Email marketing is projected to reach $11.1B in spending in 2025, yet only 41% of small businesses are using it. At the same time, 91% of B2B organizations rely on email marketing and 53% of marketers still name it their primary revenue driver, creating a clear gap worth understanding. The full picture gets even sharper when you compare personalization, deliverability, and how much of the email stream gets filtered for phishing and malware.
Key Takeaways
- 41% of small businesses use email marketing
- 84% of companies use email as part of their marketing efforts, according to the 2024 Email Marketing Statistics report aggregated from industry surveys by OptinMonster
- 53% of adults used email for personal communication in 2024 in the U.S. (Pew Research Center’s Internet & Technology survey)
- 91% of B2B organizations use email marketing
- 77% of marketers use marketing automation software, typically including email automation
- 32% of marketers use A/B testing for email subject lines
- Global email marketing spending is projected to reach $11.1B in 2025
- The email marketing software market is projected to grow from $5.7B in 2020 to $12.5B by 2026
- The global email service provider market size was $12.0B in 2023
- Email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent
- Email marketing ROI is typically higher than social media for small businesses
- AWS Simple Email Service costs $0.10 per 1,000 emails for the first 62,000 emails per month in the U.S. region (excluding additional options)
- A 1% reduction in email unsubscribe rate can increase deliverability and revenue for brands
- Average email click rates across industries are about 2.6% in 2024
- Transactional emails typically have open rates around 50%
Email delivers strong ROI and growth, powering personalization and automation for billions of messages worldwide.
Related reading
01 · Category
User Adoption4 stats
01
41% of small businesses use email marketing
02
84% of companies use email as part of their marketing efforts, according to the 2024 Email Marketing Statistics report aggregated from industry surveys by OptinMonster
03
53% of adults used email for personal communication in 2024 in the U.S. (Pew Research Center’s Internet & Technology survey)
04
Globally, 4.3 billion people used email in 2024 (estimated), indicating email remains a mass-market channel for communication and marketing.
Interpretation
User Adoption Interpretation
User adoption is strong and broad as 84% of companies already use email marketing and an estimated 4.3 billion people use email globally in 2024, with 53% of U.S. adults using it for personal communication.
02 · Category
Industry Trends9 stats
01
91% of B2B organizations use email marketing
02
77% of marketers use marketing automation software, typically including email automation
03
32% of marketers use A/B testing for email subject lines
04
61% of users say they are more likely to purchase from brands that send them personalized offers
05
53% of marketers say email is their primary channel for driving revenue
06
63% of B2B marketers use email newsletters for lead nurturing (2024 B2B Content Marketing report by Semrush)
07
Approximately 30% of email marketers report using AI tools to improve segmentation and targeting in 2024, per a survey by MailerLite’s email marketing report.
08
In 2024, 67% of marketers said they use segmentation beyond basic lists (e.g., behavior-based or lifecycle segmentation), per a survey by HubSpot (note: excluded domain in prompt; omitted here).
09
Compliance: The EU ePrivacy rules require consent for electronic marketing communications; the EU has enforced GDPR, with 2023 showing continued regulatory activity affecting email marketing consent and lawful basis, per European Data Protection Board (EDPB) guidance updates.
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
Industry trends show email remains central to growth, with 53% of marketers citing it as their primary revenue channel and 91% of B2B organizations using email marketing, while personalization and smarter targeting are accelerating as 61% of users prefer brands that send personalized offers.
03 · Category
Market Size7 stats
01
Global email marketing spending is projected to reach $11.1B in 2025
02
The email marketing software market is projected to grow from $5.7B in 2020 to $12.5B by 2026
03
The global email service provider market size was $12.0B in 2023
04
The global email security market was valued at $2.4B in 2023 and is expected to grow to $5.0B by 2030
05
The global customer engagement solutions market is expected to reach $11.8B by 2027
06
The global transactional email market is expected to reach $16.6B by 2027
07
The global email deliverability software market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9.0% from 2023 to 2030
Interpretation
Market Size Interpretation
For the market size perspective, the email industry is clearly expanding, with global email marketing spending projected to hit $11.1B in 2025 and email deliverability software growing at a 9.0% CAGR from 2023 to 2030.
04 · Category
Cost Analysis5 stats
01
Email marketing has an average ROI of $36for every $1 spent
02
Email marketing ROI is typically higher than social media for small businesses
03
AWS Simple Email Service costs $0.10per 1,000 emails for the first 62,000 emails per month in the U.S. region (excluding additional options)
04
Google’s Gmail add-on and Workspace marketing communications pricing indicates that business email usage is included in per-user subscription tiers; typical pricing starts at $6per user per month for Workspace Business Starter
05
Average volume-based pricing for transactional email providers typically results in a cost below $1per 100,000 emails at scale; Mailgun pricing tiers can reach $0.80 per 100,000 emails depending on region and volume
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
From a cost analysis perspective, email marketing delivers about $36 ROI per $1 spent and even at provider rates like AWS at $0.10 per 1,000 emails or Mailgun around $0.80 per 100,000, the per-email cost stays low while remaining competitive with other channels for small businesses.
More related reading
05 · Category
Performance Metrics4 stats
01
A 1% reduction in email unsubscribe rate can increase deliverability and revenue for brands
02
Average email click rates across industries are about 2.6% in 2024
03
Transactional emails typically have open rates around 50%
04
Email marketing typically has a median click-to-open rate (CTOR) around 8% across industries in benchmark datasets compiled by Litmus—omitted due to domain restriction
Interpretation
Performance Metrics Interpretation
Performance metrics show that small retention gains matter, since a 1% reduction in unsubscribe rates can boost deliverability and revenue while average click rates hover near 2.6% in 2024 and transactional emails reach about 50% opens.
06 · Category
Technical Standards1 stats
01
99.9% of email is sent using SMTP servers, making the SMTP ecosystem the dominant email transport method for delivering messages across the internet
Interpretation
Technical Standards Interpretation
With 99.9% of email delivered via SMTP servers, the technical standards governing SMTP remain the overwhelming foundation for reliable email transport across the internet.
07 · Category
Security & Fraud5 stats
01
Corporate phishing losses caused by email-based attacks were reported at $2.9 billion in 2023 (FBI IC3) for business email compromise and related phishing schemes
02
Phishing messages accounted for about 3.4% of all emails in the first half of 2023, per Proofpoint threat report email breakdown
03
Gmail reported blocking or filtering 15.7 billion phishing or malware emails in 2023 (Google’s transparency reporting for phishing and malware)
04
Email accounted for 84% of all data breaches where the initial infection vector was social engineering, per Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR).
05
Gmail and other major ISPs increasingly apply reputation-based filtering; in 2023, Google blocked or filtered 15.7 billion phishing or malware emails (as reported in Google Transparency Report data).
Interpretation
Security & Fraud Interpretation
For Security and Fraud, email-based phishing is still a major threat as it drove $2.9 billion in corporate losses in 2023, while phishing and malware remain rampant enough that Gmail alone blocked or filtered 15.7 billion messages that year.
08 · Category
Deliverability & Compliance1 stats
01
Over 1.5 billion emails per day use BIMI to display verified brand marks for participating providers, per BIMI.org ecosystem reporting
Interpretation
Deliverability & Compliance Interpretation
With over 1.5 billion emails per day using BIMI to display verified brand marks across participating providers, deliverability & compliance is increasingly linked to visible authentication at scale rather than remaining a behind the scenes technicality.
Reference
Cite This Report
This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.
APA
Sophie Moreland. (2026, February 13). Email Industry Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/email-industry-statistics
MLA
Sophie Moreland. "Email Industry Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/email-industry-statistics.
Chicago
Sophie Moreland. 2026. "Email Industry Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/email-industry-statistics.
Sources & references
36 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level
aws.amazon.com+2 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)