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Best Time to Post on Social Media
There is no single best hour. LinkedIn peaks Tuesday at 10:00, Facebook at 13:00, X around midday, Instagram at 19:00 and TikTok at 20:00, which is five different schedules in one week.
Last updated: 2026-07-31
Every best time to post list you have read averages eight networks into one answer, and the answer always lands somewhere in the middle of the working day. That number describes none of the networks it came from.
Split them apart and the pattern is obvious. LinkedIn lives in the weekday morning window, 09:00 to 11:00, and dies after 18:00. Facebook owns the working day, 10:00 to 14:00, and fades every evening. X peaks around midday with a second wind in the late afternoon. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest all belong to the evening, from 19:00 through to 21:00.
Wednesday holds the strongest single slot on six of the eight networks here, with LinkedIn and X peaking on Tuesday instead. The weekend is where they split hardest: LinkedIn drops to under a third of its midweek level, while Pinterest and YouTube are at their best.
The heatmaps below are the whole dataset, hour by hour, free to read. If you want the version tuned to your niche and laid out as a seven day plan, the planner does that.
Best time to post on each network
The strongest single slot of the week on each network, the weekday window it sits inside, and where the weekend peaks instead. Hours are in your audience local time.
| Network | Best slot | Weekday window | Weekend peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 19:00 | 18:00 to 20:00 | 18:00 to 20:00 | |
| Wednesday 13:00 | 10:00 to 14:00 | 11:00 to 14:00 | |
| Threads | Wednesday 20:00 | 19:00 to 21:00 | 19:00 to 21:00 |
| Tuesday 10:00 | 09:00 to 11:00 | 10:00 to 13:00 | |
| X (Twitter) | Tuesday 12:00 | 09:00 to 13:00 | 10:00 to 20:00 |
| TikTok | Wednesday 20:00 | 19:00 to 21:00 | 19:00 to 21:00 |
| YouTube | Wednesday 20:00 | 18:00 to 21:00 | 18:00 to 21:00 |
| Wednesday 21:00 | 20:00 to 21:00 | 19:00 to 21:00 |
Timing estimates are aggregated engagement patterns from public posting-time studies and platform posting behaviour, last reviewed July 2026. They are a starting point, not a measurement of your account.
Build your weekly posting plan
Pick your niche and we adjust the grid above for it, then hand you three slots a day for the whole week.
Hours are in your audience local time. Picking a time zone only labels the plan, it does not shift the times.
Your three strongest slots this week
Instagram, general or mixedBest slot
Wednesday 19:00
Slot 2
Tuesday 19:00
Slot 3
Thursday 19:00
Evening slot: the biggest window of the day on most networks, with people scrolling for longer and more likely to comment. Times shown in Europe/London.
Your full seven day plan
Three slots for every day of the week on Instagram, tuned for general or mixed, with a line on why each day lands where it does. We email you the same plan so you can keep it next to your calendar.
How each network spends its week
The three strongest slots on each network, one per day, so they read as a plan rather than as one repeated afternoon. The hour is where the networks diverge: LinkedIn peaks in the weekday morning, Facebook and X around midday, and Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest in the evening. Open a network for the full hour by hour heatmap behind its numbers.
Timing estimates are aggregated engagement patterns from public posting-time studies and platform posting behaviour, last reviewed July 2026. They are a starting point, not a measurement of your account.
How we build these estimates
What the numbers are
Aggregated engagement patterns: published posting-time studies, the daily rhythms each network reports about its own audience, and how people actually use each app. We turn that into one relative score per hour, 0 to 100, within a single network.
What they are not
They are not measurements of your account, and no personal data goes into them. Nothing here is derived from any individual profile, including the ones inside Postify. They are estimates, reviewed in July 2026, meant as a starting point you then test.
Why scores, not percentages
A score of 80 on Instagram and 80 on LinkedIn do not mean the same volume of anything. Each grid is scaled inside its own network, so the only useful comparison is between two hours on the same network, never between two networks.
Industry adjustments
Picking an industry shifts whole parts of the day rather than single hours: fitness lifts the morning, food and beverage lifts lunch, finance and tech lift working hours and pull the evening down. The shape of the network stays, the emphasis moves.
Timing estimates are aggregated engagement patterns from public posting-time studies and platform posting behaviour, last reviewed July 2026. They are a starting point, not a measurement of your account.
Getting more out of posting times
- Pick one slot per network and keep it for a month before judging it. A slot you hit every week beats a better slot you hit occasionally, because your audience learns the rhythm.
- Post on your audience local time, not yours. These grids are audience-local: if you are in Berlin and your audience is in New York, a 19:00 slot means 19:00 for them, which is the middle of your night and exactly what scheduling is for.
- Watch the first hour. Most networks decide how far to push a post from the reaction it gets early, so being around to answer the first few comments is worth more than shifting the slot by thirty minutes.
- Test one change at a time. Move the hour or move the day, never both, and give each version at least three posts before deciding.
- When your own analytics disagree with this page, your analytics win. These are aggregated starting points, and a real audience of your own beats an estimate every time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best time to post on social media?
It depends entirely on the network. On the estimates here, LinkedIn peaks Tuesday at 10:00, Facebook Wednesday at 13:00, X on Tuesday around 12:00, Instagram Wednesday at 19:00, Threads, TikTok and YouTube at 20:00, and Pinterest at 21:00. No single hour serves more than two of them at once.
What is the best day to post?
Wednesday holds the strongest single slot on six of the eight networks here: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest. LinkedIn and X peak on Tuesday, with Wednesday level a hair behind. Measured across the whole day rather than one hour, YouTube and Pinterest are strongest at the weekend instead, and Friday is the weakest weekday almost everywhere.
Is it better to post in the morning or the evening?
Morning for the professional networks, evening for everything else. LinkedIn between 09:00 and 11:00 is the clearest morning window in this dataset, and Facebook and X both do their best work before 14:00. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest are all evening networks, and posting to them at 09:00 gives up most of their audience.
Should I post at the weekend?
On some networks, yes. Pinterest and YouTube both score higher across a weekend day than on any weekday, TikTok weekends add up to more than a Monday, and Instagram on Sunday evening matches a Monday. LinkedIn is the opposite: a whole Saturday adds up to less than a third of a Wednesday, so it is the one network where skipping the weekend costs you nothing.
Does posting time still matter in 2026?
Less than it did, but it still matters. Recommendation feeds have loosened the link between the minute you post and who sees it, especially on TikTok and Instagram Reels. What has not changed is that every network still has hours when far more people are looking, and posting into those hours gives the algorithm more early signal to work with.
How were these times worked out?
They are aggregated engagement patterns: published posting-time studies, the daily rhythms each platform reports about its own audience, and how the apps are actually used, scored 0 to 100 per hour within each network. They are estimates reviewed in July 2026, not measurements of any individual account, and no personal data goes into them.
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