Best time to post on Instagram in 2026: 3 studies compared

Ask when to post on Instagram and three large studies give you three different answers. Buffer's top slot is Thursday at 9 a.m. Sprout Social calls Wednesday its peak, with a window that runs from noon to 9 p.m. Hootsuite says engagement peaks in early mornings and early evenings, especially early in the week.

All three report times in each account's local time, and all three come from companies that sell social media software, as eksis does. This article puts them side by side as they read on October 21, 2026, shows the few hours they share and why they differ everywhere else, and ends with a way to find the hours that work for your own account.

The short answer

If you need a schedule today, start here:

Test Tuesday or Wednesday between 5 and 7 p.m. first. On both days, each of the three studies recommends a time in that stretch.
Add a midday slot on Wednesday around noon. Buffer ranks Wednesday at 12 p.m. second of all its slots, and Sprout Social's Wednesday window opens at noon.
Give Friday and Saturday less weight. Buffer calls them its two weakest days, and Sprout Social finds no significant peak on Friday and its lowest engagement on Saturday.
Skip the small hours. Buffer's lowest engagement falls between 1 and 5 a.m., and Sprout Social warns against 3 to 7 a.m. on weekdays.
After three to four weeks, keep whichever slot your own posts do better in.

What each study found

	Buffer	Sprout Social	Hootsuite
Sample	9.6 million Instagram posts sent through Buffer	Nearly 2 billion engagements on about 307,000 profiles across six networks	More than 1 million social posts
Data period	January 2024 to December 2025	November 27, 2025 to February 27, 2026	Not stated, cited as its 2025 analysis
Best single time	Thursday, 9 a.m.	None named; it calls Wednesday its peak	None named
Best days	Wednesday, then Thursday and Tuesday	Monday to Thursday, with Tuesday and Wednesday highest	Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, for reach
Weakest	Friday and Saturday, and 1 to 5 a.m. every day	Weekends, with Saturday lowest	Before 8 a.m. and after 10 p.m.

Each study also gives times for every day of the week. Buffer lists three per day, and the table shows the first. The highlighted cells mark the one best time each study names. Hootsuite does not name one, so its column has no highlight.

Day	Buffer	Sprout Social	Hootsuite
Monday	7 p.m.	2 to 4 p.m.	3 to 9 p.m.
Tuesday	7 p.m.	1 to 7 p.m.	5 to 8 a.m., and 3 to 7 p.m.
Wednesday	Noon	Noon to 9 p.m., and 11 p.m.	5 p.m.
Thursday	9 a.m.	Noon to 2 p.m.	4 to 5 p.m.
Friday	10 p.m.	No significant peak	Around 4 p.m.
Saturday	9 p.m.	Lowest day, no times listed	11 a.m., and around 5 p.m.
Sunday	9 p.m.	One of the worst days, no times listed	Noon to 3 p.m.

Thursday shows how far apart they are. Buffer's best hour of the whole week is Thursday at 9 a.m., Sprout Social's Thursday window is noon to 2 p.m., and Hootsuite's is 4 to 5 p.m. The three never overlap that day. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are where they come closest.

Where the studies agree

The overlap is small, but it exists.

Early evening on Tuesday and Wednesday. Each study lists a time between 5 and 7 p.m. on both days: Buffer's 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday and 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sprout Social's 1 to 7 p.m. and noon to 9 p.m., and Hootsuite's 3 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday and 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
Tuesday and Thursday are on every list of best days. They agree on Thursday as a day, though, not on the hour.
The small hours are weak. Buffer reports its lowest engagement from 1 to 5 a.m., Sprout Social calls 3 to 7 a.m. a dead zone, and Hootsuite lists early mornings before 8 a.m. among the least effective times, although its own Tuesday window starts at 5 a.m.
Format barely changes the answer. Buffer says the same peak times apply across post types, and Sprout Social says its Reels times mirror its overall windows. Hootsuite does not split its data by format.
The times are local. Buffer normalized its times so they apply in any time zone, Sprout Social lists local times, and Hootsuite localized its data across 118 countries. If most of your followers live in another time zone, schedule for theirs.

Why the answers differ

They study different accounts

Each study looks at its own customers. Buffer's sample is posts sent through Buffer. Sprout Social drew on more than 30,000 of its customers. Hootsuite partnered with Critical Truth to analyze posts from businesses of all sizes. The followers of those accounts keep different hours, and a study can only report the hours its own sample keeps.

They measure different things

Buffer ranks hours by median engagement rate: likes, comments, shares, and saves divided by followers. It says it used the median to avoid skew from outlier posts and large accounts. Sprout Social reports peak engagement windows drawn from nearly 2 billion engagements, and describes those same windows as the most active hours on Instagram. Hootsuite does not say how it scored each hour, and it frames its best days as the best for reach.

An hour when more people are online can collect more engagements in total even if the typical post does no better, so the studies can point to different hours without any of them being wrong.

They cover different months

Buffer's data spans two full years, January 2024 to December 2025. Sprout Social's covers late November 2025 to late February 2026, a stretch that includes the end-of-year holidays. Hootsuite does not give a data period. Habits shift around holidays and school terms, so a winter sample may not describe the rest of your year.

Industry moves the answer

The industry breakdowns spread wide. Sprout Social puts food and beverage brands at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays, but lists financial services windows as early as 3 a.m. on Tuesdays and 3 to 10 a.m. on Wednesdays. The other two studies see finance differently: Buffer says afternoon slots tend to do better for finance, and Hootsuite puts financial services at 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays.

Find your own best time to post on Instagram

The studies give you somewhere to start. Your own posts tell you where to stay. A simple test:

Pick two or three candidate slots from the tables above, for example Tuesday at 6 p.m., Wednesday at noon, and Thursday at 9 a.m.
Post in each slot for three to four weeks. Rotate formats evenly, so one slot does not get all the Reels and look better for that reason alone.
Compare engagement per post, not totals, and check how many posts each number rests on. One post that takes off can make a slot look better than it is.
Keep the best slot, swap the weakest for a new candidate, and run the test again next quarter.

Instagram gives you a free clue to start from. With a professional account, go to your profile in the Instagram app, tap Professional dashboard, and open your follower insights. On instagram.com, select Dashboard, then Insights, then Account. Instagram's Help Center says follower insights include the times your followers are most active on Instagram, once you have at least 100 followers. That tells you when people are on the app, not when your posts did well (Buffer makes the same point), so use it to choose which slots to test.

Find and schedule your best hours in eksis

eksis does the sorting part of that test for you and keeps the schedule, so the hours you find turn into posts that go out on time.

1. Read your best hours

Click your Instagram account in the sidebar and open Insights. The Best hours to post chart groups your posts by the hour they went out, in your workspace's time zone, and ranks those hours by average engagement, which for Instagram means likes, comments, saves, and shares.

An hour needs at least two posts with numbers before it can rank ahead of the others, and an hour that rests on a single post is drawn faded. The chart covers the period picked at the top of the page (7, 30, or 90 days), so choose 90 days while you test. Posts you published in the Instagram app count too, starting with up to 100 posts from the last 180 days.

eksis does not show Instagram's follower activity times, so check those in the Instagram app.

2. Schedule posts for those hours

Click Create post, choose your Instagram account, and click Edit next to Publish time. Pick the day and hour your chart points to. The preview beside it gives you a close idea of how the post will look on Instagram.

Publish times follow the workspace time zone, shown under the date and time, so check that it matches where most of your followers live.

Best hours to post is part of eksis Analytics, which is included from the Starter plan. Compare plans to see what each one includes.

Timing is one part of the post

A good slot puts a post in front of people. What they do next depends on the post.

Put the point in the first line. Instagram shows about the first 125 characters of a caption before it cuts it off, as our caption length guide explains.
Answer the first comments while the post is fresh. Keeping every platform's comments in one queue makes that easier.
If you post to Facebook too, see how the same three companies answer for the best time to post on Facebook.

Sources

All were read on October 21, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best time to post on Instagram?

No single time works for every account. Buffer names Thursday at 9 a.m., Sprout Social calls Wednesday its peak, and Hootsuite names no single slot. On Tuesday and Wednesday, all three studies recommend a time between 5 and 7 p.m., so that stretch makes a sensible first test.

What is the best day to post on Instagram?

Buffer ranks Wednesday first, then Thursday and Tuesday. Sprout Social says Tuesdays and Wednesdays show the highest peak engagement. Hootsuite names Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday as the best days for reach. Tuesday and Thursday are on all three lists, though the studies disagree about the hour on Thursday.

What is the worst time to post on Instagram?

Overnight. Buffer sees its lowest engagement between 1 and 5 a.m., Sprout Social warns against 3 to 7 a.m. on weekdays, and Hootsuite calls times before 8 a.m. and after 10 p.m. the least effective. For whole days, Buffer names Friday and Saturday, and Sprout Social names the weekend.

Is the best time to post Reels different?

Not much, according to the two studies that address it. Buffer analyzed all formats together and points Reels to evenings between 6 and 11 p.m., with Wednesday and Thursday strongest. Sprout Social says its best times for Reels mirror its overall windows. Hootsuite does not split its data by format.

Should I post in my time zone or my followers'?

Your followers'. All three studies report local times, so a recommended 6 p.m. means 6 p.m. for the people you want to reach. In eksis, publish times follow the workspace time zone, so set it to where most of your followers live.

The best time to post on Instagram in 2026, according to three studies

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