Best Time to Post on TikTok: What 4 Studies Say, and How to Find Yours
There is no single best time to post on TikTok. Four studies name different winners: Sprout Social says Tuesday to Thursday, 2–6 p.m.; Buffer's top slot is Sunday at 9 a.m.; Hootsuite picks Thursday 6–9 a.m. and Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Later says weekdays at 10 a.m. PST. Treat them as starting points, then test your followers' active hours.
Many "best time to post" charts, including ones that rank for this search, repeat these numbers without saying which study they came from, how big it was or when it ran. If you've posted at a chart's "perfect" time and watched the views sit still, the chart may simply describe someone else's audience. This guide puts all four side by side, shows where they contradict each other, explains why, and gives you a simple test for finding the time that works for your account.
Captain Hook has no posting-time data of its own, so every number below comes from the study it's credited to.
What the four studies say
| Study (date) | Data | Period | What "best" measures | Top times and days | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprout Social (updated Mar 31, 2026) | ~2 billion engagements, 307,000 profiles, 30,000 Sprout customers | Nov 27, 2025 – Feb 27, 2026 | Engagement (metric not broken down) | Tue–Thu, 2–6 p.m. local time. Worst: weekends, especially Sunday | sproutsocial.com |
| Buffer (Sep 14, 2026) | 7.1 million TikTok posts published through Buffer | Not stated | Median engagement rate | Sunday 9 a.m., then Monday 1 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. Best day: Saturday. Quieter: Wednesday and Thursday | buffer.com |
| Hootsuite (Nov 19, 2025) | 1 million+ social posts | Not stated | Engagement | Thursday 6–9 a.m. and Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m., localized across 118 countries | hootsuite.com |
| Later (Mar 7, 2025) | Later's social team, from its own posting; no dataset size given | Not stated | Views and engagement | Monday–Friday, 10 a.m. PST. Most engagement: Thursday and Friday | later.com |
Download the studies-compared sheet (CSV). It has every row above plus the Instagram studies, each with its source link, so you can check a number before you repeat it. Free, no sign-up.
Read across the rows and three contradictions stand out:
- Sunday. Sprout calls it "the worst day of the week to publish content on TikTok." Buffer's single best slot is Sunday at 9 a.m.
- Thursday. Hootsuite's top window is Thursday morning, and Later saw the most engagement on Thursdays and Fridays. Buffer says Thursday shows lower engagement overall.
- Morning or afternoon. Hootsuite's Thursday window and Later's 10 a.m. are mornings. Sprout's window is the afternoon.
Day by day: the two studies that publish every day
Buffer and Hootsuite each give a time for every day of the week. Here they are in one table.
| Day | Buffer (top slot, then runners-up) | Hootsuite |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 1 p.m. (11 a.m., 8 a.m.) | 5 p.m. |
| Tuesday | 6 a.m. (10 p.m., 7 a.m.) | 10 a.m.–1 p.m. |
| Wednesday | 10 p.m. (6 a.m., 9 p.m.) | 4–6 p.m. |
| Thursday | 1 p.m. (10 p.m., 6 a.m.) | 7–9 a.m. |
| Friday | 6 p.m. (10 p.m., 8 p.m.) | 4–6 p.m. |
| Saturday | 5 p.m. (4 p.m., 3 p.m.) | 10 a.m.–7 p.m. |
| Sunday | 9 a.m. (1 p.m., 12 p.m.) | 8 a.m.–12 p.m. |
On most days the two don't overlap at all. They roughly agree only around 6 p.m. on Friday, on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning. If you want a first test slot that both studies back, pick one of those.
Why the studies disagree
They aren't measuring the same thing, so they were never going to land on the same answer.
- Whose accounts. Each company studies its own sample: Sprout looks at its customers' profiles, Buffer at posts published through Buffer, and Later at what its own social team saw. Those are accounts run with a social media management tool, not a random slice of TikTok. Their audiences may not look like yours.
- What "best" means. Buffer ranks slots by median engagement rate. Sprout reports engagement without saying which actions count. Later looks at views and engagement. A slot can win on one measure and lose on another: a median rate counts every post once, while a total of engagements leans toward the hours when big accounts post.
- Time zones. Sprout, Buffer and Hootsuite convert their results to local time, so "9 a.m." means 9 a.m. where your audience is. Later quotes Pacific time. Mixing them up shifts a slot by hours.
- When the data was collected. Sprout's window is three months, from late November 2025 to late February 2026. Later's page dates from March 2025. Buffer and Hootsuite don't state a period. A page from early 2025 describes the app as it was then, not as it is when you read it.
None of this makes the studies wrong. It means each one describes its own sample, and your account is a sample of one.
How to find your own best time to post on TikTok
Your analytics already know when your audience is on the app. Start there, then test.
1. Check when your followers are active
In the TikTok app, go to your profile, tap the menu, select TikTok Studio, find Analytics and tap View all. On the web, open TikTok Studio and use the Analytics tab (TikTok Creator Academy).
- The Followers tab breaks your audience's activity down by hours and days.
- The Viewers tab shows Most active times: when your viewers were most active on TikTok in the last 7 days.
Three things to know before you read those charts (TikTok Support):
- Follower activity is shown in your local time zone. All other analytics are shown in UTC, so convert before you line the two up.
- Analytics data can take 1 to 2 days to update.
- Analytics only cover videos posted after you turned the feature on, so older videos won't appear in your comparison.
2. Pick two or three slots to test
Choose one slot from your own follower activity (your followers' busiest hour) and one or two from the studies above. If you have no clear peak yet, take Sprout's Tuesday–Thursday afternoon and Buffer's Sunday morning: they contradict each other, so your results will show which one fits your audience.
3. Test for two to four weeks
Post at each slot in rotation, at least three videos per slot, and keep the rest as steady as you can: similar topics, similar length, similar effort on the opening. Log every video in a sheet like this one:
| Date | Slot | Topic | Length (s) | Views after 7 days | Avg watch time (s) | Likes + comments + shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Compare videos at the same age (for example, 7 days after posting): analytics can take 1 to 2 days to update, and a video's numbers keep changing after that. This is a practice method, not a TikTok rule.
4. Decide on medians, not on one video
One video that takes off at 9 p.m. doesn't make 9 p.m. your slot. Compare the median of each slot. If the gap between slots is small, timing probably isn't your lever, and you can post when it suits you.
When timing isn't the problem
Posting time can't make people keep watching a video they would swipe past at any hour. Look at the numbers before you blame the clock:
- Views arrive, but people leave early: check your average watch time against your own last 10 videos.
- Views are close to zero on every slot: start with TikToks stuck at zero views.
- Views are flat whatever you do: see how to get more views on TikTok.
- One video stalled and you want to know why: Video Analyzer reads up to 4 screenshots of that video's TikTok analytics and explains in plain language what held it back. No video upload.
Posting on Instagram too? The best time to post on Instagram studies disagree in their own ways.
Plan your posting times
Chart your test slots on the free Content Calendar. Each entry can carry a time, so your plan sits next to the hooks and scripts you're about to post. It's free, works without an account and is a planning board only: nothing posts automatically, and entries are saved in this browser.
FAQ
What is the peak hour for TikTok?
There isn't one that every study agrees on. Sprout Social's data points to 2–6 p.m. local time from Tuesday to Thursday, Hootsuite's to Thursday 6–9 a.m., and Buffer's single best slot is Sunday at 9 a.m. Your own peak is in TikTok Studio under Analytics: the Followers tab shows activity by hour.
What is the best day to post on TikTok?
It depends on the study. Sprout Social names Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and calls Sunday the worst day. Buffer names Saturday as the strongest day and finds Wednesday and Thursday quieter. Test your top two days for two to four weeks and compare the median views of each.
Should I post in my time zone or my audience's?
Your audience's. Sprout, Buffer and Hootsuite convert their findings to local time, so a "9 a.m." slot means 9 a.m. where your viewers are. Later quotes Pacific time. TikTok shows follower activity in your own local time zone, so check where your followers are before you convert.
How do I see when my followers are active on TikTok?
Go to your profile, tap the menu, open TikTok Studio, then Analytics and View all. The Followers tab shows follower activity by hours and days, and the Viewers tab shows the most active times of your viewers over the last 7 days. Data can take 1 to 2 days to update.
Does posting time matter on TikTok?
The four studies above show that some slots average more engagement than others in their own samples. None of them shows that a slot will change the result of a given video on your account. Test it: if your best and worst slots end up close after a few weeks, put your effort into the video instead.