Most of us don’t think twice about how we end an email. We type ‘Best,’ hit send, and move on. Which is fine until you realize that the last thing someone reads is often the thing they remember most. There’s actual science behind this. Psychologists call it the recency effect: our brains are wired to hold onto the final piece of information in a sequence more than anything in the middle. Your email sign-off isn’t just a polite formality. It’s the last impression you leave, so it better be memorable!

It turns out the words you choose matter more than you’d think. A study by email analytics company Boomerang analyzed over 350,000 email threads and found that emails closing with some form of ‘thanks’ had a response rate of 65.7%, compared to the overall average of 47.5%. That’s a meaningful gap for a two-word change, but that doesn’t mean you should always leave a “thanks” at the end of your email.

So yes, your sign-off matters. This guide covers 50+ of the best email sign-offs by situation, explains what to avoid and why, and gives you a simple way to think about choosing the right one without overthinking it.

First, a quick note on what ‘sign-off’ actually means

People use the term loosely, so let’s get specific. When we talk about an email sign-off, we mean the farewell phrase that comes right before your name. Things like ‘Best regards,’ ‘Sincerely,’ or ‘Talk soon.’ This is different from your closing line (the final sentence of your email body) and your email signature (your name, title, and contact info).

All three work together, but the sign-off phrase is the one that sets the tone of the goodbye. Get that right, and the rest tends to fall into place.

Professional email sign-offs for business

These are your workhorses… solid, widely used, and appropriate in the vast majority of professional situations. Whether you’re emailing a new client, a hiring manager, or someone you’ve worked with for years, these sign-offs will always land well.

• Best regards — Versatile, polished, and widely accepted. This is probably the most universally safe sign-off in existence.
• Kind regards — A touch warmer than ‘Best regards,’ which makes it great for ongoing client relationships or when you want to sound approachable without being casual.
• Warm regards — A step further toward personal. Use this one when you actually have a warm working relationship with the person.
• Many thanks — A genuine expression of gratitude that doesn’t feel over the top. Works well when someone has done something for you, even something small.
• Thanks so much — More conversational than ‘many thanks,’ and perfectly appropriate for internal emails or with clients you know well.
• With appreciation — A solid alternative to ‘thank you’ when you want to express real gratitude in a slightly more formal way.
• Respectfully — Reserved for formal upward communication — emails to senior executives, officials, or anyone in a position of authority.
• Looking forward to connecting — Good when you’re anticipating a call, meeting, or next step. It implies momentum without being pushy.
• Speak soon — Casual but professional. Best used when a follow-up conversation is already on the calendar.
• Until next time — For ongoing relationships with a recurring communication rhythm. It implies continuity, which can be a nice touch.

Formal email sign-offs

Some contexts demand extra formality, a first email to a C-suite executive, a legal communication, a job application, or correspondence with someone whose professional title puts distance between you. In these situations, leaning on classic, time-tested sign-offs is the right call.

• Sincerely — The gold standard of formal email closings. Timeless and universally appropriate.
• Yours sincerely — A more traditional variant of ‘sincerely,’ common in formal business letters and still appropriate today when the occasion calls for it.
• Yours faithfully — Primarily a British convention, typically used when you don’t know the recipient’s name. If you’ve opened with ‘Dear Sir/Madam,’ this is the corresponding close.
• Regards — Clean and neutral. It reads as professional but can come across as a little cold in casual or collaborative contexts.
• Yours truly — Traditional, with a slightly warmer feel than ‘sincerely.’ Still widely used in North American business communication.
• With gratitude — A formal expression of thanks. Appropriate when someone has done something significant for you and you want the gravity of that to come through.
• With respect — For delicate, sensitive, or high-stakes communications where you need to signal both seriousness and deference.

A note on ‘Regards’ by itself: it’s perfectly professional, but research from Preply found that it can read as passive-aggressive in certain contexts, particularly with people you know well. If you’re emailing a colleague you genuinely like, ‘Kind regards’ or ‘Best regards’ is the warmer, safer choice.

Casual and friendly sign-offs

Not every email needs to be buttoned-up. With teammates, close colleagues, long-time clients, or anyone you have a genuinely relaxed working relationship with, casual sign-offs aren’t just acceptable, they’re often better. They humanize your communication and reinforce that you actually enjoy working with this person.

• Thanks! — Simple, upbeat, and honest. The exclamation point earns its place here.
• Cheers — Relaxed and warm. Particularly popular in creative industries and tech. A safe casual choice in most contexts.
• Talk soon — Implies ongoing conversation, which makes it great for active collaborations.
• Have a great day! — Friendly and genuinely positive. Works especially well in customer-facing emails.
• Hope this helps! — Perfect when you’ve answered a question or provided resources. It has a helpful, collaborative feel.
• Take care — Warm without being overly familiar. A good middle ground between professional and personal.
• All the best — Versatile enough to work in both professional and casual contexts. The tone depends on the rest of the email.
• Enjoy the weekend! — Context-dependent, but humanizing. Friday emails are a natural home for this one.

Sign-offs for follow-up emails

Following up is one of the trickier parts of email communication. You want to convey patience without seeming passive, and purpose without seeming pushy. The sign-off is a small lever you can use to keep the tone exactly right.

• Looking forward to your response — Clear about expecting a reply, but not demanding about it.
• Whenever you have a moment — Signals patience and flexibility. Good for non-urgent follow-ups.
• Happy to connect at a time that works for you — Low-pressure and considerate of their schedule.
• No rush, just wanted to make sure this didn’t get lost — Genuinely disarming. It acknowledges the awkwardness of following up without making it weird.
• Hoping to hear from you soon — A gentle nudge that doesn’t tip into impatience.
• Thanks for your time — Gracious and professional, even when you haven’t heard back.

The psychology here is simple: people respond better to grace than to pressure. A follow-up sign-off that leads with understanding protects the relationship regardless of the outcome and that matters more in the long run than any single reply.

Sign-offs for thank-you emails

When gratitude is the whole point of the email, your sign-off should carry that warmth through to the very last word without overdoing it. There’s a meaningful difference between genuine appreciation and performative politeness, and readers can usually tell which one they’re getting.

• With sincere thanks — Genuine and measured. The word ‘sincere’ does a lot of work here.
• Gratefully — Concise and real. One of the most honest ways to close a thank-you email.
• With heartfelt thanks — For moments that genuinely warrant a more personal expression of gratitude.
• Thank you again — Reinforces the appreciation without repeating yourself.
• I truly appreciate your help — Specific and genuine. This one stands out because it refers to actual help rather than just expressing generic thanks.
• This means a lot, thank you — Personal and impactful. Reserve it for moments that genuinely warrant it.

Sign-offs for cold emails and outreach

Cold email sign-offs are a special case. You’re asking something from someone who didn’t invite the conversation, which means your closing needs to balance confidence with humility. The goal is to keep the door open without letting it feel like you’re blocking it.

A 2010 study by Wharton professor Adam Grant found that emails containing a simple ‘thank you’ received twice the response rate of otherwise identical emails without one.  In cold outreach especially, a little gratitude goes a long way.

• Would love to connect — Casual and direct. Works well for networking and peer outreach.
• Open to a quick call if you’re interested — A low-commitment CTA built right into the sign-off.
• No pressure, just wanted to reach out — Disarms skepticism. For cold outreach, this kind of humility can be surprisingly effective.
• Happy to share more if it’s relevant — Respects their time and signals you’re not going to waste it.
• Let me know if this resonates — Puts the ball in their court without pressure.
• Thanks for reading — Simple and disarming. Acknowledges that they gave you their attention.

Sign-offs you should probably retire

Not every closing is a good one. Some have been used so many times they’ve lost all meaning; others carry connotations the sender probably didn’t intend. Here’s what to reconsider:

• Best — This one’s been so thoroughly overused that it barely registers anymore. It’s not wrong, exactly, but it’s not doing any work for you either. ‘Best regards’ or ‘All the best’ is the more considered choice.
• Regards — In many workplaces, ‘Regards’ has quietly picked up a reputation as passive-aggressive. If you’re sending it to someone you genuinely like, they might not read it that way — but it’s worth knowing that some will.
• Thx — Fine in a text, not great in a professional email. Abbreviations signal low effort, even when that isn’t the intention.
• Warmly — It’s been so thoroughly colonized by marketing emails that it often reads as performative rather than genuine.
• Ciao — Unless you’re actually in Italy, or in a very casual context where quirky sign-offs are part of the culture, this tends to read as affected.
• Yours — Can feel unexpectedly intimate in professional emails, even though it’s technically traditional.
• God bless / Blessings — Religious sign-offs are fine if you know the recipient shares your beliefs. Otherwise, they can make the recipient uncomfortable, even if no offense was meant.
• (Nothing — just your name) — Always include at least a closing word. Ending with only your name feels abrupt and, in some contexts, curt even if that wasn’t the intention.

How to pick the right one

With so many options, the choosing part can start to feel like the hardest part. It doesn’t have to be. Run through these three questions before you sign off, and you’ll find the right answer pretty quickly.

Who are you sending this to?

The single biggest factor in choosing a sign-off is your relationship with the recipient. A close colleague gets a different closing than a new client, who gets a different closing than a senior executive. When the relationship is genuinely warm, let the sign-off reflect that. When you’re less sure, lean slightly more formal — you can always warm up over time.

What’s the tone of the email itself?

Your sign-off should feel like a natural extension of the message, not a different person writing a different note. A detailed formal proposal ending in ‘Cheers!’ is jarring. A quick check-in with a colleague ending in ‘Yours faithfully’ is equally strange. Read your last paragraph, then your sign-off, and ask whether they belong to the same email.

What do you want to happen next?

If you’re hoping for a specific action, a reply, a meeting, a decision, a sign-off that alludes to next steps “Looking forward to your thoughts” reinforces that expectation gently. If the email is purely informational and you’re not expecting anything back, a clean neutral close works perfectly.

The honest answer: when in doubt, ‘Best regards’ and ‘Kind regards’ are the two most universally reliable sign-offs in professional email. They’re warm without being overly familiar, professional without being stiff, and appropriate in virtually any business context.

One more thing: your email signature

Your sign-off phrase and your email signature are two different things, but they live right next to each other — so it’s worth making sure they work well together. A good email signature includes your full name, your job title, your company, and at least one way to reach you beyond email. That’s it. Four lines of clean, readable text is all you need.

What you don’t need: eight lines of contact information, a motivational quote, a company logo that renders as a broken image in half the email clients in the world, or a legal disclaimer that’s longer than most of the emails you send. Keep it simple. The signature’s job is to answer ‘who are you and how do I reach you,’ not to tell your whole professional story.

The bottom line

Your email sign-off is a small thing that earns outsized attention. It shapes the final impression of every message you send, and as the Boomerang study showed, small changes in how you close an email can meaningfully impact whether you hear back at all.

The good news is that getting this right isn’t complicated. Match your tone to your relationship, keep your closing consistent with the rest of the email, and don’t agonize over it. A confident, appropriate sign-off is the kind of thing people notice when it’s wrong and barely register when it’s right. Which, honestly, is exactly where you want to be.

And if you’d rather spend zero mental energy composing emails at all, sign-offs included… that’s what Pullsy was built for.