Gmail recently made a change that's affecting open rate reporting across the industry

We've heard reports from creators about open rates looking lower than usual, and we've been taking it seriously. After working directly with email infrastructure providers to investigate, we’ve confirmed the cause—a recent Gmail update changed how tracking pixels are handled, which is causing open rates to read lower than usual. This isn't a Substack-specific issue, it's hitting platforms across the board.

We know seeing a drop in any metric can be unsettling, but please know that your audience hasn’t gone anywhere—this change has had no impact on actual subscriber behavior. Click-through rates, delivery, and engagement have all remained stable. 

Getting you the most accurate and useful data possible matters a lot to us. Substack offers a range of engagement metrics that can help paint a more complete picture of your growth and impact, including click-through rates, new subscriber counts, unique views, and paid conversion rates. These are the clearest signals of genuine, high-quality engagement and whether people are truly connecting with what you're making. We'd encourage leaning on these alongside open rates to get the fullest picture of your performance.

A guide to Substack metrics: support.substack.com/hc…