WeChat open rate benchmark: what under 3% really means

You publish every week. The open rate keeps sliding. Your agency says the whole platform is down, and you suspect that’s an excuse.

It’s partly true. A WeChat (微信) open rate benchmark only counts reads that come from the push to your followers. WeChat now sends a growing share of readers through recommendation and sharing, and those reads never touch the open rate.

Here is the largest public benchmark for brand accounts we could find, built on about 15,000 brand posts. Foreign companies can only open a service account, so read the right-hand column.

How the post performed	Former subscription account	Service account
Poor (bottom 20%)	Under 0.7%	Under 1.5%
Low	0.7% to 1.3%	1.5% to 2.8%
Average	1.3% to 2.2%	2.8% to 4.1%
Good	2.2% to 4%	4.1% to 6.8%
Great	4% to 7.8%	6.8% to 14.9%
Excellent (top 5%)	Above 7.8%	Above 14.9%

Bands from KAWO, December 2022, explained below. Every source on this page was checked in October 2026.

Below: why the number fell, the five causes we see most often, and a 30-day plan to fix them.

The WeChat open rate benchmark for brand accounts

The table above comes from KAWO (科握), a Shanghai company that sells social media software. It studied posts from brand accounts that use its tools.

Across about 15,000 brand posts from January 2021 to July 2022, a service account post needed more than 4.1% to rank as good. Below 1.5% was poor. Averages are for April to July 2022. Source: KAWO (科握), December 2022. https://kawo.com/cn/%E5%8D%9A%E5%AE%A2/%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C%E5%85%AC%E4%BC%97%E5%8F%B7%E6%8E%A8%E6%96%87%E6%89%93%E5%BC%80%E7%8E%87%E5%9F%BA%E5%87%86%E7%BA%BF

Two details in that study matter more than the bands do.

First, KAWO defines open rate as reads from the push message divided by the people the post was sent to. Reads from anywhere else are left out.

Second, follower count did not predict open rate. KAWO split accounts into under 10,000, 10,000 to 100,000, and over 100,000 followers, and found no reliable link.

KAWO found no clear correlation between follower numbers and open rate, with too many other factors, such as posting frequency and time, in play. Source: KAWO, December 2022. https://kawo.com/en/blog/open-rate-benchmark-for-brands-wechat-oa

So a benchmark by follower band tells you less than one by account type. Compare service accounts with service accounts, which is the right comparison for a foreign brand anyway.

Accounts registered by overseas entities can only be service accounts (服务号). Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), October 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/180312zQjeYV180312FNNbmA.html

Even by 2022 standards, under 3% was ordinary. The low band tops out at 2.8% and covers the 20th to 40th percentile, so about four in ten service account posts in the study already sat below it.

And the study’s own trend line pointed down.

Over the 18 months studied, open rates for both account types kept sliding slowly downward. Source: KAWO (科握), December 2022. https://kawo.com/cn/%E5%8D%9A%E5%AE%A2/%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C%E5%85%AC%E4%BC%97%E5%8F%B7%E6%8E%A8%E6%96%87%E6%89%93%E5%BC%80%E7%8E%87%E5%9F%BA%E5%87%86%E7%BA%BF

We found no newer public benchmark for brand accounts. Since 2022 the push has also lost ground to recommendation (more on that below), so treat these bands as a ceiling rather than a target you’re failing. Nobody has published a current benchmark by industry either; the only one we found dates from 2019, names no original source, and stayed out of this page.

Why open rates fell across WeChat

The audience did not leave WeChat (微信).

WeChat and its international version had 1.418 billion combined monthly active accounts at the end of 2025, up 2% from a year earlier. Source: Tencent Holdings 2025 results, reported by Tencent News (腾讯新闻), March 2026. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20260318A07APT00

What changed is how articles reach people. First, the crowd: more articles chase the same readers.

Official Accounts published more than 444 million articles in 2024. About 307,800 of them passed 100,000 reads. Source: NewRank (新榜), January 2025. https://www.newrank.cn/article/detail/29573

Then the feed stopped showing posts in the order they went out.

In 2021 the Official Account feed gained a recommended block and folded part of the content people had subscribed to. The timeline was broken up. Source: NewRank (新榜), March 2025. https://newrank.cn/article/detail/30626

Recommendation now rivals the push as a way in.

On 36Kr’s (36氪) consumer account, the share of reads from recommendation rose from 24.3% in August 2023 to 45.9% in March 2025, taking share from the push. The average open rate had been as high as 10% in 2017 and fell to 1% to 2% around 2020. Source: 36Kr, March 2025. https://eu.36kr.com/zh/p/3211329723614340

36Kr sums up WeChat’s direction as “light on subscription, heavy on recommendation.” Think about what that does to your monthly report. A read from recommendation, a forward or Search counts as a read. It doesn’t count toward open rate.

Where the read comes from	Counted in open rate	What tends to drive it
Push to followers (群发通知)	Yes	The title, and who still follows
Recommendation in the feed	No	How readers engage with the piece
Friends’ Recommend taps (推荐)	No	Readers tapping Recommend
Forwards to chats and Moments (朋友圈)	No	A reason to share
WeChat Search (搜一搜)	No	Words people actually search for
Your profile page	No	Articles published without a push

So check total reads, in the account’s own data panel, before you judge an agency on open rate alone. If total reads hold while open rate falls, the platform moved and your agency may have done nothing wrong. If both fall, read on. The five causes below come roughly in the order we find them on accounts we take over.

Cause 1: you spend scarce pushes on the wrong posts

Teams love to test Tuesday against Thursday on WeChat (微信). It’s rarely worth the meeting. The weekday barely matters.

In KAWO’s study of 500,000 posts from August 2016 to July 2019, WeChat usage was consistent through the week and only a little lower at weekends. The strongest publishing windows were 5 pm and 11 pm. Source: KAWO (科握), October 2019. https://kawo.com/en/blog/2019-wechat-weibo-data-insights

The real timing problem for a foreign brand is scarcity.

A service account (服务号) can switch on the follower push 4 times per calendar month. The former subscription account gets 1 a day. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), October 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/120911VrYVrA131025QniAfu.html

Four pushes a month means each one is a quarter of your monthly pushes. Spend one on a routine notice and the open rate shows it.

There’s a second route: publishing without the push. It has no limit, but the article appears only on your profile page.

Publishing with the push notice off has no limit. The article shows only on the account’s profile page, not in followers’ message lists. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), October 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/230913IjEVNN2309136nUZNZ.html

Use the four pushes for your strongest pieces and publish the rest quietly. Followers who care will still find them on your profile.

Cause 2: your titles are written for search, not for the feed

Search is a real source of followers on WeChat (微信).

WeChat Search (搜一搜) reached 800 million monthly users in 2022 and brought in 27% of new Official Account followers. Source: WeChat Search team at WeChat Open Class PRO, reported by Sina Tech (新浪科技), January 2023. https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/roll/2023-01-10/doc-imxztfeh2280083.shtml

But open rate is decided in the feed, where your title sits between a friend’s article and a news alert and has very little time to earn a tap. A title built from stacked keywords (“WeChat Marketing Guide 2026 China Social Media Strategy”) reads like a filing label.

Keep it short. WeChat doesn’t leave much room anyway.

A push title can run to 64 bytes, which is 32 Chinese characters. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), October 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/120911VrYVrA131025QniAfu.html

Then keep it honest. WeChat polices titles that overpromise.

WeChat’s platform team said it would act against titles that copy the tone of official notices, inflate urgency, or dodge review with spaces and rare characters. Source: WeChat Official Platform operations center, reported by Cailian Press (财联社), May 2024. https://www.cls.cn/detail/1690970

A good feed title names one specific thing the reader gets. Write it in Chinese from the start. In our experience a translated English headline runs long and reads flat.

Cause 3: your follower base is stale

Open rate divides by everyone who still follows you. That includes the visitor who scanned a QR code at a 2021 trade show and never opened a single article.

On the old chronological feed, those followers at least saw your title. Today WeChat (微信) folds part of what people subscribe to and slots in recommended posts instead. A follower who never reads you is the easiest one to lose in that shuffle.

Followers can pin you, though.

A star (星标) on an account pins it to the top of the folded Official Account feed. In April 2025 WeChat added stars for single articles too. Source: Bianews (鞭牛士), reported by Tencent News (腾讯新闻), April 2025. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250404A02VOP00

Ask readers to star the account, once, in a piece they’ve just found useful. Put the ask at the end of your best article, not in a banner on every post.

Then look at where followers came from. A lucky draw or a trade-show gift builds a list of people who wanted the prize, not your articles.

You don’t have to push to all of them every time.

A push can be scheduled, or sent to one group of followers (分组群发) rather than the whole list. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), October 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/230913IjEVNN2309136nUZNZ.html

Cause 4: you aren’t reseeding through Channels or Moments

If the push reaches fewer people, bring readers in by other doors. Channels (视频号), the short-video feed inside WeChat (微信), is one that’s getting busier.

Channels total user time grew more than 20% year on year in 2025. Source: Tencent 2025 annual results, reported by China Fund News (中国基金报), March 2026. https://www.chnfund.com/article/AR1231fcdd-25ff-01cd-2836-3a2015e46b1d

A short Channels video can point to the article behind it. The video earns reach on its own signals.

The Channels team said share, like and comment rates carry high weight in how Channels recommends videos. Source: NewRank (新榜), March 2025. https://newrank.cn/article/detail/30626

Moments (朋友圈) ads are the paid door, and they can sell the follow directly.

Moments ads can promote an Official Account with a one-tap follow. Bidding buys start from a 1,000-yuan daily budget, in cities outside the core and key tiers. Opening the ad account is free. Source: Tencent Ads (腾讯广告), October 2026. https://e.qq.com/topic/marketing/industry/weixin/

Neither door lifts open rate directly, but both lift total reads. And the followers they bring in chose your content, which helps the next push.

Cause 5: your content has no reason to be forwarded

Forwards and Recommend taps are how an article escapes your follower list. 36Kr reports that in January 2025 WeChat (微信) turned the old “Wow” button (在看) into “Recommend” (推荐). Friends’ picks now get their own entry in the feed.

Smaller accounts gain most from that.

On 36Kr’s main account, recommendation brought just 2.2% of reads in a week of March 2025. On its smaller consumer account, the share was 45.9%. Source: 36Kr (36氪), March 2025. https://eu.36kr.com/zh/p/3211329723614340

Don’t chase the button itself, though.

On one NewRank article that passed 100,000 reads, friends’ Recommend taps produced only 0.02% of its reads. It had 1,010 shares and 34 Recommend taps. Source: NewRank (新榜), March 2025. https://newrank.cn/article/detail/30626

Shares did the work.

So what gets forwarded? Something a reader can use or pass on, like a size guide, or a store opening with the address and the hours. Or a checklist for a decision a buyer is stuck on. A brand story rarely travels that way.

The 30-day fix plan

This is the order we work in when we inherit a WeChat (微信) account. Only the Moments test in week 4 spends money.

Week	What to do	What to check after
1	Pull 6 months of data: open rate, total reads, read sources	Is it open rate or total reads falling
2	Rewrite the next 4 push titles in Chinese, short and specific	Open rate on each push
2	Move routine notices to publishing without the push	Pushes kept for strong pieces
3	Add one useful, shareable piece; ask readers to star the account	Forwards and new followers
4	Cut a Channels video for the best article; test a small Moments ad	Total reads and follower source

Judge the month on total reads and new followers who stay, not on open rate alone. Our WeChat agency page explains how we run accounts week to week, and our Strategy, Campaigns and Analytics service covers the reporting side. Our pricing page lists what each package includes on WeChat. For the wider picture across platforms, see our piece on why your China engagement rate keeps dropping.

If you decide to replace the agency after this review, check what to secure before you change agencies so account access stays with your team.

FAQ

What is a good WeChat open rate in 2026?

For a brand service account, the last large public study put average at 2.8% to 4.1% and good at 4.1% to 6.8%. That data is from 2022, and four in ten posts already sat under 2.8%. Since then the push has lost ground to recommendation. Judge your rate next to total reads: if reads hold steady, the platform shifted; if both fall, the account has a problem.

Why did my WeChat views drop?

Usually for one of five reasons: pushes spent on routine notices, a weak push title, a follower list full of people who never read, no Channels (视频号) or Moments (朋友圈) support, or too few reasons to forward. WeChat (微信) also sends more readers through recommendation now. Check read sources in your account’s back end first.

How often should a brand publish on WeChat?

A foreign brand runs a service account (服务号), which can push to followers four times a calendar month. That makes one push a week the natural rhythm, with extra articles published without the push, which is unlimited. Quality beats volume here. A weak push uses up a quarter of the month’s pushes.

If your open rate keeps falling and nobody can tell you why, we’ll go through the account and show you which of these causes apply.