Part of a larger guide
This article belongs to our complete guide WhatsApp as a Newsletter Channel: The Complete Guide, where we cover everything from design principles to measurement frameworks.
Search “WhatsApp newsletter open rate” and you’ll find the same number across 50 articles: 98%. None cite a primary source. None explain the methodology. None differentiate between delivery rate and read rate. It’s the most repeated ghost statistic in digital marketing — and it’s damaging the credibility of everyone who uses it.
We’ve been running a content newsletter on WhatsApp for months. We measure everything. And the real numbers are impressive without needing to fabricate. What didn’t exist until now was a verifiable benchmark for the metrics that actually matter: not just who opens, but who reads, for how long, and what they do after.
The Problem With Today’s “Benchmarks”
Do a quick exercise. Search for WhatsApp newsletter performance data and you’ll find three types of content:
1. Articles repeating “98% open rate” with no source. This figure appears in dozens of SaaS blogs, always vaguely attributed to “WhatsApp” or “Meta.” No published study, official report, or Meta press release backs it up. The most likely explanation: someone confused message delivery rate (which is close to 98%) with read rate, and the error was copy-pasted across the internet.
2. Vendor data measuring their own customers. Chatarmin, SleekFlow, Charles, and other platforms publish statistics, but they’re self-selected: they represent their best customers using their tools, not the market at large. If you sell a WhatsApp tool, your case studies will show excellent results. That’s not a benchmark. That’s marketing.
3. A complete vacuum on metrics beyond open rate. WhatsApp reading time? No published benchmark. Reply rates for editorial vs. promotional newsletters? Nobody has measured it publicly. Cost per minute of attention compared to email? Zero published analyses.
The result: an entire industry making channel investment decisions based on a fabricated number and the complete absence of depth metrics.
The Real Numbers: Measured and Verified Data
Here’s what we know with certainty, separating verifiable data from unsourced claims.
Open rate: 60-68%, not 98%
Our data: Our measured WhatsApp newsletter open rate is 60%. This is consistent month over month, measured across an audience receiving editorial content (not promotional, not discounts, not e-commerce alerts).
Braze (verified third-party data): Braze published on their data platform that WhatsApp messages achieve a 68% average read rate across their customer base. Braze is an engagement platform with thousands of enterprise clients. Their data has scale and verifiable methodology.
OMR (European editorial case): OMR, a German media company, reported a 66% open rate on their WhatsApp newsletter. It’s one of the few editorial (non-e-commerce) cases with public data.
The verifiable range: 60-68%. Three independent sources — our own operational data, an enterprise platform with thousands of clients, and a European editorial operator — converge on the same range. That’s a real benchmark.
Is it impressive? Absolutely. Compared to email’s real 20-25% (the 40%+ figures are inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection), WhatsApp delivers 3x more opens. You don’t need the fabricated 98% to make the case.
Reading time: 6 minutes — the metric nobody else measures
Here’s the number that changes the conversation.
Our measured average: 6 minutes per newsletter issue.
For context:
| Metric | Source | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Average email reading time | Litmus, 2022 | 9 seconds |
| Email newsletter reading time | Nielsen Norman Group | 51 seconds |
| % of emails read longer than 8 sec | Litmus, 2022 | 29% |
| WhatsApp newsletter reading time | Mazkara Studio, 2025-2026 | 6 minutes |
The multiplier: WhatsApp delivers 7x to 40x more reading time than email, depending on which benchmark you use.
- vs. general email average (9 sec): 40x more
- vs. email newsletters specifically (51 sec): 7x more
Why does this metric matter so much? Because open rate alone tells you nothing about the quality of attention. Someone opening your message and someone reading your content for 6 minutes are radically different experiences. One is a processed notification. The other is a relationship with your content.
And this metric didn’t exist as a published benchmark before we started measuring it. No article, report, or platform publishes verifiable data on how long subscribers read a WhatsApp newsletter. It’s a blind spot for the entire industry.
Click-through rate: 15-25%
Our measured range: CTAs in our WhatsApp newsletters generate between 15% and 25% click-through, depending on content type and CTA placement.
The factors that move this metric:
- Interactive buttons vs. text links: WhatsApp’s native buttons (quick reply buttons, CTA buttons) consistently outperform text links by 2-3x
- CTA placement: CTAs woven into the narrative flow of the message outperform end-of-thread CTAs
- Contextual relevance: CTAs that connect directly to the content just read outperform generic CTAs
For context: the average click-through rate for email newsletters is 2-5% (Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp). WhatsApp delivers 5-10x more clicks per reader.
Reply rate: 8-15%
On issues with interactive elements (direct questions, polls, invitations to respond), between 8% and 15% of subscribers actively reply.
This is unprecedented compared to email. The reply rate for email newsletters is effectively under 1%. Most email platforms don’t even track it as a standard metric because it’s so low it’s irrelevant.
On WhatsApp, replying is native. Subscribers aren’t “replying to an email.” They’re answering a message, the way they would with a friend. The psychological barrier to interaction is radically lower.
The Complete Picture: WhatsApp Newsletter Benchmarks 2026
This is the benchmark table that should have existed and didn’t. Verified data against industry claims.
| Metric | WhatsApp (verified) | Email (verified) | WhatsApp (unsourced claim) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open rate | 60-68% | 20-25% real | ”98%” (no source) |
| Reading time | 6 minutes | 9-51 seconds | Not measured |
| Click-through rate | 15-25% | 2-5% | “45-60%” (vendor claims) |
| Reply rate | 8-15% | <1% | Not reported |
| Delivery rate | 95-99% | 85-95% | Confused with open rate |
| Unsubscribe rate per send | 0.3-0.8% | 0.1-0.3% | Not reported |
Important notes about this table:
The “WhatsApp (verified)” column combines our data with Braze and OMR. These are the only published data points with identifiable sources and reasonably transparent methodology.
The “Email (verified)” column uses post-Apple Mail Privacy Protection data. The “real” open rates are adjusted for the impact of Apple MPP, which inflates email platform reports by 15-20 percentage points.
The “WhatsApp (unsourced claim)” column exists so you stop using those numbers. If you see an article citing 98% open rate or 45-60% CTR on WhatsApp with no primary source, you know it’s repeating marketing, not data.
The Metrics You Should Be Measuring (That Nobody Tells You About)
The benchmarks above cover standard metrics. But if you operate a content-oriented WhatsApp newsletter (not e-commerce, not promotions), there are more revealing metrics that platforms don’t track automatically.
Reading depth per message
Not all messages in a newsletter thread get read equally. In a 5-7 message thread:
- Messages 1-2: Read rate near 100% of those who open
- Messages 3-4: Drop to 75-85%
- Messages 5+: Stabilization around 65-75%
This tells you something crucial: narrative matters. If your most important message is at the end, a third of your audience won’t see it. If your primary CTA is in message 6 of 7, you’re wasting conversions.
The recommendation: your highest-value messages should go in the first 3-4 positions. Use final messages for closure, secondary CTAs, or invitations to interact.
Reply quality
Not all replies are equal. We categorize responses into three tiers:
- Simple reactions (emoji, “thanks,” “interesting”): ~60% of replies
- Substantive responses (opinion, question, personal experience): ~30%
- Extended conversations (3+ back-and-forth messages): ~10%
The 10% that generates extended conversations is where the real value sits. These are the subscribers who convert to customers, who refer others, who become brand advocates. If your newsletter only generates emoji reactions, your content isn’t provoking thought.
Screenshot rate
An indirect but revealing metric: how many people screenshot your content and share it outside WhatsApp? You can’t measure this directly, but you can track it when those screenshots appear on social media or when subscribers mention sharing.
When a subscriber screenshots your content, they’re saying: “this is valuable enough that I want to save it or show someone.” It’s the modern equivalent of clipping a newspaper article.
Reading velocity
How quickly after delivery does the newsletter get read? Our data:
- 50% read within the first 30 minutes of sending
- 75% read within the first 2 hours
- 90% read within the first 12 hours
- The remaining 10% read the next day or never
This has practical implications for send timing and for time-sensitive CTA cadence. If you launch something with a deadline, 75% of your audience will see it within 2 hours. With email, that same reach level takes 24-48 hours.
Why Email Benchmarks No Longer Mean What You Think
To properly contextualize WhatsApp data, you need to understand why the email benchmarks you know are broken.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection destroyed email metrics in 2021
In September 2021, Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection in iOS 15. This feature automatically loads all tracking pixels for all emails, marking everything as “opened” regardless of whether the user read it.
The impact: all email open rates reported after September 2021 are inflated by 15-20 percentage points. If your platform says 42% open rate, reality is probably 22-27%.
This isn’t speculation. Litmus, the most widely used email testing platform, documented the effect: emails processed by Apple Mail show artificially near-100% open rates, inflating the overall average for your entire list.
”Reading time” in email is a misleading average
Litmus’s 9 seconds and Nielsen Norman Group’s 51 seconds don’t tell the same story. The distribution is bimodal:
- ~70% of opened emails are read for less than 8 seconds (quick scan)
- ~19% are read for 8-18 seconds (surface reading)
- ~11% are read for more than 18 seconds (actual reading)
When a report says “9-second average,” what it really says is: most people don’t even read your email. The few who do pull up the average.
In WhatsApp, the distribution is radically different. There’s no “2-second scan” in a chat interface. You either read the message or you don’t open it. The sequential format of chat eliminates the possibility of skimming.
How to Use These Benchmarks for Decision-Making
Data without a decision framework is just numbers. Here’s how to translate benchmarks into action.
To decide if a WhatsApp newsletter is worth the investment
Calculate the cost per minute of attention for your current channels:
Email:
- Monthly platform cost / active subscribers = cost per subscriber
- x real open rate (post-Apple MPP) = cost per read
- / average reading time (use 0.15 minutes / 9 seconds) = cost per minute
WhatsApp:
- Cost per conversation x monthly volume = total cost
- x read rate (use 60%) = cost per read
- / average reading time (use 6 minutes) = cost per minute
If your content strategy depends on deep engagement (consultative selling, thought leadership, market education), cost per minute of attention on WhatsApp is typically 20-30x lower than email. If your strategy is mass reach at low cost, email still wins.
To set your own KPIs
Don’t copy our numbers as targets. Use these ranges as reference:
| KPI | Healthy range | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Open rate | 50-70% | <40% (possible relevance or fatigue issue) |
| Reading time | 3-8 minutes | <2 min (content isn’t generating engagement) |
| CTR | 10-25% | <8% (weak or poorly placed CTAs) |
| Reply rate | 5-15% | <3% (lack of interactive elements) |
| Unsubscribe rate | 0.2-1% per send | >2% (irrelevant content or high frequency) |
To report to stakeholders
If you need to justify WhatsApp newsletter investment to executives:
- Don’t use the 98%. It damages your credibility when someone questions it
- Lead with reading time. It’s the most impactful and least questionable metric. “Our subscribers spend 6 minutes reading each issue” is more powerful than any open rate
- Compare on cost per minute of attention. CMOs understand investment efficiency. WhatsApp at $0.01/minute vs. email at $0.30/minute is a financial argument, not an opinion
- Show the reply rate. A newsletter where 10% of subscribers actively respond isn’t a broadcast list. It’s a two-way communication channel
Benchmark Evolution: What to Expect in 2026-2027
These numbers won’t stay static. Three forces will move them:
1. Channel saturation. As more brands launch WhatsApp newsletters, subscribers will receive more messages. Open rates will likely decline from the 60-68% range toward 45-55% over the next 18-24 months. This already happened with email: open rates in the 2000s were 40%+ before volume compressed them.
2. WhatsApp Channels evolving. Meta announced paid subscriptions for WhatsApp Channels in June 2025. If this expands, it will create a premium content tier within WhatsApp that could redefine engagement metrics for editorial content.
3. Better measurement tools. As more BSPs offer detailed analytics, more granular benchmarks by industry, geography, and content type will emerge. Current numbers are averages. In 18 months, we’ll have more useful segmentations.
The advantage of starting now: you’re establishing your own baselines before saturation. Brands that start measuring in 2027 will never know what their metrics looked like in an uncrowded market. You will.
A WhatsApp Newsletter That Measures What Matters
Most platforms give you open rate and delivery. If you want to measure the metrics that actually predict newsletter value (reading time, reply quality, engagement depth), you need to design your content with measurement in mind from day one.
At Mazkara Studio, we design WhatsApp newsletters as measurable content experiences, not broadcasts with vanity metrics. If you want to know what numbers your content should be generating, get your free consultation about building a newsletter that measures what matters.
Real data is more impressive than fabricated data. You just need to know which metrics to track. We’ll help you define the right ones.