Mailchimp Has Benchmarks For Every Industry Except The One You're Actually In

In 2023, Mailchimp totted up open, click and bounce rates from its own users across dozens of trades and published the lot as a benchmarking table, minus anything resembling wellness. This includes practices like yours, in the sense that you're left borrowing someone else's average and hoping it fits.

Page updated: 13 Aug 2026

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Practices sending newsletters into the void with nothing to measure against are, technically, working blind, and Mailchimp's data at least gives them a general shape to aim for, even though it wasn't built with them in mind.

Original Research	A running tally of Mailchimp's own customer open, click and bounce rates, broken down by trade.
Source	https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/
Overview	Mailchimp aggregates campaign performance from its own platform users and sorts it into broad industry categories, publishing the results as a public benchmarking resource.
Year	2023
Publisher	Brand, Mailchimp
Relevance to Wellbeing	There is no wellness, coaching or therapy category, so any practice using this has to squint at the nearest general match and treat it loosely.
Our Verdict	Too early to tell it's real data from real sends, but none of it was gathered with your sort of practice in the room.
Our Summary	The numbers come from millions of actual campaigns, not a survey of forty people who like Mailchimp. You get open, click and bounce rates together, so it's a full picture rather than one flattering stat. There's no wellness category, so you're comparing yourself to someone selling insurance or trainers. Mailchimp doesn't publish sample sizes per category, so the precision is more vibe than science.
Our Geo View	Applies broadly to all countries

Abstract of wellbeing niches and revenue flow

Recognise how this might impact your practice

Why this might matter to you

Coaching: this matters because a coach's open rate says more about her subject lines than her actual coaching, and it helps to know which one needs the work.
Therapy: this matters because a low click rate might just mean clients read the email on the loo and forgot, not that nobody cares.
Training: this matters because a training business sending timetable updates needs people to actually open them before the class moves.
Alternative Healing: this matters because a healer's newsletter open rate tells you whether the moon cycle update is landing or just orbiting the spam folder.
Clinical: this matters because appointment reminder emails only help if they're opened before the appointment, not after.
Retreat/Centre: this matters because a retreat's booking emails need a decent click-through rate, or the yurts stay empty.

Where this came from

Mailchimp collected its own senders' open, click and bounce figures and sorted them by trade, with wellness left off the list entirely.

Mailchimp, resource page, published 2023.

Credibility flags: methodology is aggregated customer send data, not independently audited. Sample size not disclosed. Publisher type is a brand reporting on its own platform.

How we scored this

A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.

46%

Practice fit, 25How new, 70How solid, 50

It's marked down on practice fit, since wellness never got its own category, and marked down a little on how solid the method is, given nobody outside Mailchimp checked the sums, though it holds up fine on recency for something from 2023.

It's worth considering changes to your marketing practices

What this means for your marketing

Pull your last three campaign reports and check your open rate against the nearest general average before deciding it's bad.
Say plainly to your team that "wellness average" doesn't exist yet, so stop hunting for one that isn't there.
Put a subject-line test on the calendar every month, since that's the one thing this data can actually help with.
Brief whoever writes your emails that click rate matters more than open rate if the goal is bookings, not vanity.
Track your own numbers over six months instead of chasing someone else's average from a different trade.

Who this is most useful for

Practice type	Relevance	Recommended action
Coaching	Medium	Use the general average loosely, then track your own trend over time.
Therapy	Low	Treat the benchmark as background noise, not a target.
Training	Medium	Check click rates on class reminder emails against the nearest matching category.
Alternative Healing	Low	Skip comparison entirely, watch your own open rate over months instead.
Clinical	Medium	Compare appointment reminder open rates loosely, don't lean on it too hard.
Retreat/Centre	Medium	Watch click-through on booking emails, that's the number that pays the bills.

Best before

Best before: whenever Mailchimp next refreshes the page, or sooner if they finally add a wellness category. Check the current figures at Mailchimp before quoting these as current.

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