Email Preheader Examples: 55 Real Brand Emails + Code

An email preheader (also called preview text) is the short line an inbox shows after the subject line. The strongest email preheader examples add one thing the subject line leaves out: the offer, the deadline, the proof, the next step, or the end of the subject's thought. Below are 55 real preheaders pulled from the HTML of brand emails archived on Really Good Emails, 54 of them grouped by purpose in tables, plus the HTML to set your own.

Land the point within the first 37 to 40 characters, because the Gmail phone app showed only that much in a device test, and stop by about 90. In 195 brand emails archived in 2026 that we parsed, the median preheader ran 48 characters.

What is an email preheader?

An email preheader is the text an inbox displays beside or below the subject line, before anyone opens the email. You set it with a dedicated field in your email platform or a hidden line of HTML at the top of the email. If you set nothing, the inbox fills the space with whatever text comes first in the email.

Klaviyo's help center notes that an unset preview pulls "the first line of text within an email," which can mean image alt text or your navigation bar. Litmus shows the result in a real inbox: "View this email in your browser" tacked onto the end of a short preview.

Two terms get mixed up:

• Preview text is what the inbox shows. Gmail calls it a snippet, Apple Mail a preview, and Outlook a message preview, according to Litmus.
• Preheader strictly means a visible line at the top of the email body, above the header. Most marketers now use "preheader" for the hidden preview line, and this article does too.

A set preheader vs. a preview Gmail picks for you

These three emails reached my Gmail inbox on the same morning, October 6, 2026.

• Cold email A set a preheader. Its preview opens with "Emails failing to reach potential customers' inboxes and experiencing high bounce rates and spam folder placement." That sentence is not in the visible email (see below), so it is hidden preview text written for the inbox. Gmail then fills the rest of the line from the body: "Hi Vikas, When busin..."
• Cold email B set none. Gmail used the first line of the body: "Hi Vikas, Quick follow-up on my note about Alore's pipeline." In a one-to-one email that works, because the first line is written to be read.
• Fortinet's preheader runs into the template. After its one-line preheader, the preview picks up "| View email online," the browser link at the top of the email.

Read the subject line and preheader as one message. The subject earns the glance, and the preheader gives the reader a second reason to open.

How inbox clients display preview text

Each client shows a different amount, and readers control part of it. The table pulls together what each client's own documentation says and what one hands-on device test measured.

Apple Intelligence can show an AI summary of the message in place of your preview text on supported devices, and Yahoo offers optional AI summaries too (Litmus). Gmail may also drop commas from numbers in the preview, turning 10,000 into 10000 (Klaviyo).

How long should an email preheader be?

Write the preheader so its first 37 to 40 characters work alone, and keep the whole line under about 90 characters. The range comes from the phone test above: the Gmail app showed 37 characters on a Pixel 7, 39 on an iPhone 14, and 40 on a Galaxy S22 Ultra, and the tester advises 37. The 90 comes from Litmus, which recommends staying under 90 because previews range from zero lines to five lines (about 278 characters).

Search results and AI answers give conflicting numbers because they answer different questions, and only one source measured devices:

The low numbers come from what phones showed in a test. The high numbers are recommendations or platform limits, and MailerLite wants 100 or more so body text cannot fill the gap, which a spacer also prevents. One rule fits both: lead with the part that must survive a phone, and let the rest add detail for wider screens.

Most of what brands send fits the 90-character ceiling. On October 5, 2026, we parsed the HTML of 283 emails listed across 12 Really Good Emails categories. Of the 212 added to the archive in 2026, 195 carried hidden text at the top of the body, the usual preheader pattern:

• Median length: 48 characters; the middle half ran 35 to 65.
• Up to 40 characters: 66 emails (34%).
• 41 to 90 characters: 106 emails (54%).
• Over 90 characters: 23 emails (12%), some of which are body text caught by our parser rather than a written preheader.

This is a curated archive of design-forward brands, not a random sample of all email. It shows what careful senders do; it cannot show which length earns more opens.

Real email preheader examples by purpose

Every example below comes from the HTML of a real email in the Really Good Emails archive. We copied the subject line exactly and took the preheader from the hidden text at the top of the email's code; you can check any of them on the email's page under the Code tab. The date is when the email was added to the archive, which is on or after its send date. Where a line says "Smiles," the brand merged in a first name: Smiles Davis is the name the archive subscribes under, and it appears across many brands' emails there.

Sale and promotion preheader examples

Sale emails use the preheader to carry the number, the deadline, or a second perk, so the subject line can do something else.

Welcome email preheader examples

New subscribers expect a welcome email, so these preheaders tell the reader what to do first or what they get.

B2B and SaaS preheader examples

These B2B preheaders name the specific feature, number, or outcome.

Newsletter preheader examples

A newsletter's subject line usually carries one story, so these preheaders preview a second reason to open, three of them with "Plus".

Abandoned cart preheader examples

These cart preheaders each address a hesitation: stock running out, a saved item, a deadline, or an incentive.

Event and webinar preheader examples

Event emails need the when and the why-now. These put the date, time, or price change in the preheader.

Re-engagement and win-back preheader examples

Win-back emails go to people who stopped opening, so the preheader has to give a new reason: a change, an incentive, or a consequence.

What these preheaders have in common

Most of the 53 working examples in the tables do one of five jobs. Pick the job first, then test the wording, because these are patterns in what brands send rather than proof of what earns opens.

Emoji show up less in the preheader than in the subject line. Among the 195 emails from 2026 with a hidden preheader, 34 subject lines and 5 preheaders carried one, such as Boy Smells' "We caught you looking 👀" (Really Good Emails).

Three patterns show up in the weaker lines:

• Repeating the subject. LegalZoom's preheader matches its subject word for word, so the inbox shows the same idea twice.
• Saying only "thanks." Laura Clay's welcome preheader, "Thanks for signing up!", confirms what the reader already knows. GoodRx and House of Hackney use the same space to name a first step.
• Putting the key fact late in the line. HubSpot's $1,599 starts at character 91 and AirDNA's outlook report at 78, both far past the 37 to 40 a phone shows. Keep anything decisive in that opening stretch.

Preheader examples for B2B sales emails

One-to-one sales emails, including sequences sent from Gmail, Outlook, or a sales engagement tool, often go out as plain text with no preheader field. For text-only emails, "the very beginning of your email is used as preview text" (Klaviyo). Your greeting and first sentence are your preheader.

A greeting such as "Hi Dana," spends 9 of the 37 to 40 characters the Gmail phone app shows. Make the first sentence carry the reason for the email. The six lines below are templates we wrote, not emails from real brands; replace the bracketed details.

Five of the six first lines reach something specific in the first sentence: a number, a date, or the blocker from the last conversation. The same principle drives the marketing examples above, applied to a medium with no hidden field. Breakup and follow-up timing are covered in our guides to the cold email follow-up sequence and the 3 email rule.

How to set an email preheader

Most email platforms have a preview text field; custom HTML needs a hidden line of code; and either way, a spacer keeps body text from crowding in after a short preheader.

In your email platform

Look for a field labeled "Preview text" next to the subject line:

• Mailchimp: a Preview text field in the builder; custom-coded templates pull it in with the *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* merge tag (Mailchimp).
• Klaviyo: a Preview text field in flow and campaign settings, which "automatically adds spacers" for drag-and-drop templates (Klaviyo).
• Constant Contact: set through the email's header options (Constant Contact).
• Gmail and Outlook (personal sending): no field; the opening line of the message becomes the preview, as covered in the B2B sales section.

In HTML: the hidden preheader code

If you code your own template, put the preheader in a hidden div immediately after the opening <body> tag, before any image, link, or navigation. This is the pattern Litmus and Good Email Code publish:

<body>
  <!-- Preheader: shown in the inbox, hidden in the opened email -->
  <div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">
    Pipeline up 18% vs. Q2. Three deals need you today.
  </div>

  <!-- the rest of your email starts here -->
</body>

display: none hides the line in the opened email, while inbox clients still read it as the first text in the message. Litmus adds max-height and overflow as extra hiding rules.

Stop body text from filling the preview: the spacer

A short preheader leaves room, and inboxes fill that room with the next text they find, such as "View this email in your browser." The fix is a second hidden div packed with characters that take up space but look blank.

The characters that work have changed. According to Mark Robbins of Parcel, ͏ and ‌ stopped working in Yahoo and AOL around late 2022 or early 2023 and in the iOS 16.4 beta of Apple Mail (Parcel, June 2023). His June 2023 recommendation combines three characters, each for a different group of inboxes:

•   (figure space) for Yahoo and AOL
• ͏ (combining grapheme joiner) for Outlook.com and Mail.ru
• ­ (soft hyphen) for Apple Mail on iOS 16.6

He suggests about 150 to 200 repetitions, with ­ placed last because Windows Outlook can display it as a hyphen, and a closing   to prevent stray line breaks. Parcel keeps the text and spacer in one div; the two-div layout below, from Litmus, does the same job (shortened here; generate the full string with the script below):

<body>
  <div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">
    Pipeline up 18% vs. Q2. Three deals need you today.
  </div>
  <div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">
    &#8199;&#847; &#8199;&#847; &#8199;&#847; &#8199;&#847; &#8199;&#847;
    &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy; &shy;
    &nbsp;
  </div>

  <!-- the rest of your email starts here -->
</body>

This short Python script prints the full spacer line to paste into the second div:

def preheader_spacer(groups=150, soft_hyphens=120):
    """Spacer per Parcel's June 2023 guidance: figure space + CGJ pairs,
    then soft hyphens, then one non-breaking space."""
    return (" ͏ " * groups) + ("­ " * soft_hyphens) + " "

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(preheader_spacer())

We checked the snippet locally on October 5, 2026: the HTML is well formed, and a text extraction that is modeled on how inboxes build a snippet showed body text right after the preheader without the spacer ("...need you today. View this email in your browser Acme logo") and only blank characters after it with the spacer. That check shows the markup is well formed and puts the text in the intended order; it does not replace a send test in real inboxes.

Weigh three trade-offs before you add the spacer:

• Size. Parcel estimates the spacer adds about 4KB (the script's default output is about 2.8KB), which matters if your email is already close to the 102KB size limit Parcel warns about (Parcel).
• Plain-text versions. Some Android apps, including GMX, Web.de, and Mail.com, build the preview from the plain-text part, where auto-converted entities can show up as literal code (Good Email Code).
• Moving target. Parcel flagged in 2023 that Apple may be trying to block the technique, and Litmus calls it a "progressive enhancement" that may not work everywhere (Litmus).

The technique is common practice among the brands in our sample. Of the 195 emails with a hidden preheader, 150 (77%) also carried at least 10 spacer characters; the most frequent were ͏,  ,   and ­.

Test before you send

Send a test to the inboxes your list uses and look at the preview as well as the opened email:

1. Gmail on desktop, with a long and a short subject line.
2. The Gmail app on a phone, to confirm the first 37 to 40 characters stand alone.
3. Apple Mail on iPhone, where readers may see up to five lines.
4. Outlook desktop, to check for stray hyphens from ­.

If the preview shows navigation text, alt text, or "View in browser," the preheader is missing or sits below other content in the code.

Is a preheader the same as an email header?

No. The email header is the branded top section of the opened email, usually the logo and navigation. The preheader appears in the inbox before the email is opened, and in its original sense sat above that header. Header examples are a design question; preheader examples are a copy question about the line next to your subject. For the subject side of that pairing, see our guide to email subject line length.

A preheader checklist for your next send

Run each draft through these six checks:

1. Job: the preheader adds an offer, deadline, proof, next step, or the end of the subject's thought.
2. Front 40: the first 37 to 40 characters make sense alone on a phone.
3. Under 90: the full line ends by about character 90, and nothing decisive sits past character 37 to 40.
4. No repeats: it does not restate the subject; repeat a detail only to sharpen it, as Front does by adding the weekday.
5. Placement: it is the first text in the HTML, followed by a spacer unless size or plain-text limits rule one out.
6. Tested: you have seen it in Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook.

For sales sequences, the same checks apply to your first sentence. If you run outbound from Alore, the Drip Campaigner lets you A/B test that opening line across a sequence, so you can see which preview earns replies. Judge those tests on replies as well as opens; we explain why in why open rates are not the best metric.