Calculator · Free
Is your cold reply rate top quartile or below industry average?
Pick your industry and channel, enter your current reply rate, and see exactly how far above or below the verified benchmark you sit.
Your numbers
Use the last 90 days of campaigns from your sequencer.
Where you sit
Benchmarks: Belkins 2025 (16.5M emails), Instantly 2026, Expandi 2025.
Signal-based outreach reports 15 to 25% reply rates[6]. That is a +13 pp gap from where you sit today.
Cold email reply rate has fallen from 8.5% (2019) to 3.43% (2026 platform avg)[4]. Industry medians are sticky; getting above them is mostly about timing and specificity, not subject-line wizardry.
How it works
- Step 01
Pick channel and industry
Cold email and LinkedIn benchmark differently. Industry matters too: Solar/Construction averages above 6%, Cybersecurity below 5%.
- Step 02
Enter your reply rate
Use the last 90 days of campaigns from your sequencer. Replies divided by sent, not by opened.
- Step 03
See your percentile + the lift target
We show your delta vs the industry median and what jumping to top-quartile or warm-outreach reply rates would mean.
Every number on this page links to a primary source
We cite original studies (Ehrenberg-Bass, RAIN Group, HubSpot, Bridge Group, Instantly, Belkins) rather than secondhand vendor blog posts. Where a stat has a known caveat, we say so.
- [1]Cold reply baseline
Instantly Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 (billions of emails sent Jan to Dec 2025): 3.43% platform-wide cold email reply rate. Top 25% of senders achieve 5.5%+; the elite top 10% reach 10.7%+.
Instantly Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 · 2026Source - [2]Top industry reply
Belkins 2025 Cold Email Response Rate Study (16.5M emails, 93 industries): Solar, Construction, and Environmental Services lead at 6.3%+ reply with 43 to 48% open rate. IT Consulting 5.93%, Software Development 5.89%, Business Consulting 5.92%, Cloud Solutions 4.97%, Cybersecurity 4.86%.
Belkins 2025 Cold Email Response Rate Study · 2025Source - [3]LinkedIn vs email
Expandi State of LinkedIn Outreach H1 2025 (70,130+ campaigns, 13K accounts, 20M+ attempts): LinkedIn DM reply rate averages 10.3% versus cold email 5.1% (~2x lift). Multi-channel coordinated outreach (email + phone + LinkedIn) converts 4 to 7% vs 1 to 3% for email-only (Prospeo 2026).
Expandi State of LinkedIn Outreach H1 2025 · 2025Source - [4]Reply rate decline
Cold email reply rate trend: 8.5% (2019) to ~7% (2023) to ~5.1% (2024) to 3.43% platform avg (Instantly 2026). Belkins 2025 study found a 15% YoY decline from 2023 (6.8%) to 2024 (5.8%).
Belkins 2024 Reply.io / Instantly historical comparison · 2024Source - [5]Personalization lift
Belkins LinkedIn Outreach Study 2025: connection-request acceptance is nearly identical with or without a note (26.42% vs 26.37%), but reply rate jumps to 9.36% with a personalized message vs 5.44% without (72% lift).
Belkins LinkedIn Outreach Study 2025 · 2025Source - [6]Warm vs cold lift
Cold baseline: 3.43% platform-wide cold email reply rate (Instantly Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026, billions of emails Jan to Dec 2025). Signal-based outreach (specific trigger + tailored value prop) achieves 15 to 25% reply rate per Autobound 2026 aggregation citing Lemlist, Instantly, Belkins primary data; midpoint 17% used here. Lemlist primary: advanced personalization beyond first-name reaches 17% vs 7% without.
Note: The lift multiplier is applied to your stated baseline rather than overriding it, so your inputs drive the estimate. Range bounds: floor 5x lift (3.43% to 17%), ceiling 7x lift (3.43% to 25%).
Autobound aggregation citing Lemlist, Instantly, Belkins; Instantly Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 · 2026Source
Reply Rate Benchmark FAQ
Reply rate is timing, not just copy.
Satellyte detects the signals that move you into the high-reply band. Even average copy gets above-average replies when the timing is right.