What is a good LinkedIn engagement rate for founders?

It depends entirely on follower count. A 'good' post for a founder with 1,000 followers hits roughly 2,000 to 4,000 impressions in the Strong tier. The same impression count for a 50,000 follower account is below the median. The honest answer is always tier-relative, which is why PostLab benchmarks by follower bucket rather than a single global average.

How do I analyze LinkedIn posts without paying for a tool?

Pull your last few posts, find the follower bucket you fall into on this page, and compare each post's impression count against the four thresholds (Typical, Strong, Top, Breakout). Anything below Typical needs hook work. Anything Strong or higher is a pattern to repeat. The free PostLab Post Analyzer does this automatically for your last three posts and writes a short diagnosis on hooks, structure, and CTAs.

Where does PostLab get its LinkedIn benchmark data?

PostLab benchmarks are derived from The Shield Index, a public dataset of LinkedIn engagement aggregated across thousands of creators. Benchmarks are refreshed monthly so the thresholds reflect current LinkedIn algorithm behavior, not last year's reach.

Why benchmark by follower tier instead of using one global rate?

LinkedIn's algorithm rewards posts differently at different account sizes. Small accounts have proportionally higher reach per follower; large accounts have lower. A single global engagement-rate target is misleading. Tiered benchmarks let founders compare against the right peer group, which is the only useful read.

How often are these LinkedIn benchmarks updated?

Monthly. LinkedIn's organic reach moves with platform changes, and a benchmark from six months ago will lie to you. PostLab cuts a new benchmark version each month and the Post Analyzer compares posts against the version active in the month each post was published.

What counts as a Breakout LinkedIn post for a founder?

Breakout is the top three percent of posts in your follower tier for that month. It usually means a hook that earned the click on 'see more' in the first two lines, a structure that rewarded readers for staying, and a topic that pulled in viewers outside the author's immediate network. Breakout posts are the ones worth studying and recreating as repeatable patterns.

PostLab home

Benchmarks · 2026-03 · shield-2026-03

LinkedIn post benchmarks for founders, by follower tier.

A good LinkedIn post for a founder is one that clears the engagement benchmark for their follower tier in the month it was published. Raw likes and impressions are misleading at any single account size. The tables below give the four impression thresholds (Typical, Strong, Top, Breakout) per follower bucket from 0 to 100K+, refreshed monthly from TheShieldIndex.com. Use them as the honest read on whether a post hit, missed, or broke out.

The numbers

Impression thresholds per follower tier.

Each row is a follower bucket. Each column is the impression count a post needs to hit that tier for the 2026-03 benchmark.

Followers	Typical	Strong	Top	Breakout
0-1K	165	433	1,118	13,513
1-5K	470	1,209	3,071	26,269
5-10K	757	1,896	4,949	41,736
10-25K	1,177	3,025	8,344	60,563
25-50K	2,186	6,141	18,065	116,146
50-100K	4,471	12,375	35,894	198,403
100K+	11,375	34,354	105,322	345,460

Source: TheShieldIndex.com · Version shield-2026-03 · 2026-03

What each tier means

Five buckets, no vanity metrics.

Tier

Below Typical

Post landed under the monthly median for your follower tier. The hook or structure did not earn the click on 'see more.' Treat it as a learning data point, not a failure.

Tier

Typical

Median post for your tier this month. Reliable floor, but not the kind of post that grows reach. Worth doing, not worth repeating without iteration.

Tier

Strong

Top third of posts in your tier. Hook worked, structure rewarded readers, CTA did not break the flow. Study what made it land.

Tier

Top

Top tenth. Algorithm pushed it past your immediate network. Look at the opening two lines and the format choice. These are the patterns worth turning into a series.

Tier

Breakout

Top three percent. The post earned reach far beyond your follower count. Almost always a combination of a contrarian or specific hook, a structure that kept readers scrolling, and a topic with broad pull-through outside your network.

How the data works

Real engagement, refreshed monthly.

PostLab benchmarks are derived from TheShieldIndex.com, a public dataset of LinkedIn engagement aggregated across thousands of creators every month. Each tier row above is the result of bucketing accounts by follower count and computing the impression thresholds for the 50th, 67th, 90th, and 97th percentile of post performance inside that bucket for the 2026-03 measurement window.

The benchmarks are versioned. The active version powering this page is shield-2026-03. PostLab cuts a new version each month because LinkedIn's organic reach moves with the algorithm, and a benchmark from six months ago will quietly lie to you. When you run a post through the Post Analyzer, the tool compares the post against the version active in the month the post was published, not the version active today.

Tiered benchmarks beat a single global engagement rate because LinkedIn rewards posts differently at different account sizes. Small accounts have proportionally higher reach per follower; large accounts have lower. A 3 percent engagement rate is a floor at 1,000 followers and a ceiling at 100,000. The only honest read is your post versus the right peer group for that month, which is what the table above is for.

FAQ

Common questions about LinkedIn benchmarks.

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