Keep clients coming back · Every business
Email or Text: Which Messages Customers Actually Read
The widely shared claim that nearly every text gets read has no published method we could find behind it, while the best controlled test we found shows texts get seen much sooner than email, with the gap closing over the following days.
At a glance
- In a randomized experiment by the Pew Research Center, 15% of people who got a text plus an email responded within 30 minutes, compared with 6% of people who got the email alone, and the gap was nearly gone by day 20 (82% versus 81%).
- Email open rates are a weak measure today; a large email platform's benchmark puts the average open rate at 35.63% but warns that Apple's Mail Privacy Protection affects open data, because it loads email content in the background whether or not the reader opens it.
- The practical rule for a small business is to use text for anything time-sensitive, such as reminders, delays and arrival times, and email for anything the customer will want to find later, such as estimates, receipts and policies.
The number, and where it comes from
Most figures quoted for text versus email, such as near-perfect text "open rates," appear in vendor articles that do not say who was measured, how or when, and we could not trace them to an original study, so we left them out. The strongest evidence we found is a randomized experiment run by the Pew Research Center in 2016 with members of its American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel whose members agree to take surveys. Of 3,634 web panelists, 2,109 had agreed to receive texts, and those were randomly assigned to get a survey invitation by email alone or by email plus a text.
The pattern is the useful part. People who got a text answered sooner, and half of them had responded by the end of the first day, while the email-only group took about three days to reach nearly the same level, which means a text matters most when the message has a deadline measured in hours.
Why email open rates mislead
Email platforms report open rates, but since Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection, the Mail app can download a message's remote content privately in the background when it arrives, which prevents senders from learning when and how often a message is viewed. One large email platform's benchmark, based on campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers with tracking turned on and last updated in December 2023, reports an average open rate of 35.63% and a click rate of 2.62% across all users, and it notes that open rates may be affected by Mail Privacy Protection. For a small business, clicks, replies and bookings are better measures of whether an email was read.
A worked calculation
Suppose a business needs 200 customers to confirm or reschedule appointments after a schedule change. Applying the Pew response rates gives a rough sense of what adding a text does to the first day.
| Customers who need to respond (Assumption) | 200 |
|---|---|
| Share responding within 30 minutes, email plus text (Pew, 2016) | 15% |
| Share responding within 30 minutes, email only (Pew, 2016) | 6% |
| Responses within 30 minutes, email plus text (Calculated (200 × 15%)) | 30 |
| Responses within 30 minutes, email only (Calculated (200 × 6%)) | 12 |
| Responses by end of first day, email plus text (Calculated (200 × 50%)) | 100 |
| Responses by end of first day, email only (Calculated (200 × 37%)) | 74 |
| Extra responses on day one from adding a text (Calculated (100 − 74)) | 26 |
Illustrative example. The Pew experiment involved survey invitations to people who had agreed to receive texts; customer responses to a business may differ.
How you compare
- Thin evidence: controlled studies comparing business texts with business email are scarce, and the Pew experiment is the clearest published test we found; treat any single "open rate" for texts with caution.
- Your own numbers: for one month, track replies or clicks within 24 hours for one reminder sent by text and one sent by email, which tells you more about your customers than any national figure.
- Reach: in Pew's 2025 survey of 5,022 U.S. adults, 98% owned a cellphone and 91% a smartphone, so nearly every customer can receive a text.
- Consent: before adding offers or promotions to a text, read Text Message Marketing for Small Businesses: What's Allowed and What Works, which covers the consent rules.
General information, not legal advice; talk to a licensed professional about the texting rules that apply to your business.
Sources
- McGeeney, K. and Yan, H. Y. Text Message Notification for Web Surveys. Pew Research Center, 2016. 2,109 American Trends Panel members who consented to texts.
- Mailchimp. Email Marketing Benchmarks and Statistics by Industry. Data last updated December 2023; campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers.
- Apple. Protect email privacy in Mail on Mac. Mail User Guide.
- Pew Research Center. Mobile Fact Sheet. 2025. 5,022 U.S. adults.
Related reading: Text Message Marketing for Small Businesses: What's Allowed and What Works · Email List or Social Followers: Which One Brings Customers Back? · Appointment Confirmation Messages That Prevent Confusion · The Running-Late Message: What to Send When You Are Behind
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