarc TXT records for the Tranco top 10,000 domains (list 746WX) on 4 November 2026 via Cloudflare and Google DNS-over-HTTPS, all 10,000 resolved. DMARC records containing a rua= tag / 5,985 valid DMARC records = 87.2%.
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61% of email senders said they had set up DMARC for all active sending domains in 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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43% of email senders said they used DMARC in 2023, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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Self-reported DMARC use among senders rose 18 percentage points between 2023 and 2025, a 42% relative increase, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Sinch Mailgun data.
How we calculated it: 61% (2025) minus 43% (2023) = 18 points. 18 / 43 = 41.9% relative. 2024 was 54%. Mailgun calls the 18 points an 18% increase.
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34% of senders using DMARC set their policy to quarantine in 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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21% of senders using DMARC kept a p=none policy in 2025, and 27% did not know their policy, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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52% of DMARC users in the Sinch Mailgun survey enforced quarantine or reject in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Sinch Mailgun data.
How we calculated it: 34% quarantine + 18% reject = 52% of senders using DMARC. Mailgun states 51% in its key findings, likely from unrounded shares.
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65% of high-volume senders, sending 100,000+ emails a month, had implemented DMARC in 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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22% of email senders said they had set up BIMI brand logos in 2025, up from under 10% in earlier years, according to Sinch Mailgun.
| Rank band | Mail-enabled domains | Any DMARC | Enforced (quarantine or reject) | p=reject |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 1,000 | 688 | 89.0% | 74.6% | 50.3% |
| 1,001 to 5,000 | 2,858 | 83.8% | 64.4% | 38.4% |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | 3,695 | 80.6% | 56.1% | 29.7% |
| All top 10,000 | 7,241 | 82.7% | 61.1% | 35.1% |
Email deliverability by industry and email service provider
Three sources cover sectors and platforms. Validity reports inbox placement by sector. Mailgun reports delivery rates from its own sending. EmailToolTester ran seed tests on 15 email service providers until January 2024.
Senders whose mail people expect do best. Transportation reached 97.2% inbox placement, mostly operational messages such as shipping and booking updates. Real estate came last at 80.1%, with 15.9% sent to spam. Validity says sectors with long gaps between purchases struggle to build the engagement signals that providers now weigh.
Business email is harder to deliver than consumer email. Mail to hosting platforms such as Office 365 reached the inbox 83.0% of the time, 4.2 points below the global average. Mail through corporate filters such as Proofpoint managed 79.0%. Many B2B messages face both. For wider context see our B2B email marketing statistics.
Delivery rates look far better than inbox rates because they measure something else. Mailgun's top 10 industries had a volume-weighted delivery rate of 97.7% in 2025, yet a delivered email can still sit in spam. Mailgun's media figure also differs within its own page, 95.95% in the table and 95.05% in a callout. We use the table. Platform choice matters too. In EmailToolTester's last test, in January 2024, results ranged from 94.2% for ActiveCampaign to 47.1% for Benchmark Email, a 47.1-point spread.
Source: Sinch Mailgun 2026 Email Impact Report, benchmarks chapter. Delivery rate counts emails accepted by the receiving server, including those later filtered to spam.
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Transportation was the best-performing sector for inbox placement in 2025, at 97.2%, according to Validity.
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Real estate senders had the lowest sector inbox placement rate, 80.1%, in 2025, according to Validity.
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Inbox placement ranged 17.1 percentage points between the best and worst sectors in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 97.2% Transportation minus 80.1% Real Estate, Validity 2026 report sector table (21 sectors, 2025 data) = 17.1 points.
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B2B email to hosting platforms such as Office 365 and Google Apps reached the inbox 83.0% of the time in 2025, according to Validity.
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B2B email passing through corporate filtering companies reached the inbox 79.0% of the time in 2025, according to Validity.
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B2B email to hosting platforms reached the inbox 4.2 points less often than the global average in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Validity data.
How we calculated it: 87.2% global inbox placement minus 83.0% for B2B hosting platforms = 4.2 points. For corporate filtering companies the gap is 87.2 - 79.0 = 8.2 points. Validity 2026 report, 2025 data.
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Air freight and logistics senders had a 99.25% delivery rate on Mailgun in 2025, the highest of the top 10 industries, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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Media senders had a 95.95% delivery rate on Mailgun in 2025, the lowest of the top 10 industries, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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Information technology senders sent 172.9 billion emails through Mailgun in 2025, more than any other industry, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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The top 10 industries on Mailgun had a volume-weighted delivery rate of 97.7% across 494.8 billion emails in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Sinch Mailgun data.
How we calculated it: Sum of (emails sent x delivery rate) / total emails sent for the 10 industries in the Mailgun benchmarks table. Total sent = 494.78 billion. Result 97.68%. Uses the table value of 95.95% for Media.
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Retail senders on Mailgun logged about 4,629 unsubscribes per million emails in 2025, 14 times the media rate, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Sinch Mailgun data.
How we calculated it: Retail: 37.4 million unsubscribes / 8.08 billion emails = 4,629 per million. Media: 7.4 million / 22.7 billion = 326 per million. 4,629 / 326 = 14.2. Mailgun reports unsubscribe counts, not rates.
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15 email service providers averaged an 83.1% deliverability rate in seed tests in January 2024, according to EmailToolTester.
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ActiveCampaign had the highest deliverability rate of 15 email service providers tested in January 2024, at 94.2%, according to EmailToolTester.
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HubSpot had a 77.7% deliverability rate in seed tests in January 2024, 12th of 15 providers, according to EmailToolTester.
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Benchmark Email had the lowest deliverability rate of 15 providers tested in January 2024, at 47.1%, according to EmailToolTester.
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Deliverability rates between the best and worst email service providers tested in January 2024 differed by 47.1 points, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from EmailToolTester data.
How we calculated it: 94.2% ActiveCampaign minus 47.1% Benchmark, EmailToolTester round 12 (January 2024) = 47.1 points.
| Sector | Inbox | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transportation | 97.2% | 1.1% | 1.8% |
| Energy, utilities and waste | 95.0% | 1.8% | 3.1% |
| Telecommunications | 92.6% | 4.7% | 2.7% |
| Government | 91.4% | 5.4% | 3.2% |
| Travel and hospitality | 90.8% | 4.1% | 5.1% |
| Law firms and legal services | 82.1% | 8.0% | 9.9% |
| Consumer services | 81.2% | 10.9% | 7.9% |
| Healthcare services | 80.3% | 10.7% | 9.0% |
| Real estate | 80.1% | 15.9% | 4.1% |
| B2B hosting platforms (all sectors) | 83.0% | 9.6% | 7.4% |
How email deliverability is measured, and the limits of the data
Deliverability numbers depend on what is counted and who is in the sample. The sources on this page measure different things.
Validity's inbox placement rates come from seed-list tests. Its customers send campaigns to test addresses at hundreds of mailbox providers, and Validity records where each copy lands. Validity does not publish the number of seeds or tests, and its customers pay for deliverability tools, so they may be more careful senders than average. The report calls its percentage point changes percent changes. We give them as points.
Sinch Mailgun publishes two kinds of data. The benchmarks are delivery rates from more than 400 billion emails sent through its platform in 2025. The survey covers more than 1,200 senders, fielded from late September to early November 2025, and is self-reported. Only 25% of those senders run seed tests, so most cannot see their own inbox rate.
EmailToolTester's tests used GlockApps seed lists and counted Gmail tabs as inbox. It paused testing after January 2024, citing doubts about external testing tools, so its provider rankings are dated. Our DNS scan is a snapshot of the most visited sites, not of all senders. Many email programmes send from subdomains or third-party platforms that we did not check. The raw results and scripts are published at /data/snapshots/dns-scan/ so anyone can repeat the scan.
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25% of email senders used seed mailbox (inbox placement) tests to measure deliverability in 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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43% of email senders said their ability to reach the inbox improved in the 12 months to late 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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40% of email senders named landing in spam as a top deliverability challenge in 2025, the most common answer, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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53% of email senders actively monitored their sender reputation with tools such as Google Postmaster Tools in 2025, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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46% of email senders used double opt-in to confirm new subscribers in 2025, up from 40%, according to Sinch Mailgun.
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22% of email senders rarely or never cleaned their contact lists in 2025, against 39% a year earlier, according to Sinch Mailgun.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good email deliverability rate in 2026?
The global average inbox placement rate was 87.2% in 2025, according to Validity. Gmail averaged 89.8%. A rate above 90% puts a sender ahead of the average in every region except Europe, where the average was 91.1%.
Did email deliverability improve compared with last year?
Yes. Global inbox placement rose from 83.5% in 2024 to 87.2% in 2025, a gain of 3.7 points. Every region and all four major mailbox providers improved. The missing rate fell from 9.8% to 6.1%.
Which email provider is hardest to reach the inbox at?
Microsoft, which runs Outlook and Hotmail. It placed 77.4% of tracked marketing email in the inbox in 2025 and sent 15.1% to junk, according to Validity. That is 12.4 points below Gmail.
Which country has the best email deliverability?
Germany, at 97.5% inbox placement in 2025, followed by France at 94.0% and the UK at 91.5%. India had the lowest rate of the countries Validity reports, 71.0%. The US was at 86.8%.
How many companies use DMARC?
In our scan of the Tranco top 10,000 domains on 4 November 2026, 82.7% of domains that receive mail published DMARC and 61.1% enforced it. In Sinch Mailgun's survey, 61% of senders said they used DMARC in 2025, up from 43% in 2023.
Will email deliverability get better in 2026?
Validity expects Microsoft's rate to keep rising as more senders meet its rules, and Apple's too. It expects Gmail's rate may fall, because Gmail now sorts by engagement and enforces its rules harder since November 2025. Yahoo may dip short term as AT&T and Comcast mailboxes move to it. We will update this page when the 2027 benchmark is published.
Sources
- Validity, 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report: An Analysis of Inbox and Spam Placement Rates Worldwide, March 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- StatisticsGlobal, Email authentication (SPF and DMARC) DNS scan of the Tranco top 10,000 domains, 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Validity, 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, March 2025, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Google, Email sender guidelines (Google Workspace Admin Help), rolling page, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Sinch Mailgun, The 2026 Email Impact Report, Chapter 3: Deliverability: The impact of inbox placement, 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Sinch Mailgun, The 2026 Email Impact Report, Chapter 2: Email benchmarks: How do you measure up?, 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- EmailToolTester, Email Deliverability Test: The Latest Data for January 2024 (Round 12), January 2024, page updated 5 August 2026, accessed 4 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
Changes to this page
- : Page published with the Validity 2025 and 2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Reports, the Sinch Mailgun 2026 Email Impact Report, Google's email sender guidelines, EmailToolTester round 12 and a StatisticsGlobal DNS scan of the Tranco top 10,000 domains on 4 November 2026.