Cold Email Reply Rate by Industry

Belkins' latest industry split uses its own 2025 client campaigns, published in a study updated in June 2026. Food & Beverage reached 3.47%, while Construction, Financial Services, Healthcare and Legal Services sat between 0.56% and 0.60%. Banking and Insurance ranked at the bottom, but the article does not give their exact rates in its text. These figures are a useful comparison of Belkins' campaign mix, not universal targets for every seller.✓ 1

• Highest reported rate: Food & Beverage at 3.47% in this dataset.✓ 1
• Midrange group: Construction, Financial Services, Healthcare and Legal Services at 0.56% to 0.60%.✓ 1
• First decision: compare your own industry cohort against a clearly defined denominator before moving budget between sectors. Belkins uses unique replies divided by emails sent.✓ 1

1. The industry gap is real inside this dataset

Belkins identifies Food & Beverage, Education and Government as the standout industries in its 2025 campaign data. Its written results give Food & Beverage a 3.47% rate and describe that as nearly eight times the 0.45% overall campaign average. This is a within-dataset comparison. It does not mean any new Food & Beverage campaign should expect a similar number, nor that switching an offer to that industry causes an eightfold improvement.✓ 1

The same study places Construction, Financial Services, Healthcare and Legal Services in a narrow 0.56% to 0.60% band. The published article names Banking and Insurance as the lowest sectors, but the text does not provide precise figures for them. A table that assigns either industry an exact percentage from this text would overstate what was verified. Readers who need a precise rank should consult the chart and the underlying cohort definitions, then seek row counts before treating a small rank difference as meaningful.✓ 1

Those rows intentionally preserve the source's precision. Education and Government are described as standout sectors, yet their numeric rates are not given in the page text used here. It would be tempting to fill every cell in a benchmark table, but blank numeric cells are more informative than invented precision.✓ 1

2. What Belkins actually counted

The study covers Belkins client campaigns conducted from January through December 2025, though its page was updated in June 2026. It reports 7,530,489 emails analyzed and 34,393 replies tracked. The headline year therefore describes when the analysis was published, not when these messages were sent. If you use the benchmark in a 2026 planning document, label the underlying period as 2025 every time.✓ 1

Belkins defines its reported rate as unique replies divided by emails sent. That detail matters because a team's dashboard may count every reply, every contact who replied, or only positive responses. It may also divide by delivered messages or by prospects rather than total sends. Those measures answer different questions. Before comparing a local result with Belkins' 0.45% overall figure, reproduce the numerator and denominator as closely as the available records allow, and label any difference.✓ 1

The industry classification also comes from Belkins' internal data enrichment and normalization. A company with several business lines might be classified differently in another CRM. A seller who works with both banks and technology suppliers, for example, needs an explicit account-level industry rule before calculating a sector rate. Otherwise, a change in classification alone can shift the reported mix without a change in the underlying conversations.✓ 1

3. Why the rank should not become your forecast

Belkins labels its top-industry chart with a minimum of 20,000 emails sent. That threshold helps avoid treating a tiny send count as a stable industry signal, but it does not make every sector a representative sample of all businesses in that sector. The campaigns were selected and operated for Belkins clients. Offers, regions, company sizes, roles and list choices may differ between rows. Industry can be correlated with those differences without being the cause of the gap.✓ 1

The same report shows a separate company-size split: 0.72% for firms with 0 to 10 employees and 0.22% for firms with at least 10,000. It also gives 0.51% for the US and 0.48% for the UK. These are not industry-controlled adjustments. They illustrate why a sector comparison should retain company size and geography as separate fields. If your Food & Beverage list consists mostly of smaller firms while your banking list consists mostly of large firms, the raw sector difference combines both traits.✓ 1

Belkins says variations below 0.05 percentage points are within its margin of error. The 0.56% to 0.60% band spans only 0.04 points. It would be unwarranted to declare a meaningful winner among those four named sectors from the published band. The relevant decision is whether a campaign in one sector can produce qualified business for your offer, not whether a rounded reply-rate row appears slightly higher.✓ 1

4. Build a comparison your team can use

Start with a cohort table that records send date, account industry, account size, country, offer, buyer role, message variant and a unique reply indicator. Use one documented rule for assigning an account to an industry. Keep an unknown category rather than guessing. Exclude automatic responses consistently if you are matching the source's unique-reply definition. Store the total emails sent as the denominator, then show both numerator and denominator beside the percentage.✓ 1

Next, split the table only where you have enough observations to make the comparison useful. Belkins' visible chart threshold is 20,000 sends, which is a description of its chart, not a universal minimum for every team's analysis. A smaller local sample can still guide an experiment, but its rate should carry the count and a wider uncertainty range. Predefine the window and avoid repeatedly stopping the test as soon as one sector moves ahead.✓ 1

Finally, review replies for relevance and subsequent sales progress. A reply is a contact response, not a booked meeting or a qualified opportunity. Two sectors can post identical reply rates while creating different conversations for a particular product. When the source reports only an industry reply rate, it cannot tell you which sector has the best economics for your business. Keep that decision anchored to your own offer, pipeline and cost data rather than borrowing a sector rank as a revenue forecast.✓ 1

FAQ

How we researched this

We read Belkins' study on October 7, 2026 and checked its study period, total email and reply counts, calculation, classification method, industry chart threshold and published industry statements. The study comes from an agency's own client campaigns, so this article treats it as a documented sample rather than a universal census. The 2026 label refers to the publication update, while the measured campaigns ran in 2025.✓ 1