Substack Open Rate: What's Average, What's Good, and Why Yours Is Diluted by Inactive Subscribers

Updated 17 October 2026.

How Substack counts an "open"

Like every email platform, Substack records an open when the tracking image in the email loads. Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads that image on Apple's servers whether or not the reader looks at the email, which is why open rates rose industry-wide after 2021 and why they overstate real reading. Estimates for 2026 put Apple's share of recorded opens between about 49% (Stripo, B2B) and 62% (Litmus, July 2026).

Substack also shows post views (people who read on the web or in the app) and link clicks. For judging engagement, use clicks and views; for judging deliverability, use the trend in opens rather than the level.

What's an average Substack open rate? (what we can and can't say)

There is no official number. What exists are benchmarks from other platforms and ad networks, each with its own methodology:

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Three things follow. Newsletters that people chose to receive open at roughly twice the rate of general marketing email. A Substack publication with a 40%+ open rate is in line with newsletter norms; one at 20–25% is below them. And none of these numbers accounts for how old or how clean the list is, which is usually the real difference between two publications.

What's a "good" open rate for your size and cadence

Use the beehiiv size bands as the closest proxy: smaller publications tend to show higher open rates (mid-40s for 1,000–10,000 subscribers) and large ones lower (around 40% above 250,000), mostly because large lists accumulate more inactive readers over time. Daily publications tend to see lower per-issue opens than weekly ones, because readers skip issues. Rather than chasing a number, track your own click-to-delivered rate and post views per issue over time, and watch for the slow decline that signals list ageing rather than content problems.

Why your open rate is diluted

Open rate = opens ÷ delivered. Every subscriber who never engages sits in the denominator.

Worked example: 10,000 subscribers, 3,000 opens → 30%. Suppose 4,000 subscribers have opened nothing and clicked nothing in six months. Among the 6,000 who still exist as readers, the same 3,000 opens are 50%. Your writing did not change; your denominator did.

This matters for two reasons beyond vanity. First, Gmail and the other mailbox providers watch engagement per sender; a list where 40% never engage teaches them your mail is ignorable, which pushes placement toward Promotions or spam for everyone. Second, sponsors and your own paid-conversion math are built on "subscribers," and a diluted list overstates the audience you are actually selling.

Find inactive subscribers in the Substack dashboard

Substack's subscriber dashboard lets you filter and act on segments. The official guide gives examples such as paid subscribers, active commenters and subscribers who "opened your emails more than 10 times over the last 30 days." Creators also describe an activity rating and filters on post views, email opens in the last N emails, and subscription date.

A conservative approach that several experienced Substack writers use (Simon Owens describes a monthly version of it): define inactive as all of the following, so newer or web-only readers are not caught by mistake:

• Subscribed at least six months ago (a newer subscriber may not have had the chance to engage).
• Never clicked a link in your newsletter.
• No email opened in the last 30 days (or in the last N issues).
• No post views in the last six months, if the filter is available.
• Not a paid subscriber.

Then export the segment as CSV ("Download last export" on the Subscribers page) so you have a dated snapshot before you do anything. Remember that an address with zero opens can still click or view on the web; check clicks and views before treating "zero opens" as "inactive."

Remove, keep, or revive?

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Checked 17 October 2026: Substack’s subscriber-segments help documents both direct emails to selected subscribers and publishing a post whose email/app notification goes only to a saved segment. In Publish settings, expand Advanced and select “Only send to a specific audience segment.” The post itself remains visible on the web and in the app. Use that distinction when planning a re-permission message.

Want the dormant share measured rather than guessed? The free List Health Audit maps dormancy, scans for invalid addresses and dead domains and estimates recoverable revenue, within 72 hours. Export your subscriber CSV and send it with the form. Get the free audit →

What creators report after cleaning

Several Substack writers have published their own before-and-after notes. Treat them as anecdotes, not benchmarks:

• Wander Wealth, 6 February 2025: 200 inactive subscribers. The publisher’s structured byline names Wander Wealth; no individual author is asserted here.
• Kim Doyal, 7 April 2026: 428 subscribers. A first-person account of examining imports and lifetime engagement.
• Ana Calin, 14 March 2026: 37,023 subscribers. The public title reports revenue rising; the full article is paywalled, so that claim has not been independently checked.
• Niccolò Hilgendorf, 18 March 2025: cutting a list in half. The author explicitly says much of the post was AI-written; treat its figures as an anecdote, not measured guidance.
• Bin Jiang, 14 December 2025: choosing an inactivity benchmark. A personal account of checking activity before removing subscribers.
• Terrence Harris, 31 August 2026: 93 subscribers. A personal reflection on audience quality and list size.

All six pages were checked on 17 October 2026. These are self-reported anecdotes, not controlled evidence that deleting subscribers increases revenue. A higher percentage can come from a smaller denominator with no increase in readers.

Before migrating off Substack

If you plan to move to beehiiv, Ghost or an ESP, clean before you export. Importing a list with bounced addresses and years-dormant subscribers into a new platform starts your new sending domain's reputation at its worst, and most platforms count the imported addresses toward your bill. Run the re-permission step on Substack, remove non-responders and bounces, export, and import only the active list.

Ways to raise open rate that aren't deletion

• Clicks over opens as your north star, so you stop optimizing for a number Apple Mail inflates.
• A re-permission post to the inactive segment, written as a normal issue with a direct subject line, before any removal.
• Consistency of send time and cadence, which affects whether skipped issues become abandoned subscriptions.
• A welcome sequence for new subscribers (Substack supports a welcome email) that sets expectations and asks for a first click.
• Promotions-tab awareness: a move to Gmail's Promotions tab lowers opens without being a deliverability failure; ask engaged readers to move you to Primary rather than chasing the filter.

FAQ

What is a good open rate on Substack? Substack publishes no average. Newsletter benchmarks from other platforms cluster around 40–45% for engaged lists, with a general-market average near 21.5%. A better test is your own click rate and post views per issue over time.

Why is my Substack open rate dropping? Usually list ageing: new subscribers arrive, some stop reading, and the inactive share grows, diluting the percentage. Other causes include a move to Gmail's Promotions tab, a change in send time, and the privacy-proxy effect shifting as your readers' email clients change.

Does Substack remove inactive subscribers automatically? No. Removal is manual, through the dashboard filters and "Remove." Bounced addresses also remain until you remove them, according to deliverability vendors and creators; verify against Substack's current help documentation.

Will deleting subscribers hurt my newsletter? Your open-rate percentage will rise. Revenue will not change unless you delete paying or paying-later readers by mistake, which is why you should filter paid subscribers out and separate "never engaged" from "engaged once." Export a CSV first.

Do paid subscribers get a refund if I remove them? Yes. Substack's help documentation says removing a paying subscriber cancels their subscription and issues a pro-rated refund.

How do I see who hasn't opened my emails? In the Subscribers dashboard, filter on email opens over a chosen window (the official guide uses opens in the last 30 days as an example), combine with subscription date and clicks, and export the result.

Start with the scan. The free List Health Audit tells you how much of your Substack list is really dormant, what is invalid, and what is worth reviving, within 72 hours. Get the free audit →

Continue with these guides

• List revival
• Email sunset policy
• List revival playbook
• Beehiiv inactive subscribers
• Dormant email list calculator

Sources

• Substack Support, How do I use the subscriber dashboard on Substack?: filtering, Remove, pro-rated refunds for paid subscribers. https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058529871
• On Substack, A guide to your subscriber dashboard: filter examples including opens over the last 30 days; CSV export. https://on.substack.com/p/subscriber-dashboard-guide
• Simon Owens, Substack Note on monthly list-cleaning criteria (six months subscribed, never clicked, no opens in 30 days). https://substack.com/profile/2374227-simon-owens/note/c-15350549
• Creator write-ups on list cleaning (Wander Wealth, Kim Doyal, How We Grow Today, Niccolo Hilgendorf, The Binjiang, Newports and News), 2025–2026: anecdotes, not benchmarks.
• beehiiv, The State of Newsletters 2026: open-rate medians by audience size. https://www.beehiiv.com/blog/the-state-of-newsletters-2026
• Paved, April 2026 sponsorship benchmark (48.87% open rate), via secondary reports.
• Campaign Monitor 2026 average open rate (21.5%), via compilations such as MailBluster and Hostinger.
• Klaviyo, Email Benchmarks 2026. https://klaviyo.com/products/email-marketing/benchmarks
• Stripo (49.29%) and Litmus July 2026 (62.26%, via Webtonic): Apple share of recorded opens.
• EmailListValidation (vendor), on Substack not pruning lists and not exporting aggregate list-health metrics. Vendor claim; verify.