Email marketing budgets in India are still, somehow, growing. Meanwhile, average open rates are collapsing. We pulled aggregated data from 200+ Sendvise customer accounts across D2C, edtech, and SaaS to compare WhatsApp vs email head-to-head. Here's what the numbers say.
Open rates
Email — 12–18% (declining year-over-year)
WhatsApp marketing template — 91–96%
WhatsApp utility template — 96–99%
Email open rates are statistically indistinguishable from spam-folder rates at this point. WhatsApp's open rates haven't budged in two years.
Click-through rates
Email — 1.2–2.5% of total sends
WhatsApp — 8–14% of total sends
On a typical 100,000-contact campaign, email drives ~1,800 clicks. WhatsApp drives ~11,000. Same audience, same offer.
Cost per click
Email — ₹0.18–0.40 per click (Mailchimp / Sendgrid pricing)
WhatsApp — ₹6–9 per click on marketing templates
WhatsApp is more expensive per click — that's the honest part. But if your conversion rate is materially higher (it is — see next section), the math works out.