Push Notification Opt-In Rates: What to Expect in 2026

Push opt-in rate is the number that decides whether the channel is worth building, and it has moved sharply in the last two years.

Here is where the benchmarks sit, why they moved, and the one design decision that matters more than any of them.

App Push: The Android Correction

For years, Android delivered opt-in rates far above iOS because consent was implicit.

Android 13 changed that by requiring an explicit permission prompt, and the numbers have started to converge.

Batch’s benchmark, covering July 2024 to July 2025, recorded Android opt-in falling from 85% to 67%, while iOS eased from 58% to 56%, bringing the overall average to 61% Batch, mobile push CRM benchmark.

Airship’s 2025 benchmark, published in February 2025, reported lower medians at 44.5% for iOS and 71.3% for Android, while noting that Android opt-in had declined significantly across all percentiles Airship 2025 Push Notification Benchmarks, 20 February 2025.

The two sources disagree on the exact level but agree on the direction.

That is the useful finding.

Brands should increasingly plan for Android and iOS opt-in behaviour to converge rather than assuming Android will continue to provide effectively free reach.

Airship’s 2026 edition, based on more than 681 billion push notifications sent to over 3 billion users across 15 verticals, describes Android and iOS opt-in as having moved toward near parity Airship 2026 benchmarks.

Web Push: A Different Order of Magnitude

Web push opt-in operates at a completely different scale from app push.

Anyone using app opt-in benchmarks to set expectations for browser notifications is comparing two different behaviours.

The most specific ecommerce numbers available from PushOwl are dated 2022, so they should be treated as directional rather than current.

Its data showed an average merchant opt-in rate of 2.7%, with a range of roughly 2.3% to 5%.

More importantly, PushOwl reported a 6.6% opt-in rate when the native browser prompt was used compared with 1.57% when a custom prompt was used PushOwl web push benchmarks.

We have not found a 2025 or 2026 primary-source web push opt-in benchmark, and we are not going to invent one. If a vendor quotes you a current web push opt-in figure, ask for the dataset and the date.

The Decision That Outranks the Benchmark

You effectively get one meaningful prompt.

If a browser permission request is dismissed or blocked, getting another chance can be difficult or impossible depending on the browser and device.

That makes prompt timing more important than the benchmark itself.

Do not fire the permission request immediately on arrival.

Trigger it after a meaningful signal instead.

That might be a second page view, thirty seconds on a product page, an add-to-cart event, or a back-in-stock request where the value exchange is obvious.

The back-in-stock prompt is particularly strong because the customer is explicitly asking to be interrupted about a specific product.

That is why it is one of the strongest entry points into the channel and pairs naturally with back-in-stock alerts.

Use a soft pre-prompt only when it is honest about what the user will receive.

A branded panel can explain the value first, then trigger the native browser prompt only for people who choose to continue.

This protects the one-shot native prompt from being wasted on visitors who were never likely to opt in.

The important distinction is that the custom layer should precede the native prompt, not replace it.

What to Measure After Opt-In

Not opt-in rate alone. Measure reachable subscribers, meaning those who have not disabled at the OS level, because push attrition is silent. Then measure delivery: MoEngage’s 2026 data puts broadcast push delivery at 80.73% against 93.07% for behaviour-triggered sends MoEngage channel benchmarks, 27 March 2026. A programme that broadcasts is losing one message in five before anyone decides whether to tap.

We build the prompt logic and trigger architecture together as part of our push notification services. The message formats themselves are covered in these web push notification examples.