Best time to post on Instagram on Monday
00:00, 04:00, 07:00 The strongest hours are 00:00, 04:00, 07:00 UTC. Posts published on Monday average 140.7K engagement, 3% above the weekly average, over 7.4K posts, and 9.8% of them made the top 10%.
Measured on viral posts, not opined
Best time to post on Instagram (2026), from 49.7K viral posts
Measured on 49.7K viral posts from the last year on Instagram: the slot with the highest average engagement is Thursday 13:00 UTC, and 8.9% 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.
49.7Kviral posts measured
362days of data
194Ktop-10% threshold
14.3%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
Thursday 13:00 UTC
280.5K average · 393 posts
8.9%
#2
Wednesday 03:00 UTC
271.3K average · 197 posts
11.2%
#3
Tuesday 07:00 UTC
265.5K average · 119 posts
10.1%
#4
Friday 10:00 UTC
246.7K average · 150 posts
9.3%
#5
Saturday 09:00 UTC
245.4K average · 126 posts
14.3%
The worst hour
Monday 23:00 UTC
Monday 23:00 UTC: 66.9K average engagement over 347 posts, 8.1% 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 Instagram today
Today is Monday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample: 00:00, 04:00, 07:00 UTC. The switch at the top converts them to your clock.
00:00, 04:00, 07:00 UTC
Best time to post on Instagram, 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 Instagram on Tuesday
04:00, 07:00, 16:00 The strongest hours are 04:00, 07:00, 16:00 UTC. Posts published on Tuesday average 150.7K engagement, 10% above the weekly average, over 7.5K posts, and 10.3% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Wednesday
03:00, 05:00, 06:00 The strongest hours are 03:00, 05:00, 06:00 UTC. Posts published on Wednesday average 131.3K engagement, 4% below the weekly average, over 7.7K posts, and 9.8% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Thursday
12:00, 13:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 12:00, 13:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Thursday average 125.5K engagement, 8% below the weekly average, over 7.6K posts, and 9.4% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Friday
10:00, 14:00, 18:00 The strongest hours are 10:00, 14:00, 18:00 UTC. Posts published on Friday average 145.1K engagement, 6% above the weekly average, over 7K posts, and 10.8% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Saturday
07:00, 09:00, 13:00 The strongest hours are 07:00, 09:00, 13:00 UTC. Posts published on Saturday average 131.9K engagement, 4% below the weekly average, over 6K posts, and 10.4% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Sunday
11:00, 15:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 11:00, 15:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Sunday average 131.9K engagement, 4% below the weekly average, over 6.5K posts, and 9.6% 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 | Thu13:00 | Thu07:00 | Thu08:00 | Thu05:00 | Thu10:00 | Thu13:00 | Thu14:00 | Thu18:30 | Thu23:00 |
| #2 | Wed03:00 | Tue21:00 | Tue22:00 | Tue19:00 | Wed00:00 | Wed03:00 | Wed04:00 | Wed08:30 | Wed13:00 |
| #3 | Tue07:00 | Tue01:00 | Tue02:00 | Mon23:00 | Tue04:00 | Tue07:00 | Tue08:00 | Tue12:30 | Tue17:00 |
The posts that prove it
The three most viral viral posts published in the best slot, Thursday 13:00 UTC. Open them.
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 Instagram
This page measures when the viral posts of the whole network were published. Your account is one audience inside it. Open Instagram'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 Instagram
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: 49.7K viral posts on Instagram carrying their own publish time (never the time we found them), from 2025-09-06 to 2026-09-03.
- Metric: average engagement per slot (likes, comments and shares, weighted). A slot needs at least 100 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 194K 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 Instagram?
In our sample of 49.7K viral posts from the last year, the slot with the highest average engagement is Thursday 13:00 UTC, where 8.9% 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 Instagram?
By average engagement, Tuesday. By the number of viral posts published, Wednesday.
What is the worst time to post on Instagram?
Among slots with a real sample, Monday 23:00 UTC, with 66.9K average engagement. The gap between best and worst hour is what the map shows.
What is the best time to post on Instagram today?
Today is Monday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample are 00:00, 04:00, 07:00 UTC; the switch at the top of the page converts them to your time zone.
Is it better to post on Instagram on weekdays or at the weekend?
In our sample, weekday posts average 138.5K engagement and weekend posts 131.9K. It is close to a tie. The busiest publishing day for viral posts is Wednesday.
Where does this data come from?
From the posts ViralHunt tracks on Instagram: 49.7K with their own publish time between 2025-09-06 and 2026-09-03. 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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