Free tool
Email bounce rate calculator
Bounce rate is bounced emails divided by emails sent, times 100. For cold outreach, keep it under 2%; above 5%, stop and verify your list. Enter your numbers to see where you stand, and paste bounce messages to find out which are permanent, temporary or a sign you're being blocked.
Total bounce rate
Hard bounce rate
permanent
Soft bounce rate
temporary
What to do
Sorted
How to read your bounce rate
| Total bounce rate | What it usually means | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2% | Healthy for cold outreach | Keep verifying new addresses and remove each hard bounce. |
| 2% to 5% | Some guessed or stale addresses | Verify the rest of the list before the next batch. |
| Over 5% | Mailbox providers notice | Pause sending, verify everything, and check your domain setup. |
These bands are common rules of thumb rather than published limits. Mailbox providers don't share exact thresholds, but they all treat repeated hard bounces as a sign of a careless or bought list.
How to bring bounces down
- Find the right address before you guess. Bylines and contact pages beat patterns. When you must guess, run the email permutator and verify before sending.
- Remove hard bounces the same day. Never retry a 5.1.1.
- Treat "blocked" bounces as a setup problem. Check your records with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker, and confirm the recipient domain accepts mail with the MX lookup.
- Ramp new mailboxes slowly. The warmup calculator shows a safe daily ramp.
For the full picture of why bounces matter for outreach, read what a good outreach bounce rate is and the outreach deliverability guide.
Questions people ask
How do you calculate email bounce rate?
Divide the number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent, then multiply by 100. If you sent 400 pitches and 10 bounced, your bounce rate is 2.5%. Track hard and soft bounces separately, because hard bounces point to a list problem and soft bounces usually clear on their own.
What is an acceptable bounce rate for cold email?
Under 2% is the common rule of thumb for cold outreach, and under 1% is better. Between 2% and 5%, clean your list before the next send. Above 5%, stop and verify every address first, because mailbox providers read high bounce rates as a sign you're mailing a bought or guessed list.
What's the difference between a hard and a soft bounce?
A hard bounce is permanent: the address or domain doesn't exist (often SMTP code 550 or 5.1.1). Remove it and never send to it again. A soft bounce is temporary: a full mailbox, a server that's down or a rate limit (4xx codes). Retry later, and drop the address if it keeps soft bouncing.
Why do blocked bounces matter more than the others?
A bounce that mentions spam, policy, reputation or authentication (often 5.7.x codes) means the receiving server refused you, not the address. It points to a problem with your domain setup or sending reputation. Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC and slow down before sending more.
Is anything I paste uploaded?
No. The rates and the bounce sorting run in your browser. Bounce messages you paste never leave this page.
Related
Mailbox warmup calculator
See how many days a new outreach mailbox needs to reach full volume, and how many pitches a month you can send across several mailboxes.
Email permutator
Enter an editor's name and their site's domain to get every likely address format, ordered by how often each pattern is used.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker
Look up a domain's live SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and see what's wrong in plain English: duplicate SPF, too many lookups, a weak DMARC policy.
See where your next links could come from.
Paste your URL. The agent finds lists, comparison pages, resource pages and guides where your product fits, checks each site and finds the editor to contact. Free, no card.
