Best time to post on Douyin on Monday
02:00, 08:00, 09:00 The strongest hours are 02:00, 08:00, 09:00 UTC. Posts published on Monday average 66.4K engagement, 6% below the weekly average, over 37.5K posts, and 9.6% of them made the top 10%.
Measured on viral posts, not opined
Best time to post on Douyin (2026), from 277.1K viral videos
Measured on 277.1K viral videos from the last year on Douyin: the slot with the highest average engagement is Saturday 04:00 UTC, and 14.1% 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.
277.1Kviral posts measured
361days of data
142.6Ktop-10% threshold
14.1%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
Saturday 04:00 UTC
107.5K average · 1.7K posts
14.1%
#2
Saturday 03:00 UTC
99.3K average · 2.2K posts
12.8%
#3
Sunday 09:00 UTC
96.5K average · 4.3K posts
12.3%
#4
Saturday 09:00 UTC
93K average · 4.5K posts
13.6%
#5
Saturday 11:00 UTC
92K average · 3.4K posts
13.2%
The worst hour
Tuesday 23:00 UTC
Tuesday 23:00 UTC: 31.8K average engagement over 927 posts, 4.6% 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 Douyin today
Today is Monday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample: 02:00, 08:00, 09:00 UTC. The switch at the top converts them to your clock.
02:00, 08:00, 09:00 UTC
Best time to post on Douyin, 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 Douyin on Tuesday
08:00, 09:00, 10:00 The strongest hours are 08:00, 09:00, 10:00 UTC. Posts published on Tuesday average 63.9K engagement, 9% below the weekly average, over 41.8K posts, and 8.9% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Douyin on Wednesday
08:00, 09:00, 10:00 The strongest hours are 08:00, 09:00, 10:00 UTC. Posts published on Wednesday average 66.8K engagement, 5% below the weekly average, over 41.7K posts, and 9.8% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Douyin on Thursday
06:00, 08:00, 09:00 The strongest hours are 06:00, 08:00, 09:00 UTC. Posts published on Thursday average 64.7K engagement, 8% below the weekly average, over 43.7K posts, and 9.2% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Douyin on Friday
08:00, 09:00, 10:00 The strongest hours are 08:00, 09:00, 10:00 UTC. Posts published on Friday average 74.3K engagement, 5% above the weekly average, over 43K posts, and 10.4% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Douyin on Saturday
03:00, 04:00, 09:00 The strongest hours are 03:00, 04:00, 09:00 UTC. Posts published on Saturday average 84.1K engagement, 19% above the weekly average, over 35.2K posts, and 11.9% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Douyin on Sunday
03:00, 09:00, 13:00 The strongest hours are 03:00, 09:00, 13:00 UTC. Posts published on Sunday average 76.9K engagement, 9% above the weekly average, over 34.2K posts, and 10.6% 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 | Sat04:00 | Fri22:00 | Fri23:00 | Fri20:00 | Sat01:00 | Sat04:00 | Sat05:00 | Sat09:30 | Sat14:00 |
| #2 | Sat03:00 | Fri21:00 | Fri22:00 | Fri19:00 | Sat00:00 | Sat03:00 | Sat04:00 | Sat08:30 | Sat13:00 |
| #3 | Sun09:00 | Sun03:00 | Sun04:00 | Sun01:00 | Sun06:00 | Sun09:00 | Sun10:00 | Sun14:30 | Sun19:00 |
The posts that prove it
The three most viral viral videos published in the best slot, Saturday 04:00 UTC. Open them.
@chen-ze-6667622026-08-15
OK, Friends! Episode 2: Adventure in the Mountain City Part 1
17.1M engagement
@meow-lord-is-a-big-smartie-af60292026-07-25
Still on a business trip in Shanghai, received a video from the pet sitter who came to feed my pet
8.7M engagement
@er-nao-don-t-disturb-cb02a82026-06-27
This argument is actually quite pleasant!
8.4M 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 Douyin
This page measures when the viral posts of the whole network were published. Your account is one audience inside it. Open Douyin'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 Douyin
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: 277.1K viral videos on Douyin carrying their own publish time (never the time we found them), from 2025-09-08 to 2026-09-04.
- Metric: average engagement per slot (likes, comments and shares, weighted). A slot needs at least 555 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 142.6K 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 Douyin?
In our sample of 277.1K viral videos from the last year, the slot with the highest average engagement is Saturday 04:00 UTC, where 14.1% 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 Douyin?
By average engagement, Saturday. By the number of viral posts published, Thursday.
What is the worst time to post on Douyin?
Among slots with a real sample, Tuesday 23:00 UTC, with 31.8K average engagement. The gap between best and worst hour is what the map shows.
What is the best time to post on Douyin today?
Today is Monday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample are 02:00, 08:00, 09:00 UTC; the switch at the top of the page converts them to your time zone.
Is it better to post on Douyin on weekdays or at the weekend?
In our sample, weekday posts average 67.3K engagement and weekend posts 80.6K. The weekend wins. The busiest publishing day for viral posts is Thursday.
Where does this data come from?
From the posts ViralHunt tracks on Douyin: 277.1K with their own publish time between 2025-09-08 and 2026-09-04. 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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