Work Email Statistics

76% of organizations said phishing was successful or partially successful in 2024—plus what this means for inbox risk and defenses.
Seo-yeon ZhaoConnor Wardell

Written by Seo-yeon Zhao

Fact-checked by Connor Wardell

Statistics
21
Sources
21
Sections
6
Reading time
7 minutes
Email drives daily business—from coordination and fast decisions to heavy message loads and frequent interruptions. This page maps how common threats like phishing and payment scams connect to cybersecurity breaches and real user impact. You’ll also see how protections such as encryption, secure configuration, and authentication controls like DMARC can reduce exposure, while the human side of email affects security and productivity.

Key Takeaways

  1. 1Email security market forecast to reach $5.9 billion by 2030 indicating strong expected growth
  2. 2Email encryption market size was estimated at $1.1 billion in 2023 with projected growth to $4.0 billion by 2030 indicating adoption of encryption controls
  3. 32024 DMARC adoption summary reported DMARC-protected domains exceeding 600 million domains (aggregate) indicating widespread implementation of email authentication
  4. 491% of professionals use email for work daily showing email is ubiquitous in business communication
  5. 51.6 billion active email users in the world indicating email is one of the most-used digital services
  6. 6Gmail held 30.1% market share of webmail as of 2024 (global) indicating dominant hosted email usage
  7. 782% of IT leaders said secure configuration of email systems is a top priority in 2024 (operational emphasis on hardening email infrastructure).
  8. 876% of organizations reported that credential phishing attempts were successful or partially successful in 2024 (user-facing email threat effectiveness).
  9. 966% of organizations experienced a phishing attack in 2023 indicating phishing is a frequent security incident
  10. 1054% of IT professionals reported their organization’s email is affected by phishing indicating prevalent phishing risk
  11. 1197% of cybersecurity breaches involved social engineering according to Verizon’s DBIR showing the linkage of email/social tactics to incidents
  12. 12$3.8 billion in reported losses were attributed to payment scams in 2023 in the FBI IC3 annual reporting (frequently initiated via email).
  13. 1325% of fraud victims reported seeing a fake invoice or purchase order before loss (supports email/attachment-based fraud vectors).
  14. 1447% of office workers reported that email is their primary method for coordinating work with colleagues (measuring email centrality to collaboration).
  15. 1564% of knowledge workers said they have experienced email overload (measuring burden of email handling).

Email remains the work lifeline, but phishing and scams demand stronger security, encryption, and DMARC adoption now.

Related reading

01Market Size

2
  1. 1Email security market forecast to reach $5.9 billion by 2030 indicating strong expected growth
  2. 2Email encryption market size was estimated at $1.1 billion in 2023 with projected growth to $4.0 billion by 2030 indicating adoption of encryption controls

More related reading

02User Adoption

3
  1. 12024 DMARC adoption summary reported DMARC-protected domains exceeding 600 million domains (aggregate) indicating widespread implementation of email authentication
  2. 291% of professionals use email for work daily showing email is ubiquitous in business communication
  3. 31.6 billion active email users in the world indicating email is one of the most-used digital services

More related reading

03Industry Overview

6
  1. 1Gmail held 30.1% market share of webmail as of 2024 (global) indicating dominant hosted email usage
  2. 282% of IT leaders said secure configuration of email systems is a top priority in 2024 (operational emphasis on hardening email infrastructure).
  3. 376% of organizations reported that credential phishing attempts were successful or partially successful in 2024 (user-facing email threat effectiveness).
  4. 4International Data Corporation estimated that worldwide spending on public cloud services reached $495.3 billion in 2022 supporting cloud-hosted email infrastructure expansion
  5. 5In 2022, BEC losses were $2.7 billion according to FBI IC3 annual reporting indicating ongoing high financial impact
  6. 6In a 2019 study, employees spend about 28% of their workweek managing email (a quantified productivity estimate)

04Threat Landscape

3
  1. 166% of organizations experienced a phishing attack in 2023 indicating phishing is a frequent security incident
  2. 254% of IT professionals reported their organization’s email is affected by phishing indicating prevalent phishing risk
  3. 397% of cybersecurity breaches involved social engineering according to Verizon’s DBIR showing the linkage of email/social tactics to incidents

More related reading

05Fraud And Financial Loss

2
  1. 1$3.8 billion in reported losses were attributed to payment scams in 2023 in the FBI IC3 annual reporting (frequently initiated via email).
  2. 225% of fraud victims reported seeing a fake invoice or purchase order before loss (supports email/attachment-based fraud vectors).

More related reading

06User Behavior And Productivity

5
  1. 147% of office workers reported that email is their primary method for coordinating work with colleagues (measuring email centrality to collaboration).
  2. 264% of knowledge workers said they have experienced email overload (measuring burden of email handling).
  3. 32.1 hours per day was the median time spent reading and responding to work messages in a study of knowledge workers (excluding meetings), reflecting email/time demand.
  4. 431% of employees reported that urgent emails cause them to interrupt their primary tasks (measuring interruption impact).
  5. 555% of employees reported they check email during non-working hours at least sometimes (measuring after-hours behavior).

Cite this report

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APA
Seo-yeon Zhao. (2026, September 22). Work Email Statistics. Axiobench. https://axiobench.com/work-email-statistics
MLA
Seo-yeon Zhao. "Work Email Statistics." Axiobench, 22 Sep 2026, https://axiobench.com/work-email-statistics.
Chicago
Seo-yeon Zhao. 2026. "Work Email Statistics." Axiobench. https://axiobench.com/work-email-statistics.

Sources and references

21 datasets cited across this report. Attribution is report-level.

fortunebusinessinsights.comprecedenceresearch.comdmarc.orgstatista.comcisa.govgartner.commondaq.comic3.govmy.idc.comfusionconnect.comapa.orgtandfonline.comdl.acm.orgjournals.sagepub.combls.govresearchgate.netmicrosoft.comverizon.comfbi.gov

2 additional datasets are cited and not shown individually.