An April store scorecard is not May solo ad traffic

Answer An April store scorecard is not a price for May solo ad traffic. BS and Co published their April 2026 edition on April 30. Thirteen brands sent 7.50 million emails and attributed $905,293 in revenue, flat against the March figure they print as $907K. That is their portfolio of store mail. It is not a rate card for a rented send.

The note that started this: Email Marketing Benchmarks: April 2026, BS&Co, April 30, 2026.

May opens on a number that looks calm. Revenue barely moved. Flows carried more of it than campaigns. If you are about to buy solo ads, the useful move is to name the list the number came from. A store that mails its own buyers is a different business from a seller who rents one email to a file you will never see.

Campaigns, the one-off sends, brought $384,662, which they count as 42.5 percent of the email-attributed revenue. Flows, the automated mail, brought $520,631, which they count as 57.5 percent. They say that flow share is the highest since they started publishing the report. That sentence is about their stores. It is not a law that automation beats a broadcast, and it is not a reason to skip a solo or to buy one.

Can an April store benchmark set a May solo ad price?

No. The April scorecard describes mail those brands sent to people who joined them. A solo ad is one rented send to someone else's list. The two numbers do not transfer.

A buyer who treats $905,293 as proof that May will be quiet has read a flat line and applied it to the wrong object. The revenue is attributed inside those accounts. You do not own the file. You buy a click from a guest appearance. The guest does not inherit the store's April, including the months when the line was flat.

The roster itself moved. They had 13 brands in April, against 14 in March. Two brands rolled off, an apparel brand and a beauty brand, and one new business-to-business brand joined. A portfolio that changes shape is a poor thing to freeze into your price. Your order names one seller. Their page names a set.

• The quote names the seller's list, not a store portfolio.
• Flow revenue and campaign revenue stay in different sentences.
• A flat month is not described as a forecast.
• The refund line is on the order before the number is admired.

What did the April 2026 store scorecard actually count?

BS and Co reported 13 brands, 7.50 million emails, and $905,293 in email-attributed revenue, flat against the March figure they print as $907K. Campaigns were $384,662 and flows were $520,631.

They also print the rates on that same set. Opens were 43.47 percent overall, 44.11 percent on campaigns, and 31.96 percent on flows. Clicks were 0.59 percent, 0.50 percent, and 2.08 percent. Spam complaints were 0.008 percent, 0.007 percent, and 0.037 percent. Revenue per recipient was $0.12, $0.05, and $1.32. Those are labels on their mail. Do not multiply them by a solo ad you have not bought. A revenue-per-recipient figure from a store that already has the customer is not a price per click from a stranger.

Two of the 13 brands sent campaigns and converted none of them. Their flows still produced revenue. That is the useful bruise in the report. A campaign can go out, look measured, and still produce no orders, while the automated mail to people already in motion keeps working. A solo ad is closer to the campaign that converted zero than to the flow that knew the buyer. Ask which column you are being sold.

What should a buyer do with a store open rate in May?

Leave it on their page. Ask the seller for the list, the domain, and the refund line on your order. A portfolio open rate is not a delivery promise.

Opens on store mail are a poor cousin of a click on a rented send. The people already know the brand. Some of the opens are a privacy proxy loading a pixel. None of that is the person on a seller's file deciding your offer is for them. If a May quote cites 44 percent opens, ask whether that 44 percent is this file, last Tuesday, on a link like yours. If the seller cannot say, they borrowed a store.

Solo ad pricing is the price of one send. April's $905,293 is not an ingredient in that price. Read the scorecard as a picture of someone else's customers. Then write the order about yours.