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

Ask when to post on TikTok and three large studies disagree about something as basic as the weekend. Buffer's best day is Saturday and its single best slot is Sunday at 9 a.m. Sprout Social tells you to avoid posting on Saturdays and calls Sunday the worst day of the week. Hootsuite puts one of its two best windows on Saturday.

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, explains what TikTok's For You feed changes about the question, 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:

Start with a weekday late afternoon. Sprout Social and Hootsuite both put Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. and Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. inside their best windows.
Test one weekend slot before you rule weekends out. Buffer's best Saturday and Sunday times, 5 p.m. and 9 a.m., both fall inside Hootsuite's windows for those days, while Sprout Social says to skip weekends.
On weekends, wait until after 7 a.m. Hootsuite says engagement is lowest before then.
Check when your own viewers are active in TikTok Studio.
After three to four weeks, keep whichever slot your own videos do better in.

What each study found

	Buffer	Sprout Social	Hootsuite
Sample	More than 7.1 million TikTok posts published through Buffer	Nearly 2 billion engagements on 307,000 profiles from 30,000 Sprout Social customers	More than 1 million social posts
Data period	Not stated, published September 14, 2026	November 27, 2025 to February 27, 2026	Not stated, labelled 2025 data
Best single time	Sunday, 9 a.m.	Tuesday to Thursday, 2 to 6 p.m.	Thursday, 6 to 9 a.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Best days	Saturday, then Monday and Sunday	Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday	Not stated
Weakest	Afternoons from noon to 5 p.m. on most days	Weekends, with Sunday lowest	Weekend mornings before 7 a.m.

Each study also names a best time for every day of the week. Bold marks each study's top pick:

Day	Buffer	Sprout Social	Hootsuite
Monday	1 p.m.	3 to 5 p.m.	5 p.m.
Tuesday	6 a.m.	2 to 6 p.m.	10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Wednesday	10 p.m.	1 to 8 p.m.	4 to 6 p.m.
Thursday	1 p.m.	1 to 5 p.m.	7 to 9 a.m.
Friday	6 p.m.	3 to 5 p.m.	4 to 6 p.m.
Saturday	5 p.m.	Avoid posting	10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday	9 a.m.	Avoid posting	8 a.m. to noon

Sprout Social's headline window covers three days. Hootsuite names two unranked windows, and its headline hours (6 to 9 a.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday) differ slightly from its daily list.

Where the studies agree

The overlap is small, and it never includes all three.

Late weekday afternoons, for Sprout Social and Hootsuite. They overlap from 4 to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 4 to 5 p.m. on Fridays. Buffer disagrees: it reports noon to 5 p.m. as the weakest stretch on most days and sees engagement peak between 6 and 11 p.m.
Weekend slots, for Buffer and Hootsuite. Buffer's best Saturday time (5 p.m.) and best Sunday time (9 a.m.) both fall inside Hootsuite's windows for those days. Sprout Social says to avoid both days.
The times are local. Sprout Social lists every time in local time, Hootsuite localized its data across 118 countries, and Buffer says its times need no conversion. So 5 p.m. means 5 p.m. where your viewers are.
Your own numbers come first. All three send readers to TikTok's analytics to see when their own audience is active.

Why the answers differ

They study different accounts

Buffer's sample is posts published through Buffer, and Sprout Social drew on 30,000 of its customers. Hootsuite says only that its posts came from 118 countries. Each study can only report the hours its own sample keeps.

They count different things

Buffer ranks hours by the median engagement rate of a post, across videos, carousels, photos, and text posts. Sprout Social's nearly 2 billion engagements cover 307,000 profiles, and the page does not say how many came from TikTok. Neither Sprout Social nor Hootsuite explains how each hour was scored, so the three rankings may not measure the same thing.

They cover different months

Sprout Social's data runs from late November to late February, across the end-of-year holidays. Hootsuite labels its data 2025, and Buffer gives no data period.

Industry moves the answer

The industry breakdowns may help explain the weekend split. Hootsuite puts media and entertainment at 2 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Sprout Social lists weekends as the worst days for food and beverage brands, and moves computer software and tech to mornings, such as 7 to 11 a.m. on Thursdays.

How the For You feed changes the question

TikTok's Help Center describes For You as "a personalized feed of content based on your interests and engagement." It ranks videos on what the viewer does (likes, shares, comments, what they watch in full or skip), information about the video (including its sounds, hashtags, and number of views), and information about the viewer (including their time zone and day). The viewer's interactions, which may include time spent watching, generally weigh more than the others.

Freshness is one signal among several. When TikTok lists reasons a post might appear in someone's feed, "This post was created recently" sits next to "This post is popular in your country."

TikTok does not say how long a video stays in the running. Hootsuite says videos on the For You page are usually no older than a couple of days. Buffer argues that engagement in roughly the first hour tells TikTok whether to show a video to more people. Neither claim comes from TikTok, but both make the hour you post a starting point rather than the whole story.

Find your own best time to post on TikTok

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

Pick two or three candidate slots from the tables above, for example Wednesday at 5 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m., and Sunday at 9 a.m.
Post in each slot for three to four weeks, spreading your kinds of videos evenly so no slot gets all your best ideas.
Compare engagement per video, not totals, and check how many videos each number rests on. One video 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.

TikTok gives you a free clue. In the TikTok app, tap Profile, tap the Menu button at the top, select TikTok Studio, and open Analytics. TikTok's Help Center lists the activity times of your viewers under the Viewers tab, while Buffer's guide finds follower activity under Followers, then Most active times. You need at least one public post, and TikTok shows more viewer insights once you have 100 followers.

Hootsuite says you need a Business or Creator account for this. TikTok's current account types page lists analytics for General TikTok Accounts too (in TikTok Studio) and for Verified Business Accounts (in Business Suite), though another help page says Analytics is not available to everyone yet. Activity times tell you when people are around, not when your videos did well, so use them to choose which slots to test.

Find and schedule your best hours in eksis

Read your best hours

Click your TikTok 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. For TikTok that means likes, comments, and shares. TikTok does not send saves, and views are not counted as engagement.

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. Choose 90 days at the top of the page while you test. Videos you posted in the TikTok app count too, starting with up to 100 posts from the last 180 days. Videos set to Only you have no numbers, because TikTok does not share them.

eksis does not show TikTok's viewer activity times, so check those in TikTok Studio.

Schedule a video for that hour

Click Create post and pick your TikTok account.
Add the video and caption. eksis flags a video longer than ten minutes, TikTok's cap.
Under TikTok settings, choose Who can watch this. TikTok requires a choice, so there is no default. A video set to Only you gets no numbers in Analytics.
Under Allow on this post, tick Comments, Duet, or Stitch if you want them, since all three start off. If the video promotes a brand, product, or service, say so under Content disclosure.
Click Edit next to Publish time, pick the day and hour, and click Schedule.

Publish times follow the workspace time zone, so check that it matches where most of your viewers live. Best hours to post is part of eksis Analytics, included from the Starter plan. Compare plans.

Timing is one part of the video

A good slot gets a video its first viewers. What they do next depends on the video.

Hold attention early. TikTok gives viewer interactions such as watch time the most weight, and Buffer suggests checking watch time, then your hook and pacing, when views stall.
Reply to comments in the TikTok app. TikTok has not opened its comments API to third-party apps, so eksis cannot reply for you.
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 TikTok?

No single time works for every account. Buffer names Sunday at 9 a.m., Sprout Social names Tuesday through Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., and Hootsuite names Thursday morning and Saturday midday. Two of the three overlap on weekday late afternoons, around 4 to 6 p.m., which makes a reasonable first test.

What is the best day to post on TikTok?

The studies disagree. Buffer ranks Saturday first, then Monday and Sunday. Sprout Social ranks Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday highest. Hootsuite does not rank days, but its two best windows fall on Thursday and Saturday.

Should I post on TikTok on weekends?

Test it rather than trust one study. Buffer's best weekend times, Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 9 a.m., fall inside Hootsuite's windows, while Sprout Social says to avoid Saturday and calls Sunday the worst day. Hootsuite also suggests waiting until after 7 a.m.

How do I see when my TikTok audience is online?

Open TikTok Studio from the menu on your profile and go to Analytics. TikTok lists viewer activity times under Viewers, and Buffer finds follower activity under Followers, then Most active times. You need at least one public post, and more viewer insights appear at 100 followers.

Does posting time matter if the For You feed is personalized?

It matters most at the start. TikTok ranks For You mainly on what each viewer watches and interacts with, and lists a recently created post as one reason it may appear. Buffer's view is that early engagement, easier to get while your audience is scrolling, helps a video reach more people.

Should I post in my time zone or my audience's?

Your audience's. All three studies report local times, so a recommended 5 p.m. means 5 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 viewers live.

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

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