Best time to post on LinkedIn in 2026: four studies compared

What each study found

Every row is a separate published study, read and checked on the date in the byline. Times are the local time of the accounts in each study unless the time-zone column says otherwise.

Where the studies agree

Days: Sprout calls Tuesday to Thursday “the most consistent and prolonged periods of peak engagement”; Buffer’s best days are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; Hootsuite names Tuesday and Wednesday.^[2][1][3] All four describe weekends as weak or quiet.

Hours: no hour is named by more than two studies. The pairs that meet:

• 11 AM, Tuesday to Thursday: Sprout and Metricool.^[2][4]
• Tuesday 4 PM and Wednesday 3 PM: Sprout and Buffer.^[2][1]
• Thursday 2 PM: Sprout and Hootsuite. Monday 11 AM: Hootsuite and Metricool. Sunday 6 AM: Buffer and Hootsuite, on a day both rate weak.

Where they disagree, and why

Three camps, from early to late:

• Early morning: Hootsuite. Its headline says Tuesday and Wednesday 8–9 AM, but its body and all-networks page say 4–6 AM, so even Hootsuite isn’t consistent.^[3][5]
• Late morning to mid-afternoon: Sprout (11 AM–5 PM) and Metricool (9 AM–12 PM).^[2][4]
• Late afternoon to evening: Buffer, “generally 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays”, and it notes its peaks moved later than in its 2025 data.^[1]

Why? Sprout’s sample is roughly 30,000 business customers posting from company pages, whose audiences read LinkedIn at work. Buffer’s users are a different mix; if more of them post as individuals, their readers may scroll after work rather than at a desk. None of the studies splits this out. Metricool’s timing page doesn’t say what it measured. Buffer and Sprout also disagree on Tuesday: Sprout’s top day, Buffer’s second-worst.

Day by day

Each study’s picks for each day, in local time where stated.

Worst times to post on LinkedIn

• Weekends (all four studies; Buffer calls them “generally quiet” but ranks Monday lowest).^[1][2][3][4]
• Weekday mornings, 6–11 AM, are weaker in Buffer’s data.^[1]
• After 7 PM, with before 8 AM and after 8 PM “extra quiet”, in Hootsuite’s all-networks page.^[5]

By format

None of the studies splits timing by format. On formats themselves: Buffer reports document (carousel) posts get up to 596% more engagement than text-only posts, and Metricool that carousels get 17 times more interactions than images, while posts with a question get 77% more comments.^[1][6]

Your audience is different: find your own golden hour

Every study above averages thousands of accounts. Your followers live in their own time zones and keep their own routines, so treat the windows as a first guess and check your own numbers.

In LinkedIn’s own analytics

1. For your own profile: click Me, View profile, then Show all analytics in the Analytics section. Open Post impressions to see each post’s results.^[7]
2. For a company Page: open the Page as an admin and go to Analytics, then Content.^[8]
3. LinkedIn shows impressions, engagement and follower demographics, but no chart of when your followers are online.^[7][8] Use the follower locations to pick a time zone.
4. Post at 11 AM for two weeks and at 4 PM for two weeks, same days, then compare impressions per post.

With Octoque

Octoque’s starting hour for LinkedIn is 09:00 in your audience’s local time.

That is 9 AM: the work-morning start that Hootsuite (Wednesday 9 AM) and Metricool (Thursday 9 AM–12 PM) point to. Buffer finds mornings weaker, so if your readers are creators rather than office workers, try late afternoon.

Tell Octoque where your audience lives (up to three regions) and that hour follows their clock, not yours. Once you have a few posts, your own results take over from the starting hour. You can always pick a time yourself, post right away, or add the post to your queue. See how golden hour works.