FORKOFF Outreach Ledger 2026, Cold Email Open Rates
Citation source: https://forkoff.xyz/stats/cold-email-open-rates-2026

Dataset
-------
Sample: 1,247 first-touch cold-email sends
Collection window: 2026-03-15 to 2026-05-01 (7 weeks)
Published: 2026-05-07
Last updated: 2026-05-22
Next refresh: annually (next 2027-05-07)
License: CC BY 4.0 with canonical-URL citation
Format: UTF-8 CSV, RFC 4180

Collection method
-----------------
Per-campaign open-event aggregation from ReachInbox. Open events captured at
the campaign-step level. Deduplicated by recipient address and campaign step.
Bounce and suppression-list rows removed before computing open rate. Industry,
role, and company-size segments applied post-hoc against the leads CSV.

What counts as an open
----------------------
A first-pixel-load event registered by the ReachInbox open tracker on the
first send to a given recipient address. Subsequent step-2, step-3, and step-4
sends to the same recipient are not counted in this dataset.

Schema
------
section: findings | industry | role | company_size | pattern_reject | pattern_fix
segment: human-readable segment label
metric: open_rate (percent) | open_rate_delta_pp_vs_avg (percentage points vs cross-industry average) | reply_rate (percent)
value_pct: numeric (no percent sign)
sample_n: sends in the slice
notes: free-text qualifier

Citation
--------
APA
FORKOFF Operating Team. (2026). Cold Email Open Rates 2026: First-party
benchmark research from the FORKOFF outreach ledger. FORKOFF.
https://forkoff.xyz/stats/cold-email-open-rates-2026

BibTeX
@misc{forkoff_cold_email_2026,
  author = {FORKOFF Operating Team},
  title  = {Cold Email Open Rates 2026: First-party benchmark research from the FORKOFF outreach ledger},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://forkoff.xyz/stats/cold-email-open-rates-2026},
  note   = {Dataset of 1,247 first-touch sends, 2026-03-15 to 2026-05-01}
}

Contact
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press@forkoff.xyz for media + research follow-up.