Your goal when posting on Instagram is to get as much traction as possible on the content you put up on your feed. The granular details may be slightly different, but everyone posts on Instagram to either show things in their life they view as important or to socialize with others.
Just like on other social media sites, there can be times when you get more traction on your Instagram posts than others. In this article, we’ll dive into what we feel are the best times to post on Instagram, both from our personal experiences as well as data studies done.
When is the best time to post on Instagram?
The main question you should ask yourself first, directly after asking this question, is a simple one:
“Does it really matter what time I post?”
The reality
Honestly, the answer to the above question is not really. Similarly to posting on TikTok, the best way to tell when to post on Instagram is to use common sense when you want to post something. For example:
- Don’t post in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep
- Target mornings rather than night, when people are looking at their phones and checking their social media accounts before they dive into work
- The weekends are when most people are off of their phones and social accounts
Sticking to the basics is always the smart idea. The easiest way to ensure that people look at your content more is to create and post good content! This is at the core of much of the advice we give on this website, and it’s incredible how much more success you’ll have if you consistently put out good-quality content.
Data studies
We have taken a look at several different studies on the effects of posting Instagram content at different times of the day. We’ll dive into each of them, but here are the links in case you want to check them out yourselves:
Hootsuite
Hootsuite analyzed over one million businesses’ social posts to find the best times to post on Instagram. In their study, they found that the absolute sweet spot to post on Instagram in 2024 was 11 AM PST on Wednesdays, as midweek, midday posts tend to grab the most attention.
Another interesting fact from the Hootsuite study was the impact of Instagram Reels on your engagement. Posting Reels between 9 AM and 12 PM PST on Monday-Thursday could lead to massive interaction.
Sprout Social
The Sprout Social study took things a bit further. They found that these are the best days and times to post on Instagram:
- Mondays from 11 AM – 2 PM
- Tuesdays from 10 AM – 4 PM
- Wednesdays from 9 AM – 4 PM
- Thursdays from 9 AM – 1 PM and 2 PM
- Fridays at 11 AM
Based on this, the best windows to post are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with Sundays being the least popular posting time, which makes sense.
Influencer Marketing Hub
One thing that the IMH study points out immediately is helpful, and that is that changes in the Instagram algorithm have placed greater emphasis on giving priority to posts that are made from users’ friends and family and less to business posts. This means that businesses that have links in their posts that would take users away from the Instagram app are getting nerfed on their engagement.
Influencer Marketing Hub, instead of narrowing down to a few days and times that worked best for Instagram posting, decided to push a broad picture of what days/times work, which you can see right here.
SocialPilot
The SocialPilot study found that the best time for Instagram posting is between 7 – 9 AM on weekdays for maximum post engagement. They also offer their optimal time check tool in order to check the best time relevant to your personal Instagram audience.
While they do specify the early-morning weekday hours are their recommended times, they do go deeper into the optimal times to post for each day of the week, with most of those times in the early and mid-morning hours.
We’ll touch on this more in a below section, but SocialPilot also noted some optimal days and times to post for specific industries.
For example:
- Travel & Tourism: Weekdays 12 – 2 PM, 7 PM – 9 PM
- Food & Beverage: Weekdays 12 – 2 PM, Weekends 5 – 7 PM
Later
The data that Later found is very interesting to me. Now, keep in mind, Later noted that this data was collected by looking at Instagram posts across time zones, keeping in mind that accounts can have follower distribution spread across the globe.
Their research found that posting between 3 and 6 AM on all days of the week will, over the long term, result in more engagement, elevating the importance of much less competition at those times rather than blindly following the masses of people posting in the mid-morning hours.
In general, they noted that the best day and time to post on Instagram was Monday, specifically between 12 and 6 AM.
Buffer
Lastly, we took a look at Buffer’s Instagram data study.
They came to a pretty simple conclusion: the best time of the week to post is weekdays at 7 – 8 AM. On Thursdays and Fridays, 4 PM registers a nice spike in engagement as well, since that’s when people tend to check out of work a bit early and start thinking about the weekend.
Best time to post by day
| Days | Hootsuite | Sprout | IMH | Social Pilot | Later | Buffer |
| Mon | 11 AM | 11 AM-2 PM | N/A | 11 AM | 5 AM | 3 PM |
| Tues | 8 AM | 10 AM-4 PM | N/A | 10 AM | 5 AM | 3 PM |
| Wed | 11 AM | 9 AM-4 PM | N/A | 9 AM | 3 AM | 3 PM |
| Thurs | 11 AM | 9 AM-1 PM | N/A | 9 AM | 4:30 AM | 3 PM |
| Fri | 2 PM | 11 AM | N/A | 11 AM | 4 AM | 3 PM |
| Sat | 8 AM | 9 AM-12 PM | N/A | 12 PM | 5 AM | 6 PM |
| Sun | 6 PM | 10 AM-12 PM | N/A | 11 AM | 5 AM | 6 PM |
Best time to post by industry
As I explained above, industries tend to have their own best posting days and times for Instagram content.
For example, my experience in the sports media industry has taught me that if you post an hour or two before a game or event, you’re more likely to get traffic, given that people do a lot of their checking at the last minute for things like that. If you own experience in a certain industry, think about your own experiences talking about it on social media and what days and times you focused on that industry.
Looking at some common industries, let’s take a look at some of them and when good times to post on Instagram would be for them.
Churches/Religious Organizations
Most people go to church on Sunday mornings, and temple for Shabbat on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, right? The vast majority of religious people are not thinking too much about their religions during the week, and focus on them during the weekend.
That means the best time to post on Instagram for these would probably be in the afternoon on Fridays, the morning on Saturday and maybe Sunday mornings as well.
Video Games
Gamers are typically most active at night into the early mornings. They work during the day time, and then at night, they play video games. I guess if you include streamers in this that work in video game content creation as a job, their social media schedule will be a bit different, but for most gamers, the best time to post on Instagram for their audience will be in the afternoons and nighttime, most days of the week.
Restaurants
This is an interesting one. The restaurant industry is constantly trying to attract social media buzz because there’s all sorts of different restaurant types, from breakfast places to dinner places, which could skew the results here.
However, common sense again prevails. If you’re looking for a breakfast place, posting on Instagram early in the morning will likely work, around midday for lunch places, and obviously around dinnertime or the early afternoon for dinner-based restaurants.
How to find the best time to post in your Instagram Analytics
Instagram Analytics are a set of metrics and data that are gathered from Instagram that you can use to evaluate post performance and track success. Realistically, this is the best way that you can truly understand your own audience, figure out what they are interested in you for, and when the best time to post in order to gain more engagement is.
Using Instagram’s analytics tools, finding out that last part is absolutely key, and fortunately, very easy. Simply follow these steps, and you’ll be right on your way:
- From your Instagram profile, tap ≡ in the upper right corner
- Click the Insights button
- Click the metrics underneath the Overview section or specific content you’ve shared for more details
- Tap Total Followers and scroll to see their most active times.
By doing this, you get a personalized view of your followers and when they are most likely to view your posts. You might have a similar answer as some of the above studies, but this is the best way to match your posting times as closely as possible to the ideal time.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, while there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the best time to post on Instagram, there are clear patterns that can guide your strategy. The key takeaway is that posting at optimal times, such as during mid-morning or early afternoon on weekdays, can increase your chances of engagement.
However, this is based on our experiences and the data from various studies. The most important factor is creating quality content that resonates with your audience, as this will have the biggest impact on your Instagram success. Additionally, using Instagram’s Analytics tool allows you to tailor your posting times to your specific followers for even better results.
