Best time to post on Bluesky on Monday
16:00, 17:00, 19:00 The strongest hours are 16:00, 17:00, 19:00 UTC. Posts published on Monday average 272 engagement, 1% below the weekly average, over 502.3K posts, and 9.9% of them made the top 10%.
Measured on viral posts, not opined
Best time to post on Bluesky (2026), from 3.4M viral posts
Measured on 3.4M viral posts from the last year on Bluesky: the slot with the highest average engagement is Tuesday 18:00 UTC, and 12.2% of the posts published then made the top 10%. Every weekday, today, your time zone, the proof posts, the sample and the method.
Every other page on this question studies ordinary accounts and asks when they get the most engagement. This one asks a different question: when were the posts that actually went viral published? We track them for a living, we hold the timestamp of each one, and you can open them below.
3.4Mviral posts measured
365days of data
509top-10% threshold
12.2%best hit rate
The five best slots
Ranked by average engagement. The hit rate says how many posts published in that hour made the network's top 10%; the baseline is 10%.
#1
Tuesday 18:00 UTC
370 average · 29.2K posts
12.2%
#2
Wednesday 17:00 UTC
349 average · 28.4K posts
12.2%
#3
Thursday 19:00 UTC
341 average · 25.8K posts
12.1%
#4
Friday 22:00 UTC
340 average · 22.9K posts
12%
#5
Monday 19:00 UTC
340 average · 28.4K posts
12.1%
The worst hour
Tuesday 07:00 UTC
Tuesday 07:00 UTC: 143 average engagement over 13.7K posts, 6.1% of them in the top 10%. Publishing then is not fatal, but it is the weakest hour with a real sample.
The whole map: day by hour
Each cell is the average engagement of the posts published in that hour. Brighter is higher. Hover for the sample and the hit rate.
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Best time to post on Bluesky today
Today is Thursday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample: 18:00, 19:00, 23:00 UTC. The switch at the top converts them to your clock.
18:00, 19:00, 23:00 UTC
Best time to post on Bluesky, day by day
The three strongest hours of each weekday, how the day compares with the weekly average, and its own hit rate.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Tuesday
18:00, 19:00, 21:00 The strongest hours are 18:00, 19:00, 21:00 UTC. Posts published on Tuesday average 275 engagement, 0% above the weekly average, over 514.9K posts, and 9.9% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Wednesday
16:00, 17:00, 21:00 The strongest hours are 16:00, 17:00, 21:00 UTC. Posts published on Wednesday average 280 engagement, 2% above the weekly average, over 505.2K posts, and 10.1% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Thursday
18:00, 19:00, 23:00 The strongest hours are 18:00, 19:00, 23:00 UTC. Posts published on Thursday average 279 engagement, 1% above the weekly average, over 484.9K posts, and 10.3% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Friday
18:00, 20:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 18:00, 20:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Friday average 278 engagement, 1% above the weekly average, over 493.5K posts, and 10.3% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Saturday
18:00, 19:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 18:00, 19:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Saturday average 276 engagement, 0% above the weekly average, over 451.5K posts, and 9.9% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Bluesky on Sunday
16:00, 21:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 16:00, 21:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Sunday average 269 engagement, 2% below the weekly average, over 462.4K posts, and 9.7% of them made the top 10%.
The best slots in your time zone
The three best slots converted to the zones our readers ask about most. Daylight saving moves some of them by an hour part of the year.
| Slot | UTC | Ciudad de México | New York | Los Angeles | São Paulo | London | Madrid · Paris · Berlin | Mumbai | Sydney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Tue18:00 | Tue12:00 | Tue13:00 | Tue10:00 | Tue15:00 | Tue18:00 | Tue19:00 | Tue23:30 | Wed04:00 |
| #2 | Wed17:00 | Wed11:00 | Wed12:00 | Wed09:00 | Wed14:00 | Wed17:00 | Wed18:00 | Wed22:30 | Thu03:00 |
| #3 | Thu19:00 | Thu13:00 | Thu14:00 | Thu11:00 | Thu16:00 | Thu19:00 | Thu20:00 | Fri00:30 | Fri05:00 |
The posts that prove it
The three most viral viral posts published in the best slot, Tuesday 18:00 UTC. Open them.
@kamalaharris.com2026-04-07
The President of the United States is threatening to commit war crimes and wipe out a "whole civilization" — all because he started a disastrous war of his own
73.3K engagement
@itsjoels.bsky.social2026-08-25
This is the letter kids got at the end of Dolly’s Imagination Library. I defy you to read this and not cry.
63.8K engagement
@shakespeare.lol2026-08-25
[Exit Queen.]
61.8K engagement
The sample, month by month
How many posts from each month are in the data. A study is only as good as its recency.
How to find your own best time on Bluesky
This page measures when the viral posts of the whole network were published. Your account is one audience inside it. Open Bluesky's native analytics, look at when your followers are online, and start with the slots above that overlap. Then move your posts one hour at a time and compare the first-hour numbers for two or three weeks. Keep what wins, and come back: these numbers are recomputed every day.
Why the first hour matters
Every network shows a new post to a small slice of its audience first. The likes, comments and shares of that first hour are what earns the next slice. Publishing when that first slice is awake is the whole reason the hour matters: the same post at 4 AM starts its test in an empty room. It is also why the slots here are measured on publish time and not on the hour the engagement arrived.
How often to post on Bluesky
Timing does not replace frequency; it multiplies it. The accounts behind the posts in this sample publish daily or more on the short-video networks and several times a week elsewhere. One post a day inside a good slot beats five spread across weak ones, and the algorithms reward a steady cadence more than volume.
How this was measured
- Sample: 3.4M viral posts on Bluesky carrying their own publish time (never the time we found them), from 2025-10-21 to 2026-10-21.
- Metric: average engagement per slot (likes, comments and shares, weighted). A slot needs at least 6830 posts to be named; one giant post does not get to pick the hour.
- Hit rate: the share of a slot's posts at or above 509 engagement, the threshold of the network's top 10% in this sample. It is the reading that a single outlier cannot move.
- Hours are UTC in the table and rotated to your clock in the browser. This is when what went viral was PUBLISHED, which is not exactly when your audience is awake: a viral post accrues for days.
Who measured this
Frequently asked
What is the best time to post on Bluesky?
In our sample of 3.4M viral posts from the last year, the slot with the highest average engagement is Tuesday 18:00 UTC, where 12.2% of the posts made the top 10% against a 10% baseline. The five best are listed above with their sample size.
What is the best day to post on Bluesky?
By average engagement, Wednesday. By the number of viral posts published, Tuesday.
What is the worst time to post on Bluesky?
Among slots with a real sample, Tuesday 07:00 UTC, with 143 average engagement. The gap between best and worst hour is what the map shows.
What is the best time to post on Bluesky today?
Today is Thursday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample are 18:00, 19:00, 23:00 UTC; the switch at the top of the page converts them to your time zone.
Is it better to post on Bluesky on weekdays or at the weekend?
In our sample, weekday posts average 276 engagement and weekend posts 272. It is close to a tie. The busiest publishing day for viral posts is Tuesday.
Where does this data come from?
From the posts ViralHunt tracks on Bluesky: 3.4M with their own publish time between 2025-10-21 and 2026-10-21. Recomputed daily.
Why are your times different from other studies?
Most studies measure when ordinary accounts get the most engagement. This one measures when the posts that went viral were published, which is a different question with a smaller but sharper sample, and it is recomputed every day rather than once a year.
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