Best time to post on LinkedIn in 2026: five studies, compared

Five studies agree weekdays beat weekends on LinkedIn, then name hours from 4 am to 8 pm. Their data side by side, and how to find your own best time.

PostDaily has no LinkedIn timing data of its own, so this page doesn't draw a heat map. It sets the 5 studies people quote side by side, with what each measured and when, and reads them against what LinkedIn itself says. Every study was read on its publisher's site on 12 November 2026. Later's and HubSpot's LinkedIn pages are left out: Later's reports what worked for its own account, and HubSpot's cites no data.

Five studies, side by side

Where they agree

• Weekdays beat weekends. All five rank Saturday and Sunday below the working week; Buffer says weekend engagement drops off significantly. LinkedIn's own 2024 roundup of other studies came to the same view.
• Late night is weak. CoSchedule names 10 pm–midnight and 3–4 am among its worst times, and Metricool names the night.

Where they disagree, and why

On the hour, the five spread across the whole working day: 4–6 am for Hootsuite, late morning for Metricool and CoSchedule, 11 am–5 pm for Sprout Social, and 3–8 pm for Buffer. They also disagree on the start of the week: Buffer finds Monday and Tuesday the weakest weekdays and CoSchedule ranks Monday with the weekend, while Metricool names Monday to Wednesday as best. The reasons are in the methods:

• Metricool doesn't measure results. Its best times come from when accounts post most often, not from how those posts performed.
• Old data on new pages. CoSchedule's page was updated in September 2026, but its research was done in mid-2022. Hootsuite's is labelled 2025 data.
• One page, two answers. Hootsuite's key takeaways say 8–9 am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; its main answer says 4–6 am.
• Habits have moved. Buffer says its 2026 peak is later in the day than its 2025 data, which was confined to working hours.
• None is an experiment. Accounts choose their own posting times, so the hour is mixed up with who posts at it.

What LinkedIn says

LinkedIn publishes no best time from its own data. Its Marketing Solutions blog (July 2024) summarised studies by HubSpot, Sprinklr and Buffer, said they conflict, and concluded that weekdays look best, with pockets such as lunchtime or mid-afternoon. It added that nothing replaces testing with your own audience, and that timing often matters less than what you post.

LinkedIn's Help Center explains how the feed picks posts: relevance, quality, how members respond and the viewer's own activity. It doesn't list when a post was published.

How to find your own best time

LinkedIn's analytics won't tell you. Page analytics and creator analytics show impressions and engagement by day, and Page analytics lists the date each post went up, but neither shows the hour or when your followers are online. You have to keep that record yourself:

1. 1Pick three slots to test: one in the morning, one around midday and one late in the afternoon, on Tuesday to Thursday.
2. 2For four weeks, post similar content in those slots, and note the exact time each post went out.
3. 3Compare each post's engagement rate, which LinkedIn counts as interactions divided by impressions, not raw totals.
4. 4Keep the slot that wins clearly, then test one new slot against it.

A scheduler keeps the time log for you. In PostDaily, every post records when it went out, the assistant can suggest a time from your own workspace's engagement over the last 90 days, and each channel has its own weekly posting times. Let the assistant pick a posting time shows how, and how to schedule a LinkedIn post covers the scheduling itself.

LinkedIn timing questions

Last checked Nov 12, 2026 against each study's own page, LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions blog and LinkedIn Help.