B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Recent
0.12%
0.12% -- email complaint rate for commercial email (2025)
According to a study by Return Path, the average complaint rate for commercial email is 0.12%.
Attribution:
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Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
0.12%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2025
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
60
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Return Path
Primary
Tier C
https://emailmastery.org/email-marketing-glossary/complaint-rate/ ↗
Source Article
Complaint Rate
What is the complaint rate for email marketing?
The complaint rate in email marketing refers to the percentage of email recipients who mark an email as spam or junk. It’s calculated by dividing the number of complaints by the total number of emails delivered, then multiplying by 100 to get a percent…
Original Research
Return Path
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Cited by Email Mastery glossary from a Return Path study (no study date provided; vintage set to year of archive collection). Source notes this equates to 1 complaint per 833 delivered emails. Rate calculated as complaints divided by emails delivered.
Methodology documented
Trend Over Time
| Period | Value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 0.12% | |
| 2025 (current) | 0.12% | 0% |
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
commercial email: 0.12% email complaint rate. Source: Return Path (2025). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/return-path-commercial-email-complaint-rate
HTML Embed
<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/return-path-commercial-email-complaint-rate" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>0.12%</strong> -- email complaint rate for commercial email<br><small>Source: Return Path (2025) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/return-path-commercial-email-complaint-rate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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