stedman.com, a real published series. Klaviyo's count is the worked example's.
Klaviyo says 0.01%. Postmaster says 0.33%.
Both are right. They divide by different things.
- 01
Klaviyo divides by every delivery.
Its rate is the complaints it was told about over everything the receiving server accepted. 18 over 178,400 is 0.01%. Gmail told it about almost none.
- 02
Google divides by engaged inboxes.
Its own definition: delivered to an engaged recipient's inbox, DKIM-signed, personal Gmail, then marked as spam. Filtered mail, dormant addresses and Workspace all leave the bottom of the fraction.
- 03
Same day: 79k Gmail deliveries, 3 sends named, 0.33%.
Google's 0.10% line is written about this number. It has never been written about Klaviyo's.
- 04
Sending less makes it worse.
Pausing the engaged calendar removes the bottom of Google's fraction and keeps the top. The published rate rises on a quiet day.
Google never publishes the size of its denominator. We quote its definition and draw nothing to scale.
Every sentence above, in Klaviyo and Google’s own words.5 sources, each dated
“count of unique spam complaints divided by the count of deliveries in the timeframe selected”
“The spam rate is the percent of your messages that are delivered to engaged recipient's Inbox and then marked as spam by the recipient.”
“Postmaster Tools displays the spam rate of DKIM-authenticated messages sent to Gmail accounts.”
“Dashboard data applies only to messages sent to personal Gmail accounts.”
“Keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher.”