You can have the most essential messages in the world, but if you don’t send them at a time when employees or stakeholders can read, absorb, and act on them, you’re stunting everyone’s potential — and costing the organization productivity, time, and money.

• Best overall send day

• Best overall send time

• Best send day and send time

To find the best time to send an internal email, we analyzed the average open rates of 8.7 million email deliveries sent through Axios HQ — an AI-powered platform for internal communications — between January 2022 and March 2023. We looked at average open rates through different lenses:

One surprising trend

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Best days to send an internal email

54%

52%

47%

49%

31%

The best day to send an internal communication

Average open rate

The best day to send is

Sunday/Monday

65%

The best time to send an internal communication

Average open rate

Best day and time to send an internal email

The best day and time to send an internal email

Average open rate

Unlock the data

The best time to send is

3am – 6am

You’re playing a volume game. And while you can’t control when brands and other organizations will send corporate email or marketing-style outreach, you can understand it and use it to your advantage. Focus on sending a recurring communication or internal newsletter during data-backed send windows — boosting the chances folks read it.

Now take your optimization one step further. Drill into the times of day employees and stakeholders are able to stop what they’re doing and focus on the essential communications you share — the type of update that might take 3 – 5 minutes to read. Most team members spend 23% of their week in meetings with the “ideal meeting window” falling 10am – 2pm, when folks are more likely to be busy. With that insight, you can begin to map your best-send days against folks’ most available windows in them.

Once you take all the daily distractions and work priorities into account, you can find the best day-and-time combination to send staff or stakeholders your vital update, internal newsletter, or other corporate email. Your best window will be unique, but these can be your benchmarks. While far fewer essential communications are sent Saturday and Sunday, updates sent on those days earn the highest open rates. But sending windows don’t always equate to reading windows. Shipping an internal communication during low-competition times, like Sunday night, can ensure they are top of mind — and inbox — when your readers start their day.

Many of the “best send” windows — at organizations of all sizes — land on Sunday afternoons or in the earliest hours of a weekday morning.

For some organizations, sending updates outside of normal working hours may feel like an infringement on employee time or team culture. So consider this data within the context of your culture.

Best times to send an internal email

Tips to improve your email send strategy

Successful sends come from studying your audience — knowing when they are at their desks, what days are heavy with meetings, and if some might only be able to check email before or after they join an assembly line. All that data will help you find the best day and time to send essential internal communications.

Take stock. Audit your existing content, cadence, and success rate. See what’s connecting with your audience and build on it. Become their go-to source for trustworthy insight.

The best overall day and time to send is

Sunday 3pm – 6pm

Why it matters: More than 70% of employees say they’d prefer that their leaders send vital internal updates by email. Sharpen the way you use that channel, and it can make the difference between an aligned workforce and one that frays.

See how Axios HQ has helped hundreds of organizations elevate what matters.

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About Axios HQ

Axios HQ is the only internal communications management platform helping organizations plan, compose, deliver, and measure their vital internal communications.

Organizations large and small — like Walmart, Tyson, and Everfi — trust Axios HQ as their key to better organizational alignment and reader engagement.

Rooted in years of research — and built with powerful generative AI — Axios HQ uses a science-backed methodology to make internal communications clearer and more engaging.

The bottom line: Your unique send time will depend on your employees and work week, but this report offers benchmarks for where to start. Once you find your stride, you’ll see improvements across the board that keep your organization aligned.

70%

54%

53%

50%

48%

42%

37%

Our data spans 215 organizations in different industries and stages of growth. To ensure our trends were significant, we removed send windows with fewer than two editions or fewer than 350 deliveries.

• Best send day and time by org size

A data-dive into 8.7 million email deliveries

The best time to send an internal email

Your quick checklist:

That’s why in each section of the report you’ll see a complete data set for the best day-and-time to send an internal email — broken out by org size — so you can choose the highest performing option that’s right for you.

The best times to send by org size

Every organization has its own pulse, purpose, and employee preferences — and they evolve as you grow. To see this data broken out by best send time and organization size, go deeper in our report.

Measure and modify. Build a better baseline by looking beyond only basic email metrics. Focus on engagement rates, retention rates, and other quantitative ways to measure the success of your internal communications.

Collect feedback. With employees scattered across different teams and time zones, you need to zero in on the topics they want — and need — to hear most. Poll employees and adjust your content strategy accordingly.

Your quick checklist:

Take stock. Audit your existing content, cadence, and success rate. See what’s connecting with your audience and build on it. Become their go-to source for trustworthy insight.