What it means
Reply rate is the share of prospects who answer an outbound message, and the main health number for cold outbound. Tools count it per email, per touch or per person, so check which before comparing, and remove out-of-office and auto-replies first.
Positive reply rate is the tighter version. It counts only replies that show interest, such as a question about the offer or a yes to a call. Unsubscribes and refusals are replies, but not positive ones. Tracking both shows whether the list, the copy or the offer is the weak part.
How we use it
We report positive reply rate and read it alongside deliverability. A drop in replies can be a copy problem or an inbox problem, and the two need different fixes. Each sending split is evaluated on its own, so one weak domain cannot hide behind a strong one.
When the copy is the problem, the Copy Scorer and Rewriter scores the sequence and rewrites its weakest lines. When it is the list, the List Diagnostic starts there.