"Best time to post" articles are usually recycled guesses. This one is 10 million posts published through Leon between January and May 2026, segmented by platform and audience size. Here's what the reach curves actually say.
The global windows
- Instagram: Tuesday–Thursday, 6–9 PM local. Reels get a secondary morning window, 7–8 AM.
- TikTok: Daily 7–10 PM, with Sunday evening the single strongest slot of the week.
- YouTube: Saturday and Sunday 10 AM–1 PM for long-form; Shorts mirror TikTok evenings.
- LinkedIn: Tuesday–Thursday, 8–10 AM. Engagement falls off a cliff after Friday noon.
- X: Weekday mornings 8–10 AM, second spike at 9 PM.
- Pinterest: Evenings 8–11 PM; remarkably stable across all days.
- Facebook: Wednesday–Friday 1–4 PM.
- Threads: Late evening, 9 PM–midnight — the platform's rhythm skews nocturnal.
The caveat that matters more than the list
Global averages are starting points, not answers. In our data, accounts that switched from global best-times to their own audience-activity windows saw an average 22% reach improvement. Your audience of night-shift nurses or European clients doesn't care what the average American scroller does.
Leon's Optimal Timing Engine computes these windows per account automatically, but even doing it manually once a quarter puts you ahead of most of your competition.
“Global averages are starting points, not answers.”
How to use this
- Start with the global windows above for your first 30 days on a platform.
- Once you have 50+ posts of data, switch to your own audience-activity windows.
- Re-check quarterly — audience rhythms drift with seasons and follower growth.
Alex Whitfield
Data Lead at Leon
