The best time to post on social media in 2026, per network, with the data behind it

"What is the best time to post?" is one of the most searched questions about social media, and most answers are a single chart from one company's data. Two large studies were published in spring 2026, one by Sprout Social and one by Buffer, and reading them side by side is more useful than either alone: where they agree, you can use the answer as a default, and where they disagree, you know you have to test.

Below, both are summarised in one table, followed by a four-week method for finding your own times.

The two studies

Sprout Social analysed nearly 2 billion engagements across about 307,000 social profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok and X, between November 27, 2025 and February 27, 2026. It measures total interactions (reactions, comments, shares, messages and clicks) and reports windows in each audience's local time.

Buffer analysed more than 52 million posts across Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X, and reports the time slots with the highest median engagement. It also normalises to local time.

The methods differ in an important way. Sprout counts when engagement happens across its customers' profiles. Buffer ranks the time a post was published by how that post performed. Both are reasonable, and they do not always point to the same hour.

Side by side

All times are local to the audience.

Neither study covers Bluesky. Its Following feed is chronological, while its Discover feed is ranked by an algorithm, so the only reliable answer there is your own data.

Where the studies agree

• Weekdays beat weekends on most networks. Both studies find lower engagement at the weekend for Facebook and X. For Instagram, Sprout finds the weekend weakest, while Buffer names Friday as the worst day. Sprout names Sunday as the weakest day overall.
• The middle of the week is a safe default. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday appear in the top slots of both studies for Facebook, Instagram and X.
• The middle of the night is dead. Obvious, but worth saying: a post scheduled for 3 a.m. in your audience's time zone starts its life with nobody watching.

Where they disagree, and why it matters

• LinkedIn. Sprout sees late morning and early afternoon on working days. Buffer sees late afternoon, and finds weekends doing better than Monday. If you post on LinkedIn, this is the network most worth testing yourself.
• TikTok. Sprout finds weekday afternoons; Buffer finds evenings and weekends, with Sunday morning on top. The difference is probably the audience: a brand's followers and a creator's followers watch at different times.
• X. Sprout's window is noon to 6 p.m.; Buffer's is 8 to 11 a.m. Both agree it is a weekday network.

The disagreement is the useful part. A single "best time" is an average of many audiences, and yours is not the average.

How much timing matters

Buffer's own write-up makes the point directly: timing is one small factor among many, and consistency matters more. Feeds on every major network rank by predicted interest, not by time alone, so a strong post at an ordinary hour usually beats a weak post at the perfect one. Treat the table as a place to start, not a rule.

What timing does control is the first hour. A post published while your audience is scrolling gets its early reactions sooner, and early engagement is one of the signals feeds use.

Find your own best times in four weeks

1. Pick two candidate windows per network. Use the table: for LinkedIn, one morning slot from Sprout and one late-afternoon slot from Buffer.
2. Hold everything else steady. Same kinds of posts, similar length, similar media. Alternate the windows week by week or post by post.
3. Post at least three times per window. One post is an anecdote. Aim for six to eight posts per network over the four weeks.
4. Compare like with like. Look at engagement per post, and at the rate (engagement divided by impressions) where the network reports impressions.
5. Keep the winner, then test it against a new challenger. Audiences drift, so repeat the test every quarter or when your audience changes.

In Publedia, schedule each post into its window from the composer; the time picker names the time zone it schedules in. Then open Analytics (beta) and sort Top posts by engagement or by rate, filtered to one channel, to see which window is ahead.

Time zones

Both studies report local time, so "9 a.m." means 9 a.m. where your audience is. If most of your audience is in one region, schedule in that region's time zone. If it is split across regions, post the same idea twice at different times on networks where repetition is normal (X and Threads), and choose the larger audience's time on networks where it is not (LinkedIn).

Quick defaults if you cannot test yet

Each default says where it comes from, because the two studies do not always agree:

• LinkedIn: Tuesday to Thursday, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Both studies have strong slots in this range: Sprout from late morning, Buffer from mid-afternoon.
• Instagram and Facebook: Tuesday to Thursday, late morning or early evening. Both studies favour the middle of the week.
• X: weekday mornings, from Buffer. Sprout's window is later, noon to 6 p.m., so test both.
• Threads: weekday mornings, from Buffer. Sprout did not cover Threads.
• TikTok: weekday afternoons from Sprout, or evenings and weekends from Buffer. The studies disagree, so this is the first thing to test.
• YouTube Shorts: Thursday to Saturday, late afternoon and evening, from Buffer. Sprout did not cover YouTube.
• Bluesky: neither study covers it. Weekday mornings and early evenings are a starting guess, not data.

These are starting points. Your own numbers will replace them within a month. For how often to post at those times, see how often to post on social media, and for planning the slots a month at a time, the content calendar guide.