How to use the email bounce rate calculator
Email bounce rate is the share of messages the receiving server refused. This calculator fixes the denominator at emails sent and reports hard and soft bounces separately as well as combined. Each result label spells out its numerator and denominator so you can check the definition against any other tool.
The common mistake is dividing by delivered. Delivered is sent minus bounces, so using it as the denominator removes bounced mail from the bottom of the fraction while keeping it on top. Dividing by sent is what makes the metric coherent.
The second trap is the name. Web analytics also has a "bounce rate", but that is the share of sessions that viewed a single page and left โ unrelated to email. If both appear in one report, label them explicitly.
Hard bounces should leave your list immediately, because repeatedly mailing dead addresses damages sending reputation. Soft bounces are usually temporary, so remove them only if they persist across retries. Instead of asserting an industry average, the target field lets you enter your own internal threshold; fill it and the gap is shown in percentage points.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The denominator of bounce rate is emails sent. Delivered is sent minus bounces, so dividing by delivered removes the bounced mail from the denominator and counts it again in the numerator โ the definition breaks down.
Only the name is shared. Email bounce rate is the share of messages the receiving server refused; web bounce rate is the share of sessions that viewed one page and left. Never place the two in the same column of a report.
A hard bounce means the address does not exist and should be removed from the list right away. A soft bounce is usually temporary โ a full mailbox or a throttled server โ so you only remove it if it repeats after retries.