Complaint rate
The share of your mail that recipients report as spam. Gmail and Yahoo both publish a 0.3% limit, and Google recommends staying below 0.1%.
What it means
Complaint rate counts spam reports, mostly from the spam button in the mail client, against the mail that could have been reported. The base matters: Yahoo says its rate is calculated on mail delivered to the inbox, and Gmail's Postmaster Tools explains that its rate looks low when Gmail is already sending much of your mail to spam, because recipients see fewer of your messages in the inbox.
Google asks senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and never to reach 0.30%. Its FAQ says the rate is calculated daily, and that bulk senders above 0.3% are ineligible for mitigation until the rate stays below 0.3% for 7 consecutive days. Yahoo requires a spam rate below 0.3%.
Feedback loops tell you who complained, so those addresses can be suppressed.
Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- Google: Email sender guidelinessupport.google.com
- Google: Email sender guidelines FAQsupport.google.com
- Gmail Help: Postmaster Tools dashboardssupport.google.com
- Yahoo Sender Hub: Sender requirements and recommendationssenders.yahooinc.com
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes