Best time to post on Facebook in 2026: what three big studies say

There’s no single best time to post on Facebook, and three big studies don’t even agree on the time of day. Buffer’s analysis of 14 million posts finds weekday mornings strongest, with Thursday at 9 am the best slot of the week. Sprout Social’s data peaks on Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 8 pm. Hootsuite points to the early morning, with Tuesday at 5 am on top.

Buffer’s and Sprout Social’s data do agree on the week, with midweek beating the weekend and Saturday a weak day in both.

What three large studies found

Sources: Buffer, Sprout Social and Hootsuite, checked October 17, 2026. Neither Buffer nor Hootsuite states the period its data covers.

Best time to post on Facebook, day by day

Buffer also ranks two runners-up for each day, such as 8 am and 10 am on Thursday. It considers Saturday the worst day of the week, with Sunday only slightly better. Sprout Social rates Monday to Thursday as its best days and weekends as its worst. Hootsuite finds activity peaking between 5 and 8 am across the week.

Why the studies disagree

The three studies measure different things. An engagement rate is interactions such as reactions, comments and shares divided by an audience number such as followers or reach. Buffer ranks each hour by the engagement rates of the posts sent then, Sprout Social looks for peak engagement windows across its customers’ profiles, and Hootsuite looks for when Facebook activity peaks. A post sent at 6 am that collects reactions all morning can win one method and lose another.

They also study different accounts, since each tool analyzes posts sent through its own product. Sprout Social’s 307,000 profiles come from over 30,000 of its customers, and cover six networks rather than Facebook alone. Its data is from November 2025 to February 2026, a winter sample. Buffer’s own page isn’t consistent either. Its summary names Wednesday the best day, while its Wednesday section calls it the second-best day.

Does posting time matter on Facebook?

Timing matters less than the content itself. The Facebook Feed is the main stream of posts from the friends, Pages and groups a person follows, and it isn’t in time order. Meta says an AI system “orders the posts in your Feed by predicting what you will find most valuable and relevant”, scoring about 500 candidate posts for each person (Meta Transparency Center: Facebook Feed AI system).

Early attention still counts, and among the signals Meta lists is a weighted count of how many times a post has been viewed in 2 hours. A post that goes out while your followers are scrolling collects those first views sooner.

How to find your own best time

1. Check your followers’ active times. Meta Business Suite shows them when you schedule a post on desktop. Its Active times option suggests “recommended times based on when followers were most active on Facebook and Instagram over the past 7 days” (Meta Business Help Center: Create and manage posts in Meta Business Suite).
2. Pick two candidate slots. Take one from those active times and one from the tables above, such as a Wednesday morning and a Tuesday afternoon.
3. Test for a few weeks. Post similar content in each slot and compare reactions, comments and shares per post. One shared post can skew a small sample, so look at the middle of the results rather than the best one.
4. Read the results by hour. With your Page connected to SocialHelper, ask your AI assistant for your last 50 posts with their times and reactions, grouped by hour. SocialHelper’s Facebook tools return each post’s creation time with its reaction, comment and share counts, up to 50 posts per request, and the marketing reports help page shows how to ask.
5. Keep the winner and test again later. Audiences change with the seasons and as your Page grows, so run the test again every few months.

If you build your own reports, note that Meta deprecated the “page fans” metrics in its Page Insights API from November 15, 2025. Business Suite’s active times are the place to check when your followers are on (Meta for Developers: Page Insights API updates).

Time zones

All three studies report times in the audience’s local time. Sprout Social lists every time in local time, Hootsuite localized its data across 118 countries, and Buffer says its times apply whether you’re on Eastern, Pacific or India time. So “9 am” means 9 am where your followers are, which may not be where you are.

Suppose most of your followers live in Toronto and you manage the Page from Calgary, two hours behind. Buffer’s Thursday 9 am slot is then 7 am for you. If your followers are spread across regions, use the time zone where most of them live, or alternate slots through the week. SocialHelper displays scheduled posts in your own time zone, so convert once when you set up your slots.

Schedule your Facebook posts for those times

Once you’ve chosen your slots, set them as recurring posting times. Posting times are the weekly slots SocialHelper’s queue fills, such as Wednesday at 8 am and Thursday at 9 am, and you set them in the dashboard under Calendar, then Posting times. After that, “Add to queue”, from the dashboard or from an AI assistant, puts each post in the next free slot. You can also schedule a single post for an exact time, up to 1 year ahead. The scheduling help page has the steps, and our guide on how to schedule Facebook posts compares Meta’s own tools with the rest.

SocialHelper posts to Facebook Pages: text, links, photos and video. A Facebook post can run to 63,206 characters, and the Facebook character counter counts one the way Facebook does. If you post on other networks too, our guides to the best time to post on Instagram and the best time to post on TikTok compare the same kind of studies, and their times are different.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best time to post on Facebook?

There isn’t one time for everyone. Buffer’s best slot is Thursday at 9 am, Sprout Social’s strongest window is Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 8 pm, and Hootsuite’s is Tuesday at 5 am. A midweek post is the overlap, so start there and test the hour against your own followers’ active times.

What is the best day to post on Facebook?

Wednesday in Buffer’s data, followed by Thursday and Tuesday. Sprout Social rates Monday to Thursday as its best days, with Tuesday and Wednesday strongest. Both studies put the weekend last, and Buffer calls Saturday the worst day of the week.

What is the best time to post on Facebook today?

Find today in the day-by-day table above and pick the slot that suits your audience’s routine. On a Wednesday, for example, Buffer says 8 am, Hootsuite says 6 am and Sprout Social says anywhere from noon to 8 pm. If your followers check Facebook before work, go early; if they scroll at lunch or after dinner, go later.

Is it good to post on Facebook on the weekend?

Weekends are the weakest days in the two studies that rank them. Buffer calls Saturday the worst day and Sunday only slightly better, and Sprout Social finds no peak on Saturday and calls Sunday the worst day. Hootsuite still lists Saturday at 6 am and Sunday at 8 am, so test a weekend slot before you rely on it.

What time are my followers most active on Facebook?

Meta Business Suite shows it when you schedule a post on desktop, where Active times suggests slots from when your followers were most active over the past 7 days. Check it over a few weeks, because one week can be unusual.

How we checked this

We analyzed the three studies’ published findings, sample sizes, periods and methods on October 17, 2026. We ran a fact check of every time in both tables against each study’s page that day. Meta’s help center, Transparency Center and developer blog are the sources for active times, Feed ranking and the Insights change, and SocialHelper’s code and help center for the tools and scheduling steps.

If a study has been updated since, contact us and we’ll correct the tables.