Ask four studies when to post on Facebook and you get four answers. Tuesday at 5 AM. Thursday at 9 AM. Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 8 PM. Any weekday, three times a day. Each one looked at a lot of posts. None of them looked at your Page.
This post puts the four studies side by side, shows the one thing they agree on, and then walks through how a small business finds its own best hours on Facebook. It is the Facebook companion to our post on the best time to post on Instagram, with new data. All numbers below were checked on the source pages on September 28, 2026.
The short answer
If your Page has no history to learn from yet, start here:
- Post on a weekday. All four studies put their best slots on weekdays, and three of them in the middle of the week. Three name a weekend day as the weakest.
- Test one morning slot and one midday slot, for example 8 AM and 12 PM in your followers' local time. Two studies favor early mornings, one favors noon to evening, and a morning plus a lunch slot covers both camps.
- Post in each slot at least twice, then keep the one that beats your Page's usual likes and comments.
The rest of the post is the reasoning.
What the four studies say
Sprout Social (updated March 31, 2026) analyzed nearly 2 billion engagements across about 307,000 profiles, from November 27, 2025 to February 27, 2026. Its best times are Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 12 to 8 PM, local time. Monday peaks from 12 to 1 PM and Thursday from 12 to 2 PM and at 8 PM. Friday peaks around midday, and it calls the weekend the worst time to post.
Hootsuite (November 19, 2025) analyzed over 1 million posts from businesses in 118 countries, with time of day localized. Its single best time is Tuesday at 5 AM. Every other day lands between 5 and 8 AM, when people check what happened overnight, except Monday at 5 PM.
Buffer (February 26, 2026) analyzed more than 14 million Facebook posts sent through Buffer. Its best single slot is Thursday at 9 AM. Wednesday is its best day, Thursday second, and Saturday the weakest. Weekday mornings from 6 to 11 AM beat the afternoons.
SocialPilot analyzed 700,000 posts from more than 50,000 accounts. It lists three good slots for every day, Monday to Friday as the best days and Sunday as the weakest. Its page says the times are global and not tied to one time zone, so treat them as a rough shape of the day.
Here is the top slot for each day, as each study reports it:
| Day | Sprout Social | Hootsuite | Buffer | SocialPilot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 12-1 PM | 5 PM | 9 PM | 9 AM, 12 PM, 7 PM |
| Tuesday | 12-8 PM | 5 AM | 8 AM | 8 AM, 10 AM, 6 PM |
| Wednesday | 12-8 PM | 6 AM | 8 AM | 7-9 AM, 2-5 PM |
| Thursday | 12-2 PM, 8 PM | 6 AM | 9 AM | 9-11 AM, 8 PM |
| Friday | Midday | 6 AM | 8 AM | 7 AM, 1 PM, 5 PM |
| Saturday | No peak | 6 AM | 10 PM | 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM |
| Sunday | No peak | 8 AM | 10 AM | 8 AM, 11 AM, 4 PM |
Read across a row and the gap is wide. On Tuesday the answers run from 5 AM to 8 PM. Read down the columns and a pattern shows: the middle of the week wins in every study, and three of them pull toward the morning.
Why their answers differ
They count different Pages
Sprout Social draws on its customers' profiles, Buffer on posts sent through Buffer, Hootsuite on businesses of all sizes. Each set has its own mix of brands and audiences. Both Sprout Social and Hootsuite show this inside their own studies. Sprout Social puts food and beverage brands at 10 AM to 3 PM on Tuesdays and Fridays. Hootsuite puts dining, hospitality and tourism at 10 AM to 12 PM on Sundays, a day most of the general studies rate low.
They measure at different times of year
Sprout Social's window is late November to late February: the holidays and the darkest months in the northern hemisphere. Hootsuite labels its study as 2025 data, and Buffer's page does not name its period. A winter study and a study over a longer stretch can disagree and both be right.
An early post collects all day
Hootsuite's 5 AM and Buffer's 8 AM point to the same effect. A post published before people wake up is waiting at the top of the feed when they open the app, and it collects likes and comments through the morning. A post at 7 PM gets fewer hours of daylight and competes with every Page that read "evenings work".
Your followers are not everyone
Facebook's audience in the US is broad and steady. Pew Research Center found that 71% of US adults used Facebook in its 2025 survey, close to the share in every survey since 2018:
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 68% |
| 2019 | 69% |
| 2021 | 69% |
| 2023 | 68% |
| 2024 | 70% |
| 2025 | 71% |
That breadth hides big differences by age, and age shapes the day. A Page for retirees and a Page for parents of toddlers do not have the same free hours:
The 30 to 49 group uses Facebook most, at 80%. If that is your customer, early mornings before work and the school run, and the lunch break, are both worth a test.
Why one good hour matters
Brands post less on Facebook than they used to. The 2026 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report from Quid (March 5, 2026, the report formerly from Rival IQ) puts the median brand at 3.0 Facebook posts a week, the lowest in its six year view. It says engagement on Facebook held steady.
Three posts a week gives you twelve chances a month. If two of them go out while your followers sleep through the day or sit in meetings, that is a sixth of your month gone.
How to find your own best hours
The studies give you a first guess. Your Page gives you the answer. This routine takes four weeks and about ten minutes a week.
Step 1: Look at what already worked
Open your Page's insights in Meta Business Suite, or the Facebook channel in Postfjord's Analytics, and list your ten best posts from the last 90 days by likes and comments. Write down the weekday and hour each one went out. Two or three of them often share a time block. That block is your first test slot.
If your business also has an Instagram account, Postfjord shows when its followers are online. The same people often follow both, so those hours are a fair second candidate.
Step 2: Set your time zone once
Every time in this post is local. A bakery in Chicago uses Central Time. A shop that ships across the US picks the time zone where most of its followers live. In Postfjord, the workspace time zone is under Settings, General, and every scheduled post and every best time uses it.
Step 3: Test two slots for four weeks
Take the slot from Step 1 and one from the studies. For example: Tuesday at 8 AM and Wednesday at 12 PM. Post at both, every week, for four weeks. That is eight posts, four in each slot.
Keep the posts comparable: a photo post in each slot, or a video in each, with the same kinds of topics. Otherwise the format decides the result.
Step 4: Compare against your usual
Compare each slot with your Page's own average, not with raw numbers. Say your posts average 20 likes and comments. If Tuesday's posts average 30, that slot runs at 1.5 times your usual. If Wednesday's average 18, it runs at 0.9. Keep Tuesday and test a new second slot.
Step 5: Look again every quarter
Habits change with school terms, holidays and daylight saving time. Check every three months, or when a slot that used to work goes quiet.
A worked example
A family restaurant in Denver posts three times a week on Facebook. The numbers here are an example, not data from a real Page.
- Week 1: its best posts from the last 90 days are mostly Sunday lunch specials that went out around 10 AM. It picks Tuesday at 8 AM (a study slot) and Sunday at 10 AM (its own slot).
- Weeks 1 to 4: a photo of the day's special in both slots, every week.
- Week 5: Sunday posts average 1.8 times the Page's usual. Tuesday morning posts average 1.1 times.
- Next four weeks: keep Sunday at 10 AM, and test Thursday at 11 AM before the lunch rush in place of Tuesday.
Sunday is a weak day in three of the four studies. For this Page it is the best one. That is why the test matters more than the tables.
How Postfjord finds your best times
Step 4 works in a spreadsheet, and it is the step most people drop by week three. Postfjord's Analytics does it every night for each connected Instagram account and Facebook Page:
- Reads your newest 100 posts, including posts you published outside Postfjord.
- Groups them by weekday and hour, in your workspace time zone.
- Measures each time against the channel's usual, by likes and comments. Each channel is compared with its own average, so a big Instagram account does not decide the times for a small Facebook Page.
- Waits for two posts. A time only shows once you have posted at it at least twice, so one lucky post cannot win.
- Shows the top times under Best times to post, for the range you pick: 7, 30, 90 or 365 days.
Pick your Page under Each channel to see its likes and comments by weekday, hour, topic and kind of post. Then plan the next posts at those times in the calendar. Drag a scheduled post to another day and it keeps its time; open it to change the hour. The calendar help page has the details.
If you use ChatGPT or Claude, connect it through Postfjord's MCP server and ask "what are my best times to post on Facebook this month?". It reads the same best times and can schedule next week's drafts at them.
Every number on the Analytics screen is explained on the Analytics help page.
FAQ
What is the best time to post on Facebook in 2026?
The studies disagree on the hour. Sprout Social says Tuesday and Wednesday from 12 to 8 PM. Hootsuite says Tuesday at 5 AM. Buffer says Thursday at 9 AM. All of them favor the middle of the week. Start with a weekday morning and a weekday lunch slot in your followers' time zone, and let four weeks of your own posts decide.
What is the best day to post on Facebook?
Buffer names Wednesday, with Thursday second. Sprout Social names Tuesday and Wednesday. Hootsuite's single best slot is on Tuesday. SocialPilot rates Monday to Friday as a group.
What is the worst time to post on Facebook?
The weekend, in most studies. Sprout Social calls Saturday and Sunday the worst days, Buffer names Saturday and SocialPilot names Sunday. Some businesses are the exception: Hootsuite's own data puts dining and hospitality at Sunday late morning.
How often should a business post on Facebook?
Quid's 2026 benchmark puts the median brand at 3.0 posts a week. For a small business, a steady three a week at tested times is a sound floor.
Does the time you post on Facebook matter?
It helps a post reach the people who are online when it goes out. It cannot fix a post they do not care about. Postfjord's Analytics also sorts your posts by topic, so you can see which kinds of posts get the most likes and comments on your Page.
Which time zone should I use?
Your followers' time zone. Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Buffer all report times that apply in local time. If your followers live in several zones, use the one where most of them live.