outbound-reply-rate-benchmarks
Outbound Reply Rate Benchmarks
Reply rate is the primary health metric for cold outbound. Not open rate (unreliable since iOS 15). Not click rate (irrelevant if there's no link). Reply rate tells you whether the message was relevant enough to earn a response.
The number everyone asks for: a good cold email reply rate is 5-12%. But that range is useless without context. Reply rates vary dramatically by ICP, deal size, personalization tier, signal quality, and sequence position. A 4% reply rate on a CEO-targeted enterprise sequence is strong. A 10% reply rate on a manager-targeted SMB sequence is average.
Benchmark Tables
By ICP segment
| Segment | Target reply rate | Good | Acceptable | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SMB (< 50 employees) | 10-15% | > 12% | 8-12% | < 8% |
| Mid-market (50-500 employees) | 7-12% | > 10% | 5-10% | < 5% |
| Enterprise (500-5,000 employees) | 4-8% | > 6% | 3-6% | < 3% |
| Strategic / F500 (5,000+ employees) | 2-5% | > 4% | 2-4% | < 2% |
Why the difference: SMB prospects get fewer cold emails and have shorter decision cycles. Enterprise prospects get 50+ cold emails per week and have procurement processes that discourage fast replies.