What are best-in-class email acceptance, hard bounce, and block bounce rates for SaaS companies?

Achieving best-in-class email deliverability for SaaS companies requires targeting high acceptance rates (98-99%), very low block bounce rates (near zero), low hard bounce rates (initially 2-3% then <1%), and low complaint/spam rates (below 0.1% and 0.3% respectively). Regularly cleaning email lists and implementing email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are crucial. SaaS providers serving multiple clients should prioritize a holistic approach to sender reputation and avoid over-reliance on industry-specific benchmarks. Metrics should be measured consistently against historical performance, and infrastructure comparisons can provide valuable insights. Data limitations and variations in how mailbox providers define metrics must be considered. Monitoring sender reputation indicators (complaint rates, spam traps, blocklists) and adhering to best practices are essential for maintaining a positive reputation and avoiding deliverability issues.

For SaaS companies, achieving best-in-class email deliverability involves targeting high acceptance rates (98-99%), low bounce rates (under 2%, ideally 1% or less), and very low complaint rates (below 0.1%). Maintaining a clean email list by regularly removing invalid addresses is crucial. Additionally, SaaS providers sending on behalf of multiple clients should focus on a holistic approach to sending practices, emphasizing sender reputation and monitoring performance against historical data. Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential, and industry-specific metrics should be viewed with caution. Comparing performance against other providers on the same infrastructure offers useful insights.

Experts indicate that for SaaS companies, block bounces should be near zero, with hard bounces initially ranging from 2-3% for first-time sends, then decreasing to under 1%. While deliverability metrics are valuable, they're inherently imperfect and data-limited. Maintaining a positive sender reputation involves monitoring complaint rates, spam trap hits, and blocklistings, coupled with sustained good sending practices. The usefulness of acceptance, hard bounce, and block bounce rates is also limited by data availability and variations in how mailbox providers define these metrics.

Technical documentation emphasizes the importance of maintaining low bounce and spam rates for optimal email deliverability. Amazon Web Services advises keeping bounce rates below 5% and complaint rates under 0.1% to avoid account reviews and service limitations when using Amazon SES. Google's documentation indicates that a spam rate exceeding 0.3% can lead to deliverability problems with Gmail. RFC documents identify hard bounces as permanent delivery failures, signaled by 5xx SMTP error codes.