LinkedIn Banner Size, and What to Put on It.

The short answer

The recommended LinkedIn banner size is 1584 by 396 pixels, a 4:1 shape, saved as a JPG or PNG under 8 MB. What goes on it matters more. Among the strongest LinkedIn authors we studied, the most common choice was one line saying what they do, on an otherwise quiet image.

The LinkedIn banner size, in full

The banner is the wide background image across the top of your LinkedIn profile. Founder social starts with a profile that says what you do, and the banner is the widest space on it.

These are the specifications to work to:

• recommended size: 1584 by 396 pixels
• shape: 4:1, four times as wide as it is tall
• file types: JPG or PNG
• file size: 8 MB at most

Design at exactly 1584 by 396, the recommended size, rather than resizing something made for another platform.

Where the profile photo gets in the way

The banner is not a clean canvas. Your profile photo sits over part of it, and the crop is different on mobile and on desktop.

That means text can disappear behind your own face on one screen and look fine on the other. Before you settle on a design, upload it and check your profile on a phone and on a computer.

The practical rule: keep words clear of the area your profile photo covers, and check both screens every time you change the design.

What the strongest profiles put on theirs

Size is the easy part. The harder question is what to put on the banner, and here we have our own numbers.

NBK Social’s research on LinkedIn collected every public post from 346 prominent LinkedIn writers, 74,119 posts in all, on 10 September 2026. It ranked authors by engagement, meaning the reactions plus comments their typical post receives.

The study then read the banners of 41 of the strongest authors by eye and recorded what was on each one.

One limit matters. Each author has only one banner, so these numbers show what strong authors do, not what works. Nor can they show that a banner caused any engagement.

Half carry a positioning line

The single most common choice was a positioning line: a short statement of what the author does or stands for.

22 of the 41 banners, 54%, carried one. That is the clearest pattern in the set.

Imagine a line such as “Social video for B2B software brands”. That would count as a positioning line.

The study found the strongest profiles also keep their headline short and plain, stating what the author does, which we cover in how to write a LinkedIn headline.

Most use words, but not many

Words are normal. 32 of the 41 banners, 78%, had some text on them.

When they did, the median was 15.5 words, meaning half used fewer and half used more. That is about one sentence.

The reading is simple: one line that says what you do, in about fifteen words, on a banner that is otherwise quiet.

What else appears, and how often

Beyond the positioning line, here is how often each element turned up across the 41 banners:

• the author’s own photo: 32%, 13 banners
• a wordmark, a logo made of the brand’s name: 29%, 12 banners
• a call to action, such as a link or an invitation to get in touch: 24%, 10 banners
• client or press logos: 20%, 8 banners
• a proof number, a figure offered as evidence: 12%, 5 banners

As the main message, an offer led on 8 banners, 20%. A proof point led on just one banner in 41. Proof is rare on the strongest profiles.

A quarter say nothing at all

10 of the 41 banners, 24%, were decorative with no message. An empty skyline is a common example.

That is common, but it is not the most common choice. The strongest accounts more often used the space to say something.

Almost all of them used the space. 42 of the 44 strongest authors we looked at, 95%, had a banner, against 93% across every profile in the study. A profile with no banner is the exception.

Three banner recipes

Here is how we would build a banner from those patterns. Each one is a starting point, not a template to copy.

The positioning line

One sentence, about fifteen words, saying what you do and for whom. A plain background in your brand colour. Nothing else. This is the most common choice among the strongest authors, and the hardest to get wrong.

The line plus the person

The same sentence, with a photo of you on the right side, clear of the profile photo. Useful when your face is the brand, at events or on stage. About a third of the strongest banners showed the author.

The line plus one action

The positioning line, with one short call to action beneath it, such as the name of a newsletter or a booking link written out. Keep it to one action. About a quarter of the strongest banners had one.

Four banner mistakes to avoid

Each of these undoes the work of a good line:

• text placed where the profile photo covers it
• three messages competing on one image
• a slogan that says nothing about what you actually do
• a banner made for one screen and never checked on the other

None of these takes long to fix. An audit checklist is a quick way to catch them alongside the rest of your profile.

How NBK thinks about the LinkedIn banner

A banner is a small piece of a bigger system. A founder’s presence works when the profile, the posts and the rhythm all say the same thing about who they are.

The banner is among the first things a visitor sees. If it does not match what your headline says, and what your posts are about, it weakens the rest of the profile.

The same thinking applies to the other trust signals on a profile, from your headline to whether LinkedIn verification is worth it for you.

Next step

If your founder content is going out regularly but the profile behind it does not say clearly what you do, NBK can help build the system around it.