Home / Cold Email Copywriting / Plain Text Email
CopyWhat is a plain text email?
Updated August 2026 // by Mark Glazer // the format that reads like a person wrote it
A plain text email is a message that carries only words: no layout, no images, no buttons, no embedded tracking. Technically it is the simplest form a message can take - and in cold outreach it is a deliberate choice, because it is the format a real one-to-one note from a colleague actually arrives in.
Our entire 2026 campaign book - 402,477 emails - was sent this way, including the part most senders will not give up: no open-tracking pixel, which is why our published benchmarks report replies and not opens.
Plain text, technically
Email messages declare their format. A pure plain-text message contains a single text body; most modern senders actually transmit multipart messages carrying both a plain-text part and an HTML part, and the receiving client picks. "Sending plain text" in practice means one of two things: sending the pure single-part form, or sending HTML so minimal - default font, no images, no layout tables - that it renders indistinguishably from typed text. Both count for the purposes that matter here; what defines the category is the absence of design and of embedded remote content, not the MIME details.
The same message, sent two ways
Hi Jordan - saw the two SDR roles you posted. Most teams hire the reps before the pipeline exists; we do it in the other order.
We book the meetings first, and our pay comes mostly from revenue that closes.
UnsubscribeView in browser
Illustrative message from an invented company. Same words on both sides - the only difference is everything AROUND the words, and that is exactly what a filtering stack scores.
What you give up
Honest accounting first, because plain text is a trade, not magic:
- Design. No brand header, no product shots, no buttons. If the message needs visual persuasion, plain text cannot carry it.
- Open tracking. Opens are measured with an embedded remote image; a message with no images has no open rate. We accept this fully: across our 402,477-send book, open tracking was disabled and no open figure is published or estimated.
- Click instrumentation. Rewritten tracking links are another template artifact. Fewer, plainer links means less mid-funnel data - and cold email's honest metric is the reply anyway.
Why cold email chooses it anyway
It matches the claim the message makes. A cold email works when it reads as a considered note from one professional to another. Real one-to-one mail is plain: nobody sends a colleague a designed template. The format is part of the message's credibility, and a marketing shell contradicts it before the first word is read.
It removes scoring surface. Heavy HTML, remote images, tracking domains and rewritten links each give filtering stacks more to evaluate, and cold mail - sent to recipients with no engagement history - has the least goodwill to spend. Plain text does not make a bad list deliverable; it means the message itself is rarely the problem. Send-side discipline does the rest: warmed mailboxes, low per-mailbox volumes, and lists verified at build time.
It concentrates effort where replies come from. With no design layer, the words are the whole message. That is a feature: the copy - and its first line, which doubles as the preview text - gets the attention a template would otherwise absorb.
The open-rate consequence, stated plainly
Choosing plain text means choosing not to know your open rate. Most of the industry resolves that tension in the other direction and keeps the pixel. We publish the position and its consequence: no opens are reported anywhere in our benchmarks, replies per contacted lead is the headline metric (median 2.12%, pooled 2.53% across 89 campaigns), and every reported number has a denominator attached. An open is a proxy that got less reliable as mail clients started prefetching images; a reply is a human decision. Programmes optimized on proxies drift toward what inflates the proxy.
Writing plain text well
The format has its own craft, mostly subtractive: keep it short, one idea, one light ask; write the first sentence knowing it is also the preview snippet; use line breaks as the only structure; link sparingly and honestly; skip the vocabulary filters already recognize. A signature is name, role, company - a signature that looks like a banner is HTML by another route. The grader applies our eleven checks to any draft, format included.
Plain text, measured by replies
Our whole 2026 book ran this way - no tracking pixel, no open rate, every result published with its denominator.
See the campaign book Grade your draftCommon questions
Is plain text email better than HTML?
For cold outreach, yes, because it matches what the message claims to be - a one-to-one note - and gives filtering stacks less to score. For newsletters and product marketing to opted-in audiences, HTML earns its place. The formats are tools for different jobs, not a ranking.
Do plain text emails avoid spam filters?
They remove message-level risk surface; they do not launder a bad list or a cold domain. Filtering weighs sender reputation, authentication, volume patterns and recipient response alongside content. Plain text means the format is rarely your problem - the rest of the system still has to be right.
Can you track opens in a plain text email?
No - open tracking requires an embedded remote image, which plain text by definition does not carry. That is a real cost, and we accept it across our entire published book: no open rate is reported or estimated, and replies carry the measurement load.
Should a cold email ever use HTML?
Minimal HTML that renders as typed text is fine and common. What cold email should not carry is the marketing layer: layout, images, buttons, tracking domains. If a message cannot make its case in words, the fix is the case, not the formatting.
Just words, measured by replies
Plain-text campaigns, no open tracking, results published with denominators - and our pay tied mostly to revenue that closes.
See the benchmarks Apply to work with us