Cold email reply rate in 2026
Reply rates here count people, per prospect contacted. Out-of-office and other automatic replies are left out.
of B2B prospects replied in person to a cold email sequence. That is 2,510 of 120,441 prospects.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 2.1% of B2B prospects who were sent a cold email sequence replied in person, based on 120,441 prospects across 16 outbound programs.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that cold email reply rates ranged from 0.5% to 4.4% by program, with the top quarter of programs at 3.2% or more.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 17% of in-person cold email replies were marked interested (315 of 1,848 replies where interest was tracked).
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that prospects received an average of 2.9 cold emails each (346,655 emails to 120,441 prospects).
How many cold email replies are automatic
Most sending tools count an out-of-office message as a reply. That makes a reported reply rate look much better than the conversations behind it.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 47% of prospects who replied to a cold email sent only an automatic reply, such as an out-of-office message (2,218 of 4,728 replying prospects).
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found a cold email reply rate of 3.9% when every reply is counted and 2.1% when only people are counted, across the same 120,441 prospects.
Cold email bounce rate
Bounces as a share of all cold emails sent.
of cold emails bounced. That is 4,289 bounces in 344,620 emails.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found a cold email bounce rate of 1.24% on B2B lists (4,289 bounces in 344,620 emails).
LinkedIn connection acceptance and reply rates
Connection requests sent from real people at each company to named B2B buyers, with a short message sequence after acceptance.
of LinkedIn connection requests were accepted. That is 2,885 of 17,791 requests.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 16.2% of B2B LinkedIn connection requests were accepted (2,885 of 17,791 requests across 12 outbound programs).
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that LinkedIn connection acceptance ranged from 6% to 24% by program, among programs that sent at least 500 requests.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 2.9% of people sent a LinkedIn connection request went on to reply (513 of 17,791).
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that 17.8% of accepted LinkedIn connections replied to a follow-up message (513 of 2,885).
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found a LinkedIn InMail reply rate of 2.9% (48 replies to 1,682 InMails).
Cold email vs LinkedIn reply rates
Share of prospects contacted who replied in person. LinkedIn is measured per connection request sent, cold email per prospect emailed.
A B2B prospect was 1.4 times as likely to reply to LinkedIn outreach as to a cold email sequence.
- The SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark found that a B2B prospect was 1.4 times as likely to reply to LinkedIn outreach as to a cold email sequence (2.9% against 2.1%).
How these numbers were measured
The data covers B2B outbound programs that SeedLift ran for its clients and for itself between January 1 and October 31, 2026. Buyers were in software, healthcare, life sciences, industrial, consumer goods, financial services and real estate.
- A program is one company's outreach on one sending tool. A prospect is one person contacted in that program.
- A reply counts as automatic when the sending tool flagged it as automatic or out of office. Everything else counts as a reply in person.
- For one program, the number of prospects is estimated from its lifetime total, scaled to the share of its emails sent inside the period.
- The bounce rate leaves out one small program where bounces were not recorded.
- Interest was tracked on 14 of the 16 email programs, so the interested share is measured on those.
- All figures are totals across programs. No client is identified.
How to cite this page
Use any figure here with credit to the SeedLift 2026 Outbound Benchmark and a link to this page. We update the numbers as new campaign data comes in, and the date at the top shows the latest update.