--- title: 'Best Time to Post on LinkedIn: What 5 Studies Agree On' description: 'The best time to post on LinkedIn, compared across five studies, with advice for profiles vs Pages and a four-week test to find your own best hours.' category: 'Social media scheduling' author: 'Aleksandr Samokhin' published_at: '2026-10-11' updated_at: '2026-10-11' related: [ best-time-to-post-on-twitter, how-to-schedule-linkedin-posts, build-a-consistent-social-media-posting-schedule, ] image: 'infographics/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/featured-thumbnail.webp' image_alt: 'Best time to post on LinkedIn headline beside a weekday bar chart that peaks midweek and a clock' thumbnail: 'infographics/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/featured-thumbnail.webp' thumbnail_alt: 'Best time to post on LinkedIn headline beside a weekday bar chart that peaks midweek and a clock' --- The best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, between late morning and mid-afternoon in your audience's local time. Weekends are the weakest days. That is where five recent studies overlap. On the exact hour they split: Hootsuite leans early morning, Buffer mid-afternoon into evening, and Postpone late evening. Use the published windows to choose your first test slots, not as a fixed rule. This guide compares what Buffer, Sprout Social, SocialPilot, Hootsuite, and Postpone found, explains why their answers differ, and covers what LinkedIn itself says about its feed. It ends with a four-week test that uses LinkedIn's own post analytics to find the hours that work for your profile or Page. ## What is the best time to post on LinkedIn? The best time to post on LinkedIn is midweek, from about 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in your audience's time zone. [Sprout Social's 2026 data](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-linkedin/) recommends Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Thursday from 1 to 5 p.m. [SocialPilot](https://www.socialpilot.co/insights/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin) recommends 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time on the same three days. [Buffer's analysis of 4.8 million posts](https://buffer.com/resources/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/) points later, to 3–8 p.m. on weekdays, with Wednesday at 4 p.m. as its top slot. Line those windows up and 3 p.m. is the only hour that three of the five studies include. Each of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday is named a best day by four of the five, and all five rank the weekend lowest. Start with a midweek slot between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., then confirm it with your own posts before you lock in a schedule. ## What five studies say about the best time to post on LinkedIn Each study measured something slightly different, so the details matter. The table summarizes what each one published as of October 5, 2026. | Study | Sample | Time zone | Best window | Best days | Weakest days | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------- | -------------------------------------- | | [Buffer](https://buffer.com/resources/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/) | 4.8M LinkedIn posts, published September 9, 2026 | Normalized to local time | 3–8 p.m. on weekdays; Wed 4 p.m. first, then Fri 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. | Wed, Thu, Fri | Monday, then Tuesday; weekends low | | [Sprout Social](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-linkedin/) | ~2B engagements, 307K profiles on six networks, Nov 27, 2025 – Feb 27, 2026 | Local time | Tue 11 a.m.–5 p.m., Wed 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Thu 11 a.m. and 1–5 p.m. | Tue, Wed, Thu | Saturday, Sunday | | [SocialPilot](https://www.socialpilot.co/insights/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin) | 683K+ posts from 47,672 accounts | Eastern Time | 10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–4 p.m. | Tue, Wed, Thu | Weekends; dips on Monday and Friday | | [Hootsuite](https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/) | 1M+ social posts, published November 19, 2025 | Localized across 118 countries | 8–9 a.m. (the article also cites 4–6 a.m.) | Tue, Wed | Weekends | | [Postpone](https://www.postpone.app/tools/best-time-to-post/linkedin) | "Tens of thousands" of LinkedIn posts | Viewer's local time | 9–11 p.m. | Thu, Fri, Tue | Sunday, Saturday (25% less engagement) | ![PostQuest field guide comparing the recommended LinkedIn posting windows from five studies: Hootsuite 4 to 6 a.m. and 8 to 9 a.m., SocialPilot 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m., Sprout Social 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Buffer 3 to 8 p.m., and Postpone 9 to 11 p.m. Only the 3 p.m. hour is included by three of the five studies.](/infographics/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/posting-windows.webp) To build the chart, I counted an hour as recommended when a study's published weekday window included posts starting in that hour. Buffer's 3–8 p.m. window, for example, counts for 3 p.m. through 7 p.m. For Sprout Social, I used its widest weekday window, Tuesday's 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. ### Where the studies agree - **Midweek is strongest.** Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are each named a best day by four of the five studies. - **Weekends are weakest.** All five studies rank Saturday and Sunday lowest. Sprout Social goes furthest and recommends no weekend posting at all. - **Business hours are the safe default.** Sprout Social and SocialPilot place their windows inside a normal working day, and Hootsuite's 8–9 a.m. window sits at the start of one. ### Where the studies disagree The hour is where they split. Hootsuite favors early morning, Sprout Social and SocialPilot favor late morning to mid-afternoon, Buffer favors mid-afternoon into the evening, and Postpone favors 9–11 p.m. Only Buffer's top slot, 4 p.m. on Wednesday, falls inside Sprout Social's window. Hootsuite is not even consistent with itself: its summary recommends 8–9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while its body text names 4–6 a.m. Postpone and Hootsuite disclose the least about their samples, so weigh their hours below Buffer's 4.8 million posts. Buffer's day ranking also stands out. It ranks Monday and Tuesday as the weakest weekdays, while three other studies name Tuesday among the best. Buffer notes that its 2025 data still put LinkedIn's peak inside working hours, so the evening shift is new and only one year old. ## What is the best day to post on LinkedIn? Wednesday is the most reliable day to post on LinkedIn, with Tuesday and Thursday close behind. Each of the three is named a best day by four of the five studies. Buffer ranks Wednesday first, then Thursday and Friday, while Sprout Social, SocialPilot, and Hootsuite favor the Tuesday-to-Thursday block. Tuesday is the one split day: Buffer ranks it second-weakest after Monday. Saturday and Sunday are the days to avoid if you have to choose, because every study ranks them lowest, and Postpone measures about 25% less engagement on weekends. The only contrary signal comes from a small controlled sample of company Pages, covered below. Put your most important post on Wednesday, use Tuesday or Thursday for the second, and keep weekends for occasional tests. ![PostQuest field guide showing how many of five studies name each weekday as a best or weakest day to post on LinkedIn. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are each named best by four studies, Friday by two, and Saturday and Sunday are named weakest by all five.](/infographics/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/best-days.webp) | Day | Named a best day | Named a weakest day | Practical starting point | | --------- | :--------------: | :-----------------: | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Monday | 0 | 1 | Use for lighter posts; Sprout Social's Monday window is 1–2 p.m. | | Tuesday | 4 | 1 | Strong slot, but Buffer's data disagrees, so test it | | Wednesday | 4 | 0 | Put your most important post of the week here | | Thursday | 4 | 0 | Strong second slot | | Friday | 2 | 0 | Buffer and Postpone rank it highly; Sprout Social's Friday window is narrow | | Saturday | 0 | 5 | Skip unless your own data says otherwise | | Sunday | 0 | 5 | Skip unless your own data says otherwise | SocialPilot's Monday and Friday dips are not counted as weakest days, because it names weekends as its weakest. One dataset pushes back on the weekend rule. [PostFast](https://postfa.st/blog/best-time-to-post-social-media-data-report), a competing scheduler analyzing its own users' posts, scored 1,836 LinkedIn company Page posts from 60 Pages against each Page's own median and found Sunday at 1.30x and Saturday at 1.20x, ahead of Thursday at 0.88x. That is a small sample, and PostFast itself calls it a direction, but it is a reason to test one weekend post rather than rule weekends out forever. ## Why do LinkedIn best-time studies disagree? Each study can be accurate for its own data and still disagree with the others, because each answers a slightly different question. Five differences explain most of the gap. 1. **They measure different outcomes.** Buffer ranks slots by engagement, Sprout Social counts engagements across its customers' profiles on six networks, and Postpone looks at engagement rates. A post can earn a high rate from a small audience or many reactions with modest reach. 2. **They sample different customers.** Each dataset comes from the people who use that tool. A tool popular with B2B marketing teams will see business-hour peaks because its customers' audiences work those hours. 3. **They handle time zones differently.** Buffer normalizes results to local time. SocialPilot reports in Eastern Time, so its 10 a.m. becomes 7 a.m. for a Pacific audience. 4. **Big accounts distort pooled averages.** When large accounts post at certain hours, those hours look strong even if timing had little effect. [PostFast's 2026 timing report](https://postfa.st/blog/best-time-to-post-social-media-data-report), which uses data from its own scheduler's users, controlled for this by scoring each post against its own account's median. On LinkedIn company Pages, its hour curve did not reproduce when the posts were split in half and re-tested. PostFast concluded that its data "supports consistency and the first hour of comments over any clock." 5. **Behavior changes over time.** Buffer's 2026 afternoon-to-evening peak replaced a working-hours peak in its 2025 data. A study from last year may describe an audience that has already moved. PostFast's report is self-published and not peer-reviewed, so treat it as one dataset rather than a consensus. Still, it points the same way as LinkedIn's own feed documentation below: the first lines that make someone stop scrolling and the comments that follow matter more than the minute you publish. If your posts struggle, work on [writing a stronger hook](/blog/write-better-social-media-hooks) before you move your schedule. ## Does posting time matter on LinkedIn? Yes, but for specific reasons that LinkedIn documents. In its [Help article on feed relevance](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1339724), LinkedIn lists the content signals its feed uses, including how often a post is viewed or engaged with, what the post is about, and "how recent the content is." Among activity signals, it lists the content a member spends the most time viewing and the engagement others have with a post "and how recent it is." Time spent matters too. LinkedIn's engineering team [explained in 2020](https://www.linkedin.com/blog/engineering/feed/understanding-feed-dwell-time) that it measures dwell time once at least half of a feed update is visible on screen, and that it lowers the ranking score of updates a member is predicted to skip quickly. Members can also [sort their feed by Recent](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1480504) instead of Top, which shows posts in reverse chronological order. Recency is one input, not the whole ranking. LinkedIn also shows [suggested posts](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1499047) from outside a member's network when it judges them professionally relevant and not overly promotional. The practical rule follows: **post when your audience is online and when you can reply to comments for the next hour.** A post that holds attention and starts a conversation gains more than a perfectly timed post that nobody discusses. ## Should personal profiles and company Pages post at different times? Company Pages should start with the buyer's working day, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, while personal profiles can add a later 3–5 p.m. test slot. No study measures the split, so treat this as analysis, not data. Pages reach followers who are usually buyers, peers, and employees reading at work. Profiles reach connections who may also read during breaks and after work. | Factor | Personal profile | Company Page | | ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Who sees it first | Your connections and followers | Page followers, usually buyers, peers, and employees | | When they read | Work breaks and after work (analysis, not measured) | During the working day of the buyer's time zone | | Starting slots | One midday slot and one 3–5 p.m. slot | 11 a.m.–3 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday | | Analytics names | Impressions, members reached, reactions, comments, reposts, saves, sends | Impressions, members reached, clicks, reactions, comments, reposts, engagement rate | | Who replies early | You | A Page admin, plus colleagues who comment from their own profiles | For a B2B Page, anchor your schedule to your buyers' working hours. [Sprout Social's industry breakdown](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-linkedin/) lists weekends as the worst days in all eight industries it covers, from financial services to software. For a personal profile, test a later slot as well. Buffer's 2026 data pools all account types, but it found engagement holding up after working hours. ## How to find your own best time to post on LinkedIn The five studies narrow the search; your own analytics settle it. This four-week test compares each post with your own normal result instead of with other accounts, which is the method that makes pooled studies more reliable. ![PostQuest field guide showing a four-week test to find your best time to post on LinkedIn: pick three slots, rotate formats fairly, score impressions against your median at 72 hours, and keep the winner. An illustrative example shows a 1 p.m. slot scoring 1.21 against a 0.94 morning slot and a 0.97 late-afternoon slot.](/infographics/best-time-to-post-on-linkedin/four-week-test.webp) ### 1. Pick three test slots Choose one morning, one midday, and one late-afternoon slot in your audience's time zone. A good default based on the five studies is 9 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday. Keep the slots fixed for the whole test. ### 2. Rotate posts fairly Publish comparable posts in each slot. If your document posts always go out at 9 a.m. and your short text posts at 4 p.m., you are testing formats, not times. Rotate formats and topics so that each slot gets a similar mix. Aim for at least four posts per slot over the four weeks. ### 3. Record the right metrics LinkedIn's [post analytics for members](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a516971) show impressions, members reached, reactions, comments, reposts, saves, and sends on LinkedIn. [Page content analytics](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a564051) show impressions, members reached, clicks, reactions, comments, reposts, and engagement rate. LinkedIn notes that Page metrics can take up to 48 hours to appear, except reactions and comments, which update in real time. So collect each post's numbers at the same age, such as 72 hours after publishing. Note the exact publish time when you schedule, because LinkedIn shows relative timestamps such as "3h" on the post itself. ### 4. Score each post against your median Calculate a timing index for each post: > Timing index = post impressions ÷ your median impressions per post An index of 1.00 is your normal, and 1.25 means the post was shown 25% more often than your typical post. Average the index for each slot. If conversations matter more to you than reach, repeat the calculation with comments plus reposts. | Slot (illustrative) | Posts | Average timing index | Read | | ----------------------- | ----: | -------------------: | ------------------------ | | Tuesday–Thursday 9 a.m. | 4 | 0.94 | Slightly below normal | | Tuesday–Thursday 1 p.m. | 4 | 1.21 | Clear lead; keep testing | | Tuesday–Thursday 4 p.m. | 4 | 0.97 | About normal | These numbers show the calculation; they are not data from a real account. ### 5. Keep the winner, then retest Adopt a slot when it leads by a clear margin, such as 20% or more, across several posts. If the slots finish within a few percent of each other, timing is not your main constraint. Keep the most convenient slot and put the effort into the posts themselves. Repeat the test each quarter, or after your audience changes, for example after you start selling into a new region. ## Time zones: schedule for your buyers, not for yourself Every recommendation above uses your audience's local time, except SocialPilot's, which uses Eastern Time. Schedule for where most of your followers or buyers work, even if you live somewhere else. | Audience | Starting slot | Why it works | | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | Mostly US East Coast | 11 a.m.–3 p.m. ET | Inside Sprout Social's and SocialPilot's windows | | Across the United States | 2–4 p.m. ET (11 a.m.–1 p.m. PT) | Mid-afternoon in the East and late morning in the West | | UK and US East Coast | 4–5 p.m. UK (11 a.m.–12 p.m. ET) | Late afternoon in London and late morning in New York | | Western Europe | 11 a.m.–3 p.m. CET | Covers most European business hours in one window | | Global | Test two slots, about eight hours apart | No single hour reaches every region during the working day | Daylight saving time shifts cross-region gaps for a few weeks each year, because the United States and Europe change their clocks on different dates. Recheck any cross-region slot in March and in late October or early November. ## A starter posting schedule for LinkedIn If you want a schedule you can use this week, start with three posts that follow the overlap between the studies. The slots below match the LinkedIn column in the best time to post on social media overview, and they double as your first round of the four-week test. | Day | Time (audience local) | Source | Post type | | --------- | --------------------- | ----------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | Tuesday | 11 a.m. | Sprout Social | A practical lesson or how-to | | Wednesday | 4 p.m. | Buffer's top slot | Your strongest idea of the week | | Thursday | 1 p.m. | Sprout Social | An opinion or question that invites comments | Block 30 minutes after each post to reply to comments. For a fuller weekly system with capacity planning and a review step, read [how to build a consistent social media posting schedule](/blog/build-a-consistent-social-media-posting-schedule). If you also post on other networks, compare these slots with the [best time to post on Facebook](/blog/best-time-to-post-on-facebook) and the [best time to post on X](/blog/best-time-to-post-on-twitter), because each network peaks at different hours. ## Common LinkedIn timing mistakes - **Posting and disappearing.** LinkedIn ranks on engagement and how recent it is, so unanswered comments waste the timing you chose. - **Copying another time zone.** SocialPilot's 10 a.m. Eastern is 7 a.m. in California. - **Comparing a document post with a text post.** Formats can perform differently, so rotate them evenly across your test slots. - **Letting a reshare skew the test.** One repost from a large account can make any hour look perfect. Use the median, not the average. - **Comparing posts at different ages.** A post checked after 12 hours and one checked after a week are not comparable, especially on Pages, where some metrics lag by up to 48 hours. - **Treating personal and Page results as one dataset.** Their audiences and analytics differ, so test them separately. ## Schedule LinkedIn posts at your test times with PostQuest Once you have chosen your slots, a scheduler keeps the test honest by publishing at the same times every week. PostQuest is the social media scheduler I build for founders, creators, and small teams. It publishes to LinkedIn personal profiles and LinkedIn Pages, along with Instagram, Facebook, X, Threads, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Bluesky, and Mastodon. For a LinkedIn timing test, the useful parts are: - **A calendar for fixed slots.** Schedule the same three times each week and see the whole test at a glance. - **Pre-publish checks.** PostQuest checks LinkedIn's 3,000-character limit for post text, JPEG and PNG images up to 8 MB, multi-image posts of 2 to 20 images, MP4 video from 3 seconds to 30 minutes, and document posts, which need a title. The [LinkedIn specs page](/specs/linkedin) lists every limit. - **Per-post analytics for Pages.** PostQuest syncs impressions, likes, comments, and reposts for LinkedIn Page posts, along with the time each one went live. For personal profiles, read the numbers in LinkedIn's own post analytics. - **AI assistant access.** Through the [PostQuest MCP server for Claude](/mcp/claude), you can ask your assistant to draft a week of LinkedIn posts for your test slots. AI-created posts stay drafts until you approve them. PostQuest does not suggest best times automatically. If you want a tool to recommend slots from your history, Buffer, Sprout Social, SocialPilot, and Hootsuite all offer best-time features. You can [compare PostQuest with Buffer](/compare/buffer-alternative), and the step-by-step guide to scheduling LinkedIn posts walks through the setup. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the best day to post on LinkedIn? Wednesday is the safest choice, with Tuesday and Thursday close behind. Each is named a best day by four of the five studies compared here. Buffer ranks Wednesday first, followed by Thursday and Friday, while Sprout Social, SocialPilot, and Hootsuite favor Tuesday through Thursday. Every study ranks Saturday and Sunday lowest, so keep weekends for testing rather than your most important post. ### Is it better to post on LinkedIn in the morning or the evening? Late morning to mid-afternoon is the safest default. Sprout Social and SocialPilot recommend roughly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., while Buffer's 2026 data favors 3–8 p.m. and Hootsuite favors early morning. Start with one slot around 11 a.m. and one around 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday, then compare them against your median impressions over four weeks. ### Is it worth posting on LinkedIn on weekends? Usually not for your most important post. All five studies rank Saturday and Sunday as the weakest days, and Postpone reports about 25% less engagement on weekends. One exception is worth testing: a controlled analysis of 60 company Pages by PostFast, a competing scheduler, found weekend posts slightly ahead of their normal results. Try one weekend post a month and compare it with your median. ### Should company Pages and personal profiles post at different times? Possibly, but nobody has measured it. None of the five studies separates Pages from profiles. A reasonable hypothesis is that Page followers, often buyers, read during the working day and profile connections also read after work, but PostFast's small sample of 60 Pages found no reliable hour effect. Test each separately, because their analytics and audiences differ.