Best time to post on TikTok
The three large studies disagree more on TikTok than anywhere else. Here is each one day by day, the hours they share, and a planner for your time zone.
Darker = more of the 3 studies name that hour. Times are your audience’s local time.
- Thursday 1 p.m. · named by Sprout Social, Buffer
- Friday 6 p.m. · named by Buffer, Hootsuite
- Saturday 5 p.m. · named by Buffer, Hootsuite
The file adds 3 repeating 15-minute events with a 10-minute alert, in your audience’s time zone, to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook. It is built in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
The best times to post on TikTok are Wednesday and Friday 4-6 p.m., Saturday 3-5 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m., in your audience’s local time. Each of those hours is named by at least two of the three large studies. Otherwise they disagree: Sprout Social found weekday afternoons best (Tuesday-Thursday, 2-6 p.m.), while Buffer found evenings and weekends best, with Saturday the strongest day.
Checked by Koldflux · updated 2026-09-24 · times re-read from each study page
TikTok: best times by day, study by study
All times are the audience’s local time. The last column shows hours at least two studies name.
| Day | Sprout Social | Buffer | Hootsuite | Shared hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 3-5 p.m. | 1 p.m., then 11 a.m. and 8 a.m. | 5 p.m. | 5 p.m. |
| Tuesday | 2-6 p.m. | 6 a.m., then 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. | 10 a.m.-1 p.m. | no shared hour |
| Wednesday | 1-8 p.m. | 10 p.m., then 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. | 4-6 p.m. | 4-6 p.m. |
| Thursday | 1-5 p.m. | 1 p.m., then 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. | 7-9 a.m. | 1 p.m. |
| Friday | 3-5 p.m. | 6 p.m., then 10 p.m. and 8 p.m. | 4-6 p.m. | 4-6 p.m. |
| Saturday | not in its top windows | 5 p.m., then 4 p.m. and 3 p.m. | 10 a.m.-7 p.m. | 3-5 p.m. |
| Sunday | not in its top windows | 9 a.m., then 1 p.m. and 12 p.m. | 8 a.m.-12 p.m. | 9 a.m., 12 p.m. |
Afternoons or evenings? Why TikTok studies split
Sprout Social measures when engagement happens and sees weekday afternoons peak, with the weekend lowest. Buffer ranks posting hours by median engagement rate across 7.1 million posts and gets nearly the opposite: Saturday is the best day, Sunday 9 a.m. is the best single slot, and evenings from 6 to 11 p.m. do well on most days.
A practical plan: post in one shared slot (Saturday 3-5 p.m. or Friday 4-6 p.m.) and alternate the rest between a weekday afternoon and an evening, then check Follower activity in TikTok Studio after two weeks.
What each study measured
| Study | Measures | Sample | Period | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprout Social | when engagement happens: hourly windows with the most likes, comments and shares across Sprout customers’ profiles | nearly 2 billion engagements on about 307,000 profiles (30,000+ Sprout customers) | 27 Nov 2025 to 27 Feb 2026 (published 2026-03-31) | Best: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Worst: weekends, Sunday lowest |
| Buffer | which posting hour earned the highest median engagement rate for posts published through Buffer | 7.1 million TikTok posts | published 2026-09-14 | Best: Saturday, then Monday and Sunday. Worst: Wednesday and Thursday are quieter |
| Hootsuite | peak engagement times for posts from businesses of all sizes, localised across 118 countries | over 1 million social posts, analysed with Critical Truth | published 2025-11-19 | - |
Find your own best time on TikTok
- Start with a shared slotUse the hours most studies agree on for your first posts, in your audience’s local time.
- Test one alternativeFor two weeks, post similar content at one shared slot and one slot only a single study names, same days each week.
- Compare like with likeCompare reach or views per post after the same number of hours, not total likes days later.
- Check TikTok Studio analyticsOpen TikTok Studio, go to Analytics, then the Followers tab: “Follower activity” shows the hours your followers were on TikTok, in your local time zone. Analytics can take 1-2 days to update.
Limits and when to use something else
- Study times come from their customers’ accounts, mostly brands. Your audience can differ, especially outside the US and Europe.
- A great slot does not rescue a weak post: the first seconds of a video or the first line of a caption matter more than the hour.
- Where the studies disagree, neither is wrong; they measure different things. Test instead of picking one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best day to post on TikTok?
It depends on the study. Buffer found Saturday best, followed by Monday and Sunday. Sprout Social found Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday best and the weekend worst. Hootsuite lists a long Saturday window (10 a.m.-7 p.m.).
What is the best time to post on TikTok today?
Find today in the day-by-day table above; the planner also shows today’s slots in your own time zone. On Saturday, for example, Buffer and Hootsuite both name 3-5 p.m.
What is the worst time to post on TikTok?
Sprout Social found Sunday the worst day. Buffer found Wednesday and Thursday the quieter days and weekday afternoons (12-5 p.m.) the weakest hours on most days: the opposite of Sprout’s peak.
Is the best time to post on TikTok the same in India, the UK or Australia?
Yes, as a local time. Every study here converts times to the audience’s own time zone, so 4 p.m. means 4 p.m. in Mumbai, London or Sydney. What changes is your own clock when your audience lives somewhere else: set both time zones in the planner above to see the slot in your time.
How do I see when my TikTok followers are online?
Open TikTok Studio, then Analytics, then Followers. Follower activity shows the hours your followers were on TikTok in your local time zone, while other analytics use UTC. Data can take 1-2 days to update.
Turn one idea into a week of posts
The hard part of posting at the right time is having something ready. Koldflux Studio turns one recording, idea or script into Shorts and carousel posts you approve and export, so the slots in your calendar are filled. It does not publish or schedule posts for you.
- 1 · Recording, idea or script
- 2 · Pick the angles
- 3 · Review and approve
- 4 · Export Shorts and carousels
