7 subject line formulas that consistently get above 3 percent reply rates
seqmaster · 2026-01-21 · 2,780 views
After testing hundreds of cold email subject lines here are my 7 go-to formulas that consistently get above 4% reply rates.
1. Quick question about [company name]
2. [First name], [specific observation]
3. Idea for [company]'s [initiative/goal]
4. [Mutual connection] suggested I reach out
5. [Relevant number/stat] for [company]
6. Re: [topic relevant to their role]
7. [First name] — thoughts?
Key principles: keep subject lines under 6 words when possible. Lowercase performs better than title case. Avoid spam words. Make it look like a human wrote it to one person, not a mass blast.
The subject line determines whether your email gets opened. Everything else is irrelevant if nobody opens it. Test subject lines aggressively — I A/B test every campaign.
Comments (3)
inboxwhisper · 2026-01-21
dedicated all the way. shared infrastructure means your deliverability depends on what other people on the same servers are doing. if someone else on your shared IP is spamming, your emails suffer too. dedicated gives you full control over your sending reputation
tina_infra · 2026-01-22
it depends on your scale honestly. if you're running 5 inboxes, shared is fine and way cheaper. once you're at 20+ inboxes, dedicated starts making more sense. the cost difference isn't that big at scale anyway — we're talking maybe a few cents more per inbox
coldkingdom · 2026-01-23
the real question is whether your provider maintains clean shared infrastructure. some providers actively monitor and remove bad actors from shared pools so the reputation stays high. in that case shared can perform just as well as dedicated for most use cases