What Is the Best Day to Send a LinkedIn Message?
Sunday and Saturday earn the highest reply rates in our data, 48.0% and 46.9%, and Monday earns the lowest at 29.6%. Tuesday through Thursday sit close together between 37.2% and 37.9%. The weekend lift survives a within-account control, but weekend sending is only 9.9% of our volume and it is hand-picked, so it is a real effect on a small, selected slice rather than a reason to move a whole outreach program to Sunday.
Last updated: September 2026 · Next update: December 2026 · Methodology
Computed: reply rate by the day the first message was sent
| Day sent | Reply rate |
|---|---|
| Sunday | 48.0% |
| Saturday | 46.9% |
| Wednesday | 37.9% |
| Thursday | 37.3% |
| Tuesday | 37.2% |
| Friday | 35.0% |
| Monday | 29.6% |
10,922 outbound-initiated conversations from 17 sending accounts. Reply rate: conversations in which the other person sent at least one message after our opener, divided by conversations opened on that day. Day is taken in Europe/Amsterdam, the timezone the sending teams operate in. We do not convert per account. Weekend sends are 1,083 of 10,922, or 9.9% of volume.
Computed: weekday against weekend, inside each account
| When sent | Accounts | Median account reply rate |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 17 | 40.3% |
| Saturday and Sunday | 10 | 48.8% |
Each account contributes its own reply rate first, then the median is taken across accounts, so the result cannot be produced by one account that only sends at weekends. Accounts need at least 25 openers in the band to be counted, which is why the weekend row covers 10 accounts. The gap holds under both methods, at 8.5 points within account and 12.1 points pooled.
Computed: reply rate by the hour the message was sent, sender local time
| Sent at | Reply rate |
|---|---|
| 12:00 to 14:59 | 41.5% |
| 09:00 to 11:59 | 39.9% |
| 00:00 to 05:59 | 34.3% |
| 06:00 to 08:59 | 34.2% |
| 15:00 to 17:59 | 33.8% |
| 18:00 to 20:59 | 31.0% |
| 21:00 to 23:59 | 27.8% |
8,729 conversations where the sending account is known. The clock is Europe/Amsterdam, where the sending teams sit. It is not the reader's timezone, and it is not converted per sending account. This table therefore describes when our teams worked and how that landed, and it cannot be read as advice about the reader's local morning. Our InMail benchmarks page gives recipient-local guidance and that guidance still stands.
How to read a day-of-week benchmark
Monday is the one clear loser
29.6% across 2,166 first messages, the largest single day in the set and the worst rate in it. A message that lands in a Monday inbox competes with everything that arrived over the weekend.
Tuesday to Thursday are the same day
37.2%, 37.9% and 37.3%. The spread across the three is 0.7 points on more than 6,000 conversations. Choosing between them is not a decision worth making.
The weekend effect is real and small in volume
48.0% on Sunday and 46.9% on Saturday, and the lift survives when each account is measured against itself. But weekend sending is 9.9% of our volume and it is what a person does by hand rather than what a queue does at scale.
Selection is doing part of the work
Nobody sends 200 messages on a Sunday. Weekend sends are fewer, chosen individually and usually written for that one person. The day is picking up credit that belongs partly to the care taken with the message.
Sending days and posting days are different questions
Our posting benchmarks show weekends underperform for published posts. That is about how many people are in the feed. Messaging is about one inbox, and the two do not have to agree.
A workable rule
Run the planned volume Tuesday to Thursday, keep Monday for follow-ups rather than openers, and let anyone working a weekend send the handful of messages they were going to write carefully anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best day to send a LinkedIn message?
Wednesday is the best weekday at 37.9%, with Tuesday and Thursday within one point of it. Sunday and Saturday score higher still at 48.0% and 46.9%, measured across 10,922 first messages from 17 accounts. Monday is the worst day at 29.6%.
Is it bad to send LinkedIn messages on the weekend?
No. Weekend openers were replied to 47.4% of the time against 35.3% on weekdays, and the gap holds inside individual accounts at 48.8% against 40.3%. Weekend sends are only 9.9% of our volume and tend to be written one at a time, so part of the lift belongs to the care taken rather than to the day.
Why is Monday the worst day for LinkedIn outreach?
A Monday message lands in an inbox that already holds everything from the weekend. Monday carried 2,166 first messages in our data, the highest volume of any day, and returned the lowest reply rate at 29.6%, roughly seven points below Tuesday through Thursday.
Should I move my LinkedIn outreach to Sunday?
No. The Sunday rate of 48.0% comes from 492 messages that somebody chose to write on a Sunday. Scaling a queue into the weekend changes what those messages are, and the effect will not survive the change. Keep planned volume on Tuesday to Thursday and let weekend sends stay small and hand-written.
Does the best day to send a message match the best day to post?
No, and the two questions are separate. Our posting benchmarks show weekends underperform for published posts, because reach depends on how many people are in the feed. A direct message only has to reach one inbox, so weekend delivery costs nothing there.
How should I read a send-time benchmark measured in the sender's timezone?
As a description of your own working pattern, not the reader's. Our hourly table uses the sender's local clock, so the 41.5% peak between 12:00 and 14:59 says our teams sent good messages around midday. Recipient-local timing guidance is on our InMail response rate benchmarks page.
Methodology
Computed on 2026-09-09 across the 10,922 LinkedIn conversations in which our side sent the first message, from 17 sending accounts, drawn from 100,861 messages in 14,577 conversations.
Reply rate. Numerator: conversations in which the other person sent at least one message after our opener. Denominator: outbound-initiated conversations whose opener was sent on that day or in that hour band. The whole-cohort figure is 3,988 of 10,922, or 36.5%.
Day of week is taken from the timestamp of the opener in Europe/Amsterdam. The figures only reproduce in that timezone, so it is named rather than described as local. Weekend means Saturday and Sunday.
The within-account table computes each account's own weekday and weekend rate, then reports the median across accounts. An account needs at least 25 openers in the band, which is why the weekend row rests on 10 accounts. Both the within-account and the pooled figure are published so the reader can see they agree.
The hourly table covers 8,729 conversations where the sending account is known, on the sender's local clock. We do not hold a reliable recipient timezone, so no recipient-local claim is made from it.
This is observational. Weekend sends are fewer and are written by hand, so the day is entangled with how the message was produced. The page states that rather than removing it.
Every published row covers at least 10 sending accounts, above our floor of 8. No conversation, contact or message text is exposed.
Computed figures from Creator's anonymized LinkedIn DM dataset. Supporting research: LinkedIn Sales Solutions send-timing guidance, and the posting-day findings published on our own LinkedIn posting frequency benchmarks page.
Understand the terms
Opener
The first message you send in a conversation.
Send Window
The day and hour a message is delivered.
DM Reply Rate
Conversations you started that got a reply, divided by conversations you started.
Selection Effect
A result caused by which cases were chosen rather than by the thing being tested.
Within-Account Method
Each account contributes its own rate first, then the median is taken across accounts.
Sending Cadence
How many outreach messages go out per day and when.
LinkedIn Content Playbook
The day matters less than whether the reader knows your name.
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