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Best Time to Post on LinkedIn in 2026

By João Saraiva, founder of Postopus

The best time to post on LinkedIn is a weekday, at an hour that depends on the study. Sprout Social (March 2026) found Tuesday 11 AM to 5 PM, Wednesday 11 AM to 4 PM and Thursday 11 AM and 1 to 5 PM. Hootsuite (November 2025) found Tuesday 6 to 8 AM, Wednesday 9 AM and Thursday 2 PM. Buffer (September 2026) found weekdays 3 to 8 PM, with Wednesday 4 PM the strongest slot. The best day is Wednesday: Buffer names it its best day, Sprout Social counts it among Tuesday to Thursday as its best days, and Hootsuite calls it a high-engagement day. All three give times in your audience's local time zone.

LinkedIn's algorithm doesn't show posts in pure time order. LinkedIn says its feed weighs how recent a post is alongside how often it is viewed and engaged with, who it comes from and what it is about. Timing is one input among several, but it decides who is online to see and react to your post first.

Here's what the posting-time studies say, and how to find the times that work for your audience.

What the studies say

Three scheduling companies publish LinkedIn posting-time research from their own users' posts. They agree on the days and disagree on the hours:

  • Sprout Social (March 2026, about 2 billion engagements across 307,000 profiles): Tuesday 11 AM to 5 PM, Wednesday 11 AM to 4 PM, Thursday 11 AM and 1 to 5 PM. Tuesday to Thursday have the longest peak windows; weekends are the worst days.
  • Hootsuite (November 2025, over 1 million posts): by day, Tuesday 6 to 8 AM, Wednesday 9 AM and Thursday 2 PM. Weekends are typically the worst days.
  • Buffer (September 2026, 4.8 million posts): weekdays 3 to 8 PM, with Wednesday 4 PM as the strongest slot, then Friday 3 PM and 4 PM. Monday and Tuesday had the lowest engagement, and morning posts (6 to 11 AM) did worse than afternoon and evening ones.

All three give times in the audience's local time zone. What they have in common: post on weekdays, with Wednesday a strong day in all three. The hours range from early morning (Hootsuite) through midday (Sprout Social) to late afternoon (Buffer), so the hour is the part to test for your own readers.

How LinkedIn's feed affects timing

LinkedIn's Help Center lists the signals its feed uses. For a post, they include how often it is viewed or engaged with, how recent it is, and whether it comes from someone the viewer follows or is connected to. For the viewer, they include the content they spend the most time viewing (its dwell time) and the engagement others have with your posts and how recent it is.

Two of those signals depend on timing: recency, and how recent the engagement is. Publishing when your readers are online gives a post its best chance of being seen and answered while it is new. Members can also switch their feed to most recent posts, which orders it by post time.

What drives reach on LinkedIn

Timing is one lever. The others, from the same list of LinkedIn signals:

1. The first lines Time spent viewing a post is a signal, so the opening has to give people a reason to keep reading. Your hook needs to stand alone. The LinkedIn post preview shows where the "...more" cut falls on your post.

2. Knowledge and advice LinkedIn names "whether it provides knowledge or advice" among the content signals it evaluates. A post that teaches something from your own work fits that signal.

3. Conversation How often a post is engaged with and how constructive or professional the conversation is are both on LinkedIn's list. LinkedIn's engineering team has also written that comments give feedback to the author that may encourage them to post more. Ask a question your readers can answer from their own experience.

4. Formats A LinkedIn post can carry text, a photo or video, or a document. Postopus builds a carousel PDF from your images when you schedule a LinkedIn post, so you don't have to make the PDF yourself.

5. A steady schedule Posting on a regular schedule makes your own timing tests readable, because you compare similar posts at different times instead of guessing.

Finding YOUR best time

The most useful advice is about your own audience.

Method 1: Use LinkedIn's native analytics

LinkedIn says creator analytics are available to every member. In Content analytics, you can pick a range of up to 365 days, rank your top performing posts by impressions or engagements and export the data to an .XLSX file. Look at when your best posts were published. That's a first read on your audience's active window. For what the numbers mean, see what impressions on LinkedIn are.

Method 2: Test and track across slots

Post at 3 or 4 different times over 4 to 6 weeks, keeping content quality roughly consistent. Compare each post at the same age, for example its impressions after 7 days, so older posts don't win just by being older. Sort by performance and look for patterns.

Method 3: Watch your commenters

If the same 10 people reliably comment on your posts, notice when they're active. Their activity patterns tell you when your core audience is online.

Use scheduling tools to make testing systematic

Batch your content in one session, schedule posts across different time slots, and let the data accumulate. Postopus's queue slots let you set weekly time slots: you fill the queue once a week and Postopus publishes each post in its slot. Postopus does not collect LinkedIn metrics yet, so compare the slots in LinkedIn's own post analytics. LinkedIn also has its own scheduler; see how to see and schedule posts on LinkedIn.

Quick reference: three slots to test

One slot from each study, so your test covers the morning, midday and late-afternoon answers:

Slot Day and time (your audience's local time) Where it comes from
Morning Tuesday 7:00 AM Hootsuite: Tuesday 6 to 8 AM
Midday Wednesday 12:00 PM Sprout Social: Wednesday 11 AM to 4 PM
Late afternoon Wednesday 4:00 PM Buffer: Wednesday 4 PM

If your readers span time zones, set each slot in the zone where most of them are.

The real answer: your own data wins

Start with a weekday slot from the table. It's a reasonable starting point. Then spend 4 to 6 weeks testing, track your impressions, and replace the generic guidance with your own findings.

The creators who build consistent LinkedIn audiences aren't necessarily posting at the "optimal" time from a chart. They're posting consistently, engaging genuinely, and paying attention to what works for their specific audience.

If you want to make that process less manual (batch drafting, queue slots, real-time LinkedIn previews that show how your post will render), Postopus has a free trial. No credit card required.

Sources

Checked on October 20, 2026; the best-day findings of Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Buffer re-checked on October 24, 2026.