LinkedIn newsletter guide: how to start one (and how it compares with Substack)

How do you start a LinkedIn newsletter?

Click Write article at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, open the Manage dropdown, choose Create newsletter, fill in the details and publish your first edition. That first edition matters: LinkedIn invites your connections and followers to subscribe when it goes live, which is the single biggest advantage a LinkedIn newsletter has over every other platform.

The step-by-step, per LinkedIn's help page on managing a newsletter, as of October 2026:

1. Click Write article. If you admin a company Page, choose whether to publish as yourself or the Page.
2. Open the Manage dropdown and select Create newsletter.
3. Enter the newsletter title (LinkedIn advises against emojis), a description, how often you plan to publish, and an optional image or logo.
4. Click Done, then write your first edition in the editor.
5. Click Next, add a short post to accompany the edition, and Publish.

Two limits worth knowing: you can run up to five newsletters at once, and after creating or deleting one you must wait two weeks before creating another.

Who is eligible to create a LinkedIn newsletter?

This has changed over time, and many guides are out of date. LinkedIn's newsletter access criteria page now says all LinkedIn members can create a newsletter. Company Pages have to meet three conditions to be evaluated: more than 150 followers and/or connections, recent original content, and a history of following the Professional Community Policies. Meeting them makes a Page eligible to be evaluated, not automatically approved.

If you see advice saying you need Creator Mode turned on, ignore it. Creator Mode was retired in 2024 (see our Creator Mode explainer), and newsletter access for people who had it was kept.

What image sizes does a LinkedIn newsletter need?

LinkedIn's newsletter best practices page gives two numbers:

Third-party guides quote other cover sizes (1280 x 720, 1200 x 644). Those are the same or a similar wide shape at lower resolution and will usually display fine, but 1920 x 1080 is what LinkedIn itself recommends. LinkedIn also advises avoiding clip art and generic stock photos; images with real people in them tend to draw more attention. For a founder, a photo of a whiteboard, a product screen or a team moment beats any stock image.

How often should you publish a LinkedIn newsletter?

When you set up the newsletter you pick a frequency, and LinkedIn's main cadence advice is simply to keep to the schedule you chose so subscribers know what to expect. Our recommendation for busy founders and executives:

• Weekly only if you have a team or a ghostwriter producing it. A newsletter that goes weekly for six weeks and then stops does more harm than one that never launched.
• Every two weeks is the sweet spot for most founders who write their own.
• Monthly works for executives whose newsletter is a considered essay or an investor-style update.

Whatever you choose, the newsletter should sit alongside your regular posts, not replace them. Feed posts build reach; newsletter editions deepen the relationship with people who already chose to hear from you.

What should a founder write in a LinkedIn newsletter?

A newsletter needs a theme narrow enough that a stranger understands the promise from the title. "Thoughts from our CEO" is not a theme. Some formats that work for founders and executives (illustrative, not client examples):

• The build log. A B2B SaaS founder documents one decision per edition: why we changed pricing, why we hired a head of sales before a CTO, what churned and why.
• The market brief. A fintech CEO explains one regulatory or market change per edition and what it means for customers.
• The practitioner's notebook. A doctor-founder explains one clinical topic in plain language for patients and referring doctors (check your medical council's advertising rules first).
• The teardown. A consultant breaks down one public company decision per edition using their own framework.

Each edition should run 600 to 1,500 words, carry one idea, and end with a question that invites replies. Repurpose the strongest point into a feed post a few days later; our post ideas for founders list has angles that convert well from long to short.

LinkedIn newsletter vs Substack vs beehiiv vs email: which should you use?

The honest trade-off is reach versus ownership.

Substack's fee is from its own support page. beehiiv changed its paid tiers on October 1, 2026, so check its pricing page directly for current numbers.

When does a LinkedIn newsletter make sense for founders and executives?

Start one when three things are true: you already post regularly and have a few thousand relevant followers, you have a theme you can sustain for a year, and your buyers or hires live on LinkedIn. In that case the built-in invite and notifications give you a distribution head start no other platform can match.

Skip it, or run it on Substack or beehiiv instead, if you need to own the list (for a product launch, fundraising updates or a paid community), or if you are not yet posting consistently. A newsletter without a feed habit behind it rarely grows past a small circle of subscribers.

A common setup we like is both: publish the full edition on LinkedIn for reach, and link to an owned email list from your Featured section for the readers who want more.

How Postlit helps with LinkedIn newsletters

For clients where a newsletter fits the goal, it is built from the same monthly voice interview that feeds their LinkedIn ghostwriting: one interview, a newsletter edition, and three to five posts a week drawn from it, each approved by the client. If you are not sure a newsletter is the right next step, send a short form via WhatsApp or email from our contact page and you will get a written free teardown from a founder, usually within a few hours IST.