An open rate near 60 percent can still be a weak click

Answer A high open rate can still be a weak click. Melanie Balke, updating her agency guide on August 12, 2026, writes that well-optimized accounts she runs open at 60 to 65 percent, that Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates those opens, and that she judges the work on clicks and revenue. That is her book of store accounts. It is not a solo ad rate.

The note that started this: The 10 Best Klaviyo Email Marketing Agencies in 2026, Melanie Balke, last updated August 12, 2026.

The number 60 percent will get waved at you this month. Someone will say it is what good mail does now. Read who measured it, and what they refuse to use it for. Balke is explicit. Opens are a health signal. The decision sits on clicks and revenue. A solo ad buyer who stops at the open has stopped where she says the number stops being the point.

The piece is her ranking of Klaviyo agencies, last updated August 12, 2026, and she says her firm wrote it and placed itself first. Take the ranking as her ranking. The benchmark paragraph is still useful because she labels it as her accounts. She writes that when she started, 15 percent was the open people chased. Now her well-optimized, well-segmented campaigns sit at 60 to 65 percent. Two things happened at once, in her telling. Segmentation got better. Apple Mail Privacy Protection started auto-opening mail, which inflates everyone's opens. She watches opens for deliverability. She does not crown a program because of them.

What open rates does Melanie Balke report for her own accounts?

In the guide last updated August 12, 2026, she writes that well-optimized accounts she runs sit at 60 to 65 percent opens. She also writes that Apple Mail Privacy Protection auto-opens mail, so the number is inflated.

Say the boundary out loud. These are Klaviyo accounts for ecommerce brands her team operates. She also writes that Klaviyo is used by more than 167,000 ecommerce businesses. That is her sentence about the platform's reach, not a study of solo ads. A rented send to a seller's list is not a welcome flow to a store's buyers. If your seller quotes 60 percent, ask whether they mean a store program like hers or a single guest email. The words are not interchangeable.

Privacy proxies open mail to hide the reader's address and to prefetch content. The open pixel fires. The person may be asleep. Balke's point is that the inflation is now baked into the health light, so you keep the light and you stop paying bonuses on it. A solo ad priced per open is a solo ad priced on a number a mailbox can increment without a human.

• Ask whose accounts produced the open rate.
• Ask whether Apple's privacy opens are included.
• Ask for the click rate on the same sends.
• Refuse a price that is calculated from opens alone.

What does she use instead of opens to judge a program?

She writes that opens are a health signal for deliverability, and that she judges programs on clicks and revenue. She calls click rates of 0.7 to 1.3 percent strong now, on those accounts.

She gives the history of the click, too. The old standard she remembers was 1 to 3 percent. Then platforms started filtering bot clicks, the security scanners that request every link before a person does, and reported clicks moved down. In her words, a 1 percent click on a well-segmented campaign in 2026 is a good result, and an agency bragging about 3 percent is either picking a tiny segment or counting bots. That is her judgment of her lane. It is a useful warning in ours. A solo ad seller who promises a fat click rate on a cold guest offer is promising the outcome she says not to trust.

Do not import her agency retainers into solo ad pricing. A monthly fee for a team that runs a store's email is a different product from one dedicated send. The only number to carry across is the habit. Health on one side, money and clicks on the other, and no speech that pretends the open is the money.

Can a solo ad buyer treat 60 percent opens as the going rate?

No. Those figures are her description of Klaviyo accounts her company runs for stores, not a measurement of rented solo ads, and not a price. Ask the seller for clicks on a comparable send.

Comparable means the same kind of offer, the same niche, the same inbox mix, a recent date. One screenshot from 2022 is not comparable. A blended open with no click line is not comparable. If they will not show clicks, you are negotiating against a health light.

The order page for best solo ad vendors is where the click definition belongs, in writing, before the charge. Balke's August update is a reminder from someone who runs the other kind of mail. Opens moved. Clicks are the stricter count. Revenue is stricter than clicks. A solo ad that cannot show you the stricter count is still just a story about an open.