Best time to post on Instagram in 2026: seven studies, compared

Seven studies name different best times to post on Instagram, from 5 am to 8 pm. Their data, methods and dates side by side, and how to find your own time.

PostDaily has no Instagram timing data of its own, so this page doesn't draw a heat map. It sets the 7 studies people quote side by side, with what each measured and when, and reads them against what Instagram itself says. Every study was read on its publisher's site on 12 November 2026, and each is a scheduling or marketing company analysing its own customers' posts.

Seven studies, side by side

Where they agree

• The small hours are weak. Buffer, Metricool, CoSchedule and Hootsuite all count the small hours, 1–5 am or part of it, among the worst times, and Sprout Social names early mornings. Later is the one exception.
• Midweek beats the weekend. Wednesday is first or joint first for Sprout Social, Buffer and CoSchedule, and Saturday is the worst or near-worst day for Sprout Social, Buffer, Later and CoSchedule.
• Your own data beats theirs. Every study ends by telling you to check your own Insights.

Where they disagree, and why

On the hour, they disagree almost completely: mornings for HubSpot and CoSchedule, the very early morning for Later, afternoons for Sprout Social and Hootsuite, evenings for Buffer and Metricool. On the best day, the answers are Wednesday, Monday, Friday, or Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The reasons are in the methods:

• They measure different things. Buffer and Later divide engagement by followers, which favours quiet hours with less competition; that is how Later arrives at 5 am. Totals and post volumes follow the hours when most people post. HubSpot's is a survey of marketers' opinions, not post data.
• Different samples. Each study uses its own customers, so the mix of account types and sizes differs. Sprout Social's and CoSchedule's samples cover several networks, not only Instagram.
• Different years. CoSchedule's 2026 page uses data collected in 2022, Later's uses 2024, and Sprout Social's covers the winter holidays.
• None is an experiment. Accounts choose their own posting times, so the hour is mixed up with who posts at it.

What Instagram says

Instagram's Help Center says public accounts get Insights, and once an account has at least 100 followers they include the times its followers are most active. Its creators FAQ says the best time to post is when your audience is awake and active. Adam Mosseri said on Threads on 16 June 2026 that there is no universal best time, and pointed to Insights if you want to optimise.

Instagram's ranking explainer (May 2023) lists when a post was published as one of many signals for the Feed, alongside how quickly people like, comment, share and save it. It doesn't say timing outweighs the rest, and it doesn't mention publish time for Reels or Stories.

How to find your own best time

1. 1Open Insights, then your followers, and note the days and hours they're most active.
2. 2Pick two or three slots that fit: 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 reach and 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. Scheduling itself doesn't cost reach, as Mosseri has said: do scheduled posts get less views?.

Reels and carousels

Only two studies split formats. Later puts Reels at their best around midnight on Monday and carousels around 5 am on Tuesday. Metricool's Reels figures come from an older video study: midnight gets the most views per Reel but few uploads, and 6 pm the most uploads but fewer views each. Buffer says its Reels advice isn't based on Reels-only data. For the rest of the guide, see how to schedule Instagram posts.

For Bluesky we did run our own study, on 8,373 posts: the best time to post on Bluesky found that posting time barely mattered there. The same comparison of published studies is done for TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Instagram timing questions

Last checked Nov 12, 2026 against each study's own page, Instagram's Help Center and Adam Mosseri's posts.