Best time to post on Instagram on Monday
00:00, 01:00, 04:00 The strongest hours are 00:00, 01:00, 04:00 UTC. Posts published on Monday average 134.4K engagement, 3% below the weekly average, over 9.6K posts, and 9.5% of them made the top 10%.
Measured on viral posts, not opined
Best time to post on Instagram (2026), from 65K viral posts
Measured on 65K viral posts from the last year on Instagram: the slot with the highest average engagement is Wednesday 17:00 UTC, and 8.3% 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.
65Kviral posts measured
356days of data
214.7Ktop-10% threshold
15.1%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
Wednesday 17:00 UTC
417.3K average · 715 posts
8.3%
#2
Thursday 13:00 UTC
292.4K average · 500 posts
9.8%
#3
Saturday 07:00 UTC
238.2K average · 146 posts
15.1%
#4
Saturday 10:00 UTC
236K average · 188 posts
12.8%
#5
Wednesday 12:00 UTC
230.9K average · 462 posts
11.7%
The worst hour
Sunday 09:00 UTC
Sunday 09:00 UTC: 63.4K average engagement over 220 posts, 5.5% 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 Thursday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample: 12:00, 13:00, 22:00 UTC. The switch at the top converts them to your clock.
12:00, 13:00, 22:00 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
00:00, 04:00, 07:00 The strongest hours are 00:00, 04:00, 07:00 UTC. Posts published on Tuesday average 142.8K engagement, 3% above the weekly average, over 9.9K posts, and 10.2% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Wednesday
03:00, 12:00, 17:00 The strongest hours are 03:00, 12:00, 17:00 UTC. Posts published on Wednesday average 156.3K engagement, 12% above the weekly average, over 10.2K posts, and 10% 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 133.3K engagement, 4% below the weekly average, over 9.5K posts, and 9.6% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Friday
04:00, 10:00, 18:00 The strongest hours are 04:00, 10:00, 18:00 UTC. Posts published on Friday average 146.5K engagement, 5% above the weekly average, over 8.8K posts, and 11.1% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Saturday
07:00, 10:00, 13:00 The strongest hours are 07:00, 10:00, 13:00 UTC. Posts published on Saturday average 129.8K engagement, 7% below the weekly average, over 8.2K posts, and 10.2% of them made the top 10%.
Best time to post on Instagram on Sunday
15:00, 18:00, 22:00 The strongest hours are 15:00, 18:00, 22:00 UTC. Posts published on Sunday average 126.4K engagement, 9% below the weekly average, over 8.8K posts, and 9.5% 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 | Wed17:00 | Wed11:00 | Wed12:00 | Wed09:00 | Wed14:00 | Wed17:00 | Wed18:00 | Wed22:30 | Thu03:00 |
| #2 | Thu13:00 | Thu07:00 | Thu08:00 | Thu05:00 | Thu10:00 | Thu13:00 | Thu14:00 | Thu18:30 | Thu23:00 |
| #3 | Sat07:00 | Sat01:00 | Sat02:00 | Fri23:00 | Sat04:00 | Sat07:00 | Sat08:00 | Sat12:30 | Sat17:00 |
The posts that prove it
The three most viral viral posts published in the best slot, Wednesday 17:00 UTC. Open them.
@missgrandinternational2026-10-07
🚨 𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍! 🚨 The 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 showdown is here! 🇪🇨 Miss Grand Ecuador 🇹🇿 Miss Grand Tanzania Only 𝐎𝐍𝐄 will be crowned 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲’𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 and earn a
217M engagement
@lamineyamal2026-09-02
weshh
10.9M engagement
@thehwaleedahmed2026-07-01
Time To Sleep🐔❤️
7.9M 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 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: 65K viral posts on Instagram carrying their own publish time (never the time we found them), from 2025-10-21 to 2026-10-12.
- Metric: average engagement per slot (likes, comments and shares, weighted). A slot needs at least 131 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 214.7K 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 65K viral posts from the last year, the slot with the highest average engagement is Wednesday 17:00 UTC, where 8.3% 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, Wednesday. By the number of viral posts published, Wednesday.
What is the worst time to post on Instagram?
Among slots with a real sample, Sunday 09:00 UTC, with 63.4K 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 Thursday in UTC. The best hours today in our sample are 12:00, 13:00, 22:00 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 142.8K engagement and weekend posts 128K. Weekdays win. The busiest publishing day for viral posts is Wednesday.
Where does this data come from?
From the posts ViralHunt tracks on Instagram: 65K with their own publish time between 2025-10-21 and 2026-10-12. 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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