What is a good bounce rate percentage to aim for in email marketing?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 21 May 2025
Updated 17 Aug 2025
7 min read
Email marketing is a cornerstone of digital strategy for many businesses, and a key metric we constantly monitor is the bounce rate. This percentage indicates how many of your sent emails failed to be delivered to the recipient's inbox. Understanding what constitutes a good bounce rate is crucial for maintaining a healthy sender reputation and ensuring your messages reach their intended audience.
When an email bounces, it means the recipient's mail server rejected it. This can happen for various reasons, from a full inbox to an invalid email address. High bounce rates can signal to internet service providers (ISPs) that your sending practices might be problematic, potentially leading to your emails being flagged as spam or even your sending domain being blocklisted.
Therefore, aiming for an optimal bounce rate is not just about vanity metrics, it's about safeguarding your email program's effectiveness and ensuring consistent deliverability. Let's delve into what a healthy bounce rate looks like and how to achieve it.
Understanding email bounce types
Before defining a "good" bounce rate, it's essential to distinguish between the two primary types of email bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces. Each type carries different implications for your email deliverability and list hygiene. Understanding these differences is the first step in managing your bounce rate effectively.
Hard bounces indicate a permanent delivery failure. This typically means the email address is invalid, no longer exists, or the domain name is incorrect. When you encounter a hard bounce, it's a strong signal that the email address should be removed from your list immediately to prevent further delivery issues and protect your sender reputation. Failing to remove these addresses can severely impact your deliverability over time.
Soft bounces, on the other hand, represent a temporary delivery issue. This could be due to a recipient's inbox being full, the server being temporarily down, or the email message being too large. Unlike hard bounces, soft bounces may resolve themselves, and you might consider retrying delivery. However, repeated soft bounces for the same address should prompt an investigation, as they can also indicate an unengaged or problematic subscriber.
Hard bounces
Cause: Permanent email address error, e.g., non-existent address or invalid domain. These indicate that the email will never be delivered to this address.
Action: Immediately remove the address from your list. Continued attempts to send to hard bounced addresses can damage your sender reputation.
Soft bounces
Cause: Temporary issue like a full inbox or server problems. The email might be delivered later.
Action: Monitor, and if persistent, consider removing the address or re-engaging the subscriber. A reasonable soft bounce tolerance is important.
What is a good bounce rate?
A good email bounce rate is generally considered to be below 2%. Many email marketing platforms and industry experts, including MyEmma, echo this benchmark. This means that for every 100 emails you send, no more than two should bounce.
While 2% is a widely accepted guideline, it's important to remember that bounce rates can vary based on several factors, including your industry, the age and source of your email list, and how frequently you send emails. For instance, some industries might naturally have slightly higher or lower averages. Always consider these contextual elements when evaluating your own performance. If you are aiming for a best-in-class performance, you should consider a target bounce rate even lower than 2%.
Even with optimal list hygiene, a 0% bounce rate is almost impossible to achieve. People change jobs, email addresses become inactive, and temporary server issues occur. The goal isn't zero, but rather to keep the rate consistently low to signal to ISPs that you are a responsible sender.
Bounce rate benchmarks
Excellent: Below 0.5%. This indicates exceptional list quality and sending practices.
Good: Between 0.5% and 2%. This is a healthy range for most email marketers.
Warning: Between 2% and 5%. Rates in this range suggest potential issues that need investigation.
Critical: Above 5%. A bounce rate this high indicates significant list hygiene or sending reputation problems, risking blocklisting.
The impact of high bounce rates
A high bounce rate is more than just a missed opportunity to reach a subscriber, it's a red flag to mailbox providers. When ISPs see a significant portion of your emails bouncing, they interpret this as a sign of poor list management, spammy sending practices, or even malicious intent. This can swiftly lead to negative consequences for your sender reputation and overall email program health.
The primary impact is on your sender reputation. ISPs track various metrics to determine whether to deliver your emails to the inbox, the spam folder, or reject them entirely. A consistently high bounce rate can severely degrade your sender score, making it harder for your legitimate emails to reach their destination. This decline in reputation can also lead to your sending IP address or domain being placed on a public or private blocklist (or blacklist), effectively halting your email campaigns for affected recipients.
Moreover, some ISPs, like Campaign Monitor, explicitly state that high bounce rates can lead to delivery issues. Ultimately, a high bounce rate signifies that you're sending emails to a significant number of unengaged or invalid addresses, which wastes resources and diminishes the return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing efforts. It's crucial to understand what bounce rate percentage causes deliverability problems.
Strategies for reducing bounce rates
Achieving and maintaining a low bounce rate requires proactive measures and consistent attention to your email list quality. It's an ongoing process, not a one-time fix. Here are some key strategies to help you keep your bounce rate in the healthy range and improve overall email deliverability.
Regularly cleaning your email list is perhaps the most critical step. This involves identifying and removing invalid, inactive, or unengaged subscribers. Automated processes can help with hard bounce removal, but soft bounces and dormant subscribers require a more nuanced approach. Utilizing email validation services can also significantly reduce bounces before you even hit send. For more insights on how to measure and manage this, refer to our guide on how to measure bounce rate to maintain reputation.
Implement double opt-in: This ensures that new subscribers confirm their email address, preventing typos and fake sign-ups. It's a fundamental step for list quality.
Use email validation services: Before sending, run your lists through a validator to identify and remove invalid addresses. This dramatically reduces hard bounces. For typical rates after this process, review what typical bounce rates look like after email validation.
Segment and re-engage: Send targeted content to engaged subscribers. For inactive ones, try re-engagement campaigns before removing them.
Monitor bounce rates by campaign: Regularly review your bounce rates for each campaign to identify anomalies or recurring issues with specific segments. Knowing how bounce rates are calculated is key.
Metric
Acceptable benchmark
Impact on deliverability
Bounce rate
Below 2%
Higher rates signal poor list quality, damaging sender reputation and increasing spam folder placement.
Complaint rate
Below 0.1% (ideally), max 0.3%
Critical for sender reputation. Too many complaints lead to spam folder or blocklisting.
Deliverability rate
98% or higher
The ultimate measure of success, indicating emails reaching the inbox versus bounces or spam.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Maintain an email bounce rate below 2% as a benchmark for good list hygiene.
Prioritize hard bounce removal immediately to protect your sender reputation.
Implement double opt-in for all new subscribers to ensure valid email addresses.
Common pitfalls
Neglecting to remove hard bounces, which severely harms sender reputation over time.
Ignoring soft bounces, as persistent issues can indicate underlying problems or unengaged users.
Failing to segment lists, leading to higher bounces from sending irrelevant content.
Expert tips
Focus on maintaining a very low spam complaint rate, as this is more critical than bounce rates for ISP evaluation.
Understand that ISP reporting on bounces (e.g., blocks vs. hard bounces) can vary, so internal classification matters.
Remember that a 0% bounce rate is unrealistic; the goal is consistent low performance and proactive management.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says that while spam complaints are a major focus, bounce rates are more of an internal metric for compliance and list hygiene, as major ISPs like Google don't explicitly highlight bounce rates in their sender requirements.
October 3, 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says that hard bounces above 2%, or possibly 3% at most, should be a caution. However, senders with strong hygiene generally run well below these figures, and a key factor is how ESPs classify permanent failures, distinguishing between 'blocks' and 'hard bounces'.
October 3, 2024 - Email Geeks
Maintaining a healthy email ecosystem
A good email bounce rate is a cornerstone of effective email marketing and directly influences your sender reputation and deliverability. While the accepted benchmark typically hovers around 2% or lower, the ultimate goal is to maintain a consistently clean and engaged email list. This proactive approach ensures your messages consistently land in the inbox, rather than being returned as undeliverable.
By understanding the nuances of hard and soft bounces, regularly validating your lists, and promptly addressing any issues, you can significantly reduce your bounce rate. This commitment to list hygiene not only improves your deliverability but also maximizes the ROI of your email campaigns, building trust with both your subscribers and mailbox providers.
