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

Five studies agree weekends and late nights are weak on Facebook, then split between mornings and afternoons. Their data side by side, and how to find yours.

PostDaily has no Facebook 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 Meta itself says. Every study was read on its publisher's site on 12 November 2026. Later's Facebook page is left out, because it gives a time with no sample or method behind it.

Five studies, side by side

Where they agree

• Weekends are weak. Sprout Social, Buffer, Metricool and CoSchedule all put Saturday or Sunday last. Hootsuite names no worst day.
• Late night is weak. Hootsuite names after 10 pm, Metricool after 11 pm and before 7 am, and CoSchedule midnight and 2–5 am.

Where they disagree, and why

On the hour, the two largest current studies disagree directly: Sprout Social's peak is noon to 8 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and noon to 5 pm is the window Buffer finds worst. Buffer, Metricool, CoSchedule and Hootsuite all favour mornings. Each also picks a different best day: Tuesday and Wednesday for Sprout Social, Wednesday for Buffer, Monday for Metricool, Friday for CoSchedule and Tuesday for Hootsuite. The methods explain much of it:

• Old data on new pages. CoSchedule's page was updated in September 2026, but its figures come from a 2022 study. Metricool's English Facebook page dates from June 2025, and its newer pages give other times. Hootsuite's is labelled 2025 data.
• Different samples. Sprout Social's sample covers six networks, and only Sprout Social gives the dates its data covers.
• Different measures. Buffer uses median engagement and CoSchedule weights likes, comments and shares; the others don't define engagement.
• None is an experiment. Pages choose their own posting times, so the hour is mixed up with who posts at it.

What Meta says

Meta names no best day or hour. Its scheduling help says that when you schedule a post in Meta Business Suite you can click Active times to schedule it for when your audience is most active, and its Page Insights help says Insights show when your audience is on Facebook. On the paid Meta One Advanced, Expert and Max plans, Facebook's own composer also suggests recommended times. Meta's explainer of how the Feed ranks posts lists the signals it predicts from, with no advice on posting time.

Scheduling tools can't fill that gap. Since September 2024, Meta's Pages API no longer tells apps when a Page's followers are online, so any tool's timing suggestion now comes from its own data or from studies like these, not from Meta.

How to find your own best time

1. 1In Meta Business Suite, go to Content, then Create post, turn on Scheduling options and click Active times to see when your audience is most active.
2. 2Pick two or three slots: one in the busiest window, one just before it, and one quieter time.
3. 3For four weeks, post similar content in those slots on the same days.
4. 4Compare engagement per post, not totals, and keep the slot that wins clearly.
5. 5Check again each season: audiences shift with school terms, holidays and time changes.

In PostDaily, the assistant can suggest a time from your own workspace's engagement over the last 90 days and set up the schedule, and each channel has its own weekly posting times for the queue to fill. Let the assistant pick a posting time shows how, and how to schedule Facebook posts covers the scheduling itself.

Facebook timing questions

Last checked Nov 12, 2026 against each study's own page, Meta Business Help and the Pages API changelog.