Invoice Follow-Up Email Open Rates 2026 [Full Data]

Autoresponder emails, the automated-sequence category closest to an invoice follow-up reminder, average a 51.05% open rate, according to GetResponse’s 2024 Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, which tracked more than 4.4 billion messages sent in 2023. That beats a single triggered send’s 45.38% and a newsletter’s 40.08% by a wide margin. No invoicing platform publishes a dedicated open-rate benchmark for follow-up reminder emails specifically, so this data, combined with the freshest evidence on how engagement changes across a sequence, is the closest verified picture available for 2026.

Figure 1: Autoresponder sequences, the automated-email structure closest to a scheduled invoice follow-up, average a 51.05% open rate. Source: GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, 2024 (4.4 billion messages sent in 2023).

What’s the average open rate for an invoice follow-up email?

The strongest available proxy is GetResponse’s autoresponder category: a pre-built series of automated messages that fires on a schedule after an initial trigger, the same structure a payment reminder sequence uses. Across 4.4 billion messages sent by GetResponse’s own customers in 2023, autoresponder emails averaged a 51.05% open rate, ahead of a single triggered send’s 45.38% and well above the 40.08% newsletter average and the 39.64% average across every message type the report tracked.

The gap holds on clicks too. Autoresponder emails clicked at 5.59%, versus 5.02% for a single triggered send and 3.84% for a newsletter. Both numbers point the same direction: a message that’s part of a known, expected sequence, rather than a one-off send, keeps outperforming broadcast email on every engagement metric GetResponse measured. For the original invoice send’s own open-rate data specifically, rather than the follow-up sequence behind it, see invoice email open rate data for 2026.

Figure 2: Autoresponder sequences out-open both single triggered sends and newsletters. Source: GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, 2024.

Does the open rate drop with each additional reminder in a sequence?

Not in a straight line, and no dataset breaks this out for invoice reminders by touch number specifically, so the closest verified evidence comes from B2B email-sequence research generally. Belkins analyzed 7,530,489 emails sent across multi-step outreach sequences and found the first email in a sequence captures 41.4% of all eventual replies on its own, while steps 2 through 6 combined capture the remaining 58.6%. Individual step reply rates don’t decay smoothly either: they run roughly 0.59% on step one, dip toward 0.30% by step three, then tick back up to 0.34% on step four before settling lower again, a pattern the report attributes to later steps working better when they introduce a new angle rather than repeating the same ask.

The practical read for a payment reminder: a recipient who ignores the first email is not a lost cause, and a reminder sequence that runs automatically through several scheduled follow-ups keeps recovering engagement well past the first send, matching the pattern Belkins found in outreach sequences generally.

Figure 3: Later steps in a follow-up sequence keep contributing new engagement rather than trailing off to nothing. Source: Belkins, 2025 (7,530,489 emails analyzed).

When after sending does a follow-up email actually get opened or clicked?

Quickly, and mostly within the same working day. GetResponse’s 2024 report, drawn from 4.4 billion tracked sends, found 21.20% of all opens and 44.14% of all clicks happen within the first hour after an email is delivered. That means for a payment reminder built as an automated, expected send, the bulk of whatever response it’s going to get typically arrives well before end of day, not spread evenly across the following week.

That timing pattern also explains why send-day and send-hour advice matters less than it sounds: GetResponse’s own data found Tuesday only narrowly ahead of other weekdays, with two windows, 4 to 6 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m., outperforming the middle of the day, but the report itself notes the gap between weekdays is small next to the gap between message types. A follow-up built to look like a scheduled, expected sequence captures more of that first-hour surge than timing tweaks alone.

Figure 4: Nearly half of all clicks on tracked automated sends land within an hour of delivery. Source: GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, 2024.

Does adding SMS to an email reminder sequence change whether it gets seen?

Substantially, at least on the outcome that matters most: getting paid. Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report, based on 163 validated responses from finance professionals across the UK, Australia, and more than 20 other countries, found that businesses using both SMS and email for payment reminders get paid within two weeks 73% of the time, compared to 49% for businesses relying on email alone, a 24-point gap. The report doesn’t isolate open or click rates by channel, but the payment outcome gap is wide enough to matter on its own: a follow-up sequence that only ever tries one channel is leaving a meaningful share of faster payments on the table. For the wider picture on what else moves that follow-up gap, see payment reminder effectiveness data for 2026, the hub post for this whole cluster.

Figure 5: Adding SMS to an email reminder sequence lifts the two-week paid rate by 24 points. Source: Chaser, 2026 Accounts Receivable Report.

Does wording change whether a follow-up gets opened and acted on?

Yes, and the effect shows up even without touching send time or channel. FreshBooks’s analysis of more than 1 million small business invoices found that invoices carrying a stated late-fee or “Interest” note are ultimately paid 92.15% of the time, against a 78.62% baseline across all wording, while a closing line as simple as “Thank You” lifts the ultimate paid rate to 89.61%. Neither figure is an open-rate number specifically, but both point at the same underlying mechanic the open-rate data above supports: a message that reads as individually addressed and specific, rather than templated, gets more engagement at every stage, from the open through to the payment. For the full breakdown of that wording effect, see thank-you invoice wording data for 2026.

Comparison: Open and Click Rate by Email Type

Email type	Open rate	Click rate	Source
Newsletter	40.08%	3.84%	GetResponse, 2024
Triggered (single send)	45.38%	5.02%	GetResponse, 2024
Autoresponder (sequence)	51.05%	5.59%	GetResponse, 2024
Business & finance category	31.35%	2.78%	Mailchimp, through Dec 2023

Table 1: Autoresponder sequences, the structure closest to an automated invoice follow-up, lead every other category on both open and click rate. Sources: GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks Report (2024); Mailchimp Email Marketing Benchmarks.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 data doesn’t offer a single dedicated benchmark for “invoice follow-up email open rate,” but every adjacent number points the same direction: a scheduled, automated sequence outperforms a one-off send on opens, clicks, and eventually on getting paid, and later steps in that sequence keep contributing new engagement rather than fading to nothing. Layering SMS on top of email lifts the two-week paid rate by 24 points, and most of whatever response a single follow-up email is going to get arrives within its first hour. None of those levers require guessing at the perfect subject line or send time; they require a sequence that actually runs on every invoice, every time. A BillyPaid payment reminder sends that sequence automatically, so the follow-up steps that recover the 58.6% of engagement missed by a single email are never the ones a busy week causes to quietly not go out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s a good open rate for an invoice follow-up email? No invoicing platform publishes a dedicated benchmark for follow-up reminder emails specifically, but the closest verified proxy is GetResponse’s autoresponder category, the automated-sequence structure closest to a scheduled invoice reminder, which averaged a 51.05% open rate across 4.4 billion messages sent in 2023, according to its 2024 Benchmarks Report.

Does the open rate drop with each additional reminder in a sequence? The clearest available data is from B2B email sequences generally rather than invoicing specifically: Belkins found the first email in a sequence captures 41.4% of all replies, while steps 2 through 6 combined capture 58.6%, with individual step reply rates bouncing between 0.28% and 0.40% rather than falling in a straight line, based on an analysis of 7,530,489 emails.

Does adding SMS improve how a payment reminder performs compared to email alone? Yes. Businesses using both SMS and email for payment reminders get paid within two weeks 73% of the time, compared to 49% for businesses using email alone, a 24-point gap, according to Chaser’s 2026 Accounts Receivable Report (163 finance professionals surveyed).

How soon after sending does a follow-up email actually get opened? Fast. GetResponse’s 2024 report on 4.4 billion tracked sends found 21.20% of all opens and 44.14% of all clicks happen within the first hour after delivery, meaning most of a follow-up email’s engagement is decided well before the end of the day it goes out.

Sources and References

1. GetResponse - Email Marketing Benchmarks Report (2024), open and click rate by message type, first-hour engagement share, best day and time to send.
2. Belkins - B2B Sales Follow-Up Statistics (2025 data, 7,530,489 emails analyzed), reply rate by sequence step.
3. Chaser - The 2026 Accounts Receivable Report (163 validated responses, UK/Australia-led, fielded late 2025-early 2026), two-week paid rate for email-plus-SMS versus email alone.
4. Mailchimp - Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry, business and finance category open and click rate, data through December 2023.
5. FreshBooks - Use Your Invoice Payment Terms to Get Paid Faster (analysis of 1M+ small business invoices over a 1-year period), ultimate paid rate by invoice and reminder wording.

Note: All figures verified as of October 2026.