One of our values at Kit is to work in public. We strive for transparency, which is why we share information that is typically kept private, such as our finances.
One commonly asked question by creators looking for a new email marketing platform is, “How is your email deliverability?”
Here is our monthly deliverability report to answer that question:
If you missed previous Deliverability reports, you can check them out below:
In August, Kit sent over 1.1 billion messages (1,142,229,866 to be exact).
When messages are sent, they can be delivered or they can bounce. For more details on how email deliverability operates, check out our blog post here. But for a little TLDR- The more messages delivered, the better!
It is inevitable for some messages to bounce due to invalid addresses, full mailboxes, etc., but a good delivery rate indicates healthy deliverability for Kit. We consider a system-wide delivery rate of 98% and above to be very healthy.
In August, our system-wide delivery rate was 99%

This high delivery rate indicates a healthy reputation for Kit, which gives our customers a solid foundation for their email deliverability. To get even more detailed about how well we’re performing, it helps to filter down by mailbox provider.
Here are the top 5 domains Kit sends to in terms of volume:
1. Gmail.com
Volume: 688 million messages
Delivery rate: 99.6%,
2. Yahoo.com
Volume: 112 million messages
Delivery rate: 99.86%
3. Hotmail.com
Volume: 113 million messages
Delivery rate: 99.88%
4. AOL.com
Volume: 25 million messages
Delivery rate: 99.88%
5. Outlook.com
Volume: 14 million messages
Delivery rate: 99.89%
The average open rate of all emails sent through Kit was 30%.
Senders often ask how their open rates stack up to others. Truth is, open rates can vary greatly depending on your industry and audience type (B2B vs. freemail addresses, for example). However, here’s a general scale you can use to measure your performance:

I talk more about open rates and why they aren’t always reliable in this article.
Our system-wide complaint rate remained over 10x lower than industry standard
A complaint is when a subscriber marks a message as spam. An elevated complaint rate is a signal that the sender’s quality of mail isn’t good. We have a team dedicated to ensuring that the mail sent from Kit is wanted by the recipients.
In the email industry, a complaint rate less than 0.1% is seen as healthy. Kit’s complaint rate in August was 0.007%, which speaks to the high quality of mail sent by our customers and the healthy reputation of our infrastructure.
Deliverability tip of the month:
It’s time to start preparing for your holiday emails! Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with all of the tips you need:
Industry news and Kit updates
Kit was ranked #1 in deliverability!

EmailToolTester recently compared the deliverability of several ESPs, and Kit took the #1 spot. You can read the full report here.
Deliverability Defined podcast

We’ve been having so much fun diving deep into the details of helping you reach the inbox of your subscribers! Get caught upon all the podcast episodes we released in August below, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
- Episode 10: List Validation 101 with Lauren Myer from Kickbox
- Episode 11: What your ESP can (and can’t) do for your deliverability
- Episode 12: 4 Steps to easily plan your email marketing for holiday promotions
- Episode 13: All about Gmail: The spam folder, the promotions tab, postmaster tools, and more
Follow us on Instagram at @DeliverabilityDefined for weekly deliverability education and tips.