Email Bounce Rate Calculator
Enter how many emails you sent and how many bounced. See your bounce rate, whether it's safe, and exactly what to do next.
Permanent: "address doesn't exist", "user unknown". Don't know which kind? Put the total here.
Temporary: "mailbox full", "try again later".
Planning a send? Estimate the bounces first
What counts as a good bounce rate?
| Bounce rate | What it means |
|---|---|
| Under 2% | Healthy. Keep removing hard bounces after every send. |
| 2% to 5% | Too high. Your list has old or mistyped addresses. Clean it before the next send. |
| Over 5% | Danger. Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo may start putting your mail in spam, and email services like Mailchimp can pause your account. |
Hard bounces vs soft bounces
Hard bounce: the address is permanently undeliverable. The mailbox doesn't exist, the domain is gone, or the server refused it for good. Remove these right away and never send to them again. Sending to dead addresses is the fastest way to hurt your sender reputation.
Soft bounce: a temporary problem, like a full mailbox, a server that's down, or a message that was too large. These usually deliver on a later try. If the same address soft-bounces three to five sends in a row, treat it as a hard bounce and remove it.
Not sure what a bounce message means? Paste it into the bounce code lookup.
How to lower your bounce rate
- Remove every hard bounce after each send. Most email services do this for you; check that it's on.
- Check old lists before you use them. Addresses go bad as people change jobs, switch providers and abandon accounts, roughly 2% a month by common estimates.
- Fix typos at the source: a sign-up form that catches "gmial.com" saves a bounce later.
- Never send to bought or scraped lists. They're full of dead addresses and spam traps.
- Run the list through a checker first. The free list cleaner catches typos and dead domains; Veml also checks whether each mailbox really exists, from $1.49 for 25 emails.
Related free tools
What the email bounce rate calculator does
Enter how many emails you sent and how many came back, and this calculator gives you your bounce rate with a plain verdict: healthy, too high, or danger. It also tells you what to do next, and a second section estimates how many bounces to expect before you email an older list.
Benefits
- Instant verdictYour rate is shown as a percentage with a color-coded label, so you know at a glance whether you are under 2%, between 2% and 5%, or over 5%.
- Hard and soft bounces split outEnter hard bounces and, if you have them, soft bounces. The tool shows each as its own percentage, along with how many emails were delivered and your delivery rate.
- A to-do list, not just a numberBased on your result, you get specific next steps, such as how many hard-bounced addresses to remove and when to drop repeat soft bounces.
- Estimate before you sendEnter the size of a list and when you last emailed it, and the tool gives a rough range of how many addresses may bounce, so you can decide whether to check it first.
- Honest about risky listsIf you choose a bought or copied list, the estimator does not guess a number. It explains why that list is high risk and what to do if you use it anyway.
- Catches typing mistakesIf you enter more bounces than emails sent, it tells you to check your numbers instead of showing a wrong result.
- Try it with an exampleOne click fills in sample numbers so you can see how the results look before entering your own.
Who it is for
- A small-business owner who just sent a newsletter and saw a bounce count in their email service report.
- A marketer checking whether a campaign's bounces could get their Mailchimp or Constant Contact account paused.
- Someone about to email an old customer list for the first time in a year or more.
- A salesperson who wants to know if their outreach list needs cleaning before the next round.
- A freelancer explaining list health to a client in simple numbers.
How to use it
- Enter the number of emails you sent.
- Enter your hard bounces. If you only know the total, put it all here.
- Add soft bounces if your report shows them.
- Read your rate, the verdict and the list of what to do next.
- Planning a send to an older list? Fill in the estimator below with the list size and when you last emailed it.
Your privacy
The numbers you enter are only used for the math in your browser. Nothing is sent or saved anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good email bounce rate?
Under 2% is healthy. Between 2% and 5% means your list needs cleaning, and over 5% puts your sender reputation and your email account at risk.
How do you calculate bounce rate?
Divide the number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent, then multiply by 100. For example, 30 bounces out of 1,200 sent is a 2.5% bounce rate.
What is the difference between a hard and a soft bounce?
A hard bounce is permanent: the address or domain doesn't exist. A soft bounce is temporary, like a full mailbox or a server that's briefly down.
Should I remove soft bounces?
Not after one. Remove an address if it soft-bounces three to five sends in a row; by then it's usually abandoned.
Why does a high bounce rate matter?
Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo treat lots of bounces as a sign of a careless or spammy sender, so more of your mail goes to spam. Email services like Mailchimp and Constant Contact can also suspend accounts with high bounce rates.
How can I check a list before sending?
Use the free list cleaner to catch typos and dead domains, or Veml for a real mailbox check on every address.
Does this calculator upload my numbers?
No. Everything is worked out in your browser.