Which Email Format Do Small Firms Use The Most? (2026)
Written by Farhad
From our internal dataset of eligible small firms with 20 or fewer employees across 25 states and Washington, DC, we randomly selected 30,000 law and accounting firms. We then measured decision maker coverage yield, limiting capture to no more than two direct work email addresses per firm. Coverage yield refers to the share of firms for which we captured two direct work emails for decision makers. It does not imply that the firm has only two decision makers.
TL;DR
-
48% of emails were first@domain
-
23% of firms had 2 decision makers captured
-
Texas, New York, and Illinois have the highest counts of firms
Email Format Distribution
Email Format of Contacts | Percentage Share of Emails with this Format |
|---|---|
| {first}@domain | 48% |
| {f}{last}@domain | 31% |
| {first}.{last}@domain | 4% |
| {first}{last}@domain | 3% |
| {first}{middle}{last}@domain | 1% |
| other* | 13% |
*Examples of other email addresses that showed up are: {f}{m}{l}@domain, {f}{l}@domain, and {last}{f}@domain.
Decision Makers Captured per Company
Captured decision makers per company | Number of Companies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 captured | 22,976 | 77% |
| 2 captured | 7,024 | 23% |
Law vs Accounting Comparison
Industry | Number of Companies | Emails | % with 2 captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law firms | 20,444 | 25,260 | ~23% |
| Accounting firms | 9,556 | 11,764 | ~23% |
| Total | 30,000 | 37,024 | 23% |
Top States by Company Count
State (or Territory) | Number of Companies | Percent with 2 Captured |
|---|---|---|
| TX | 4,192 | 22% |
| NY | 3,467 | 22% |
| IL | 2,238 | 24% |
| NJ | 1,768 | 21% |
| MA | 1,666 | 22% |
| PA | 1,518 | 28% |
| OH | 1,500 | 26% |
| WA | 1,452 | 24% |
| NC | 1,422 | 22% |
| MI | 1,332 | 24% |
| CO | 1,232 | 22% |
| MD | 1,135 | 23% |
| AZ | 1,124 | 22% |
| MN | 931 | 24% |
| IN | 871 | 27% |
| SC | 837 | 24% |
| CT | 739 | 25% |
| KY | 427 | 25% |
| KS | 391 | 25% |
| AR | 360 | 25% |
| MS | 305 | 25% |
| DC | 275 | 29% |
| NH | 255 | 21% |
| RI | 238 | 21% |
| ME | 212 | 28% |
| VT | 113 | 33% |
Results Analysis
In our random sample of 30,000 law and accounting firms, the most common email format is first@domain. In terms of coverage, 77% of firms have one captured decision maker and 23% have two. The law and accounting split is nearly the same, with both sitting at about 23% for two captured decision makers. Texas, New York, and Illinois contributed the highest number of firms in the sample, and across states the share of firms with two captured decision makers generally stayed in the 20% range.
Newsletter
Get B2B insights delivered to your inbox
Practical marketing and sales insights for B2B growth teams. No spam — we promise.
Related articles
The Best Manufacturing Contacts to Email by Offer Type
Learn who to target when cold emailing manufacturing companies, from plant managers and engineers to procurement, quality, safety, and OT leaders.
Why Construction Email Campaigns Fail and What Most Marketers Get Wrong
Common construction email marketing mistakes include generic messaging, wrong contacts, poor timing, and weak local targeting. Learn how to avoid them.
What Makes a Law Firm Contact List Useful?
Learn what makes a law firm email list useful, which data fields matter most, how often legal contact data should be refreshed, and how to use it for outreach or ABM.
