Last updated: September 2026 – refreshed with current data from Sprout Social, Buffer, RecurPost, and DataReportal.

People ask this question quite often and that is: what are the best times to post on TikTok for the best results? There are multiple answers to this question and we will take a look at all of them in this article to help you.

With the many different tools on the TikTok app to make an estimated guess, it is not really that difficult anymore. If you have a Pro account, the TikTok analytics are at your disposal so you will be able to know the right posting times.

For maximum engagement from social media audiences, you need to know when to post and that is the most important information.

Here’s something most “best time to post” guides won’t tell you: the big studies don’t agree with each other. Sprout Social’s analysis of 2 billion engagements says weekends are your weakest window. Buffer’s review of 7.1 million posts says Saturday is actually the best day to post. Neither is wrong – they’re measuring different audiences at different points in time, which is exactly why “post at 6 PM on Tuesday” advice tends to fall apart the moment you try it on your own account.

Below is what each major study currently shows, so you can see where they overlap and where they don’t – then check your own TikTok Analytics to see which pattern actually matches your audience.

At a glance

Take this as a starting point, not a rulebook – the studies below were run on different audiences at different times, so the real answer is whichever pattern shows up in your account’s Analytics.

Day	Sprout Social (2B engagements)	Buffer (7.1M posts)	RecurPost (2M+ posts, EST)
Monday	3–5 PM — high	1 PM, with 11 AM / 8 PM secondary	10 AM, 1 PM, 9 PM
Tuesday	2–6 PM — peak	6 AM, with 10 PM / 7 AM secondary	12 AM, 1 PM, 4 PM
Wednesday	1–8 PM — peak	10 PM, with 6 AM / 9 PM secondary	9 AM, 11 AM, 9 PM
Thursday	1–5 PM — peak	1 PM, with 10 PM / 6 AM secondary	10 AM, 11 AM, 10 PM
Friday	3–5 PM — high	6 PM, with 10 PM / 8 PM secondary	10 AM, 5 PM, 8 PM
Saturday	Avoid — low engagement	5 PM — best single day overall	9 AM, 3 PM, 8 PM
Sunday	Avoid — low engagement	9 AM — best single slot overall	12 PM, 2 PM, 4 PM

When Is the Best Time To Post?

To keep your audience growing you need to find what is the best time to post on TikTok and when your followers will be watching.

With more than 2.21 billion monthly active users worldwide (Statista/DataReportal, Q2 2026), this has become quite a daunting task with so many different time zones out there.

Knowing the best time to post on TikTok will help you plan strategically and post when your viewers are active for better engagement. The one thing the data actually agrees on: weekday afternoons and evenings consistently outperform early mornings. See the source-by-source breakdown above for the specifics on each day.

So now that you know what are the estimated times they are active you need to answer the follow-up question. Depending on where your audience resides, you need to find what their time zones are so you can strategize accordingly.

To be on top of that you have the TikTok analytics, which we will talk about later on to help you plan your feeds. We will talk about how long are users active in the next session to further plan your strategy to post videos.

There are specific times on the different days viewers are active and are considered optimal times to post by the researchers.

Best Time To Post On TikTok

Rather than give you one invented “best hour” per day, here’s what three separate large-scale studies actually found – so you can see where they overlap and where they don’t.

Monday. Sprout Social’s data points to a high-engagement window between 3-5 PM, while Buffer’s 7.1-million-post analysis favors 1 PM with secondary spikes around 11 AM and 8 PM. RecurPost’s dataset lands on 10 AM, 1 PM, and 9 PM. 

The overlap: early-to-mid afternoon is a safe bet for Monday.

Tuesday. This is one of the few days where the big studies genuinely disagree on the basics – Sprout calls 2-6 PM peak, while Buffer’s data favors early morning (6-7 AM) and late evening (10 PM), and RecurPost spreads engagement across midnight, 1 PM, and 4 PM. 

Worth testing more than one slot on Tuesdays specifically.

Wednesday. Sprout’s widest peak window of the week (1-8 PM) overlaps well with Buffer’s evening pick of 9-10 PM and RecurPost’s 9 PM slot. 

Evening posting has the strongest cross-source agreement on Wednesdays.

Thursday. All three sources cluster around midday to early afternoon – Sprout’s 1-5 PM peak lines up closely with Buffer’s 1 PM primary slot, and RecurPost adds a late-morning window (10-11 AM). 

This is one of the more consistent days across studies.

Friday. Sprout favors 3-5 PM, Buffer favors evening (6-8 PM, with 10 PM as a strong secondary), and RecurPost spreads across 10 AM, 5 PM, and 8 PM. 

Late afternoon into evening is the common thread.

Saturday. Here’s the sharpest disagreement in the data: Sprout Social’s research says weekends underperform and recommends avoiding Saturday altogether, while Buffer’s analysis names Saturday the single best day to post all week, with 5 PM as the peak slot. RecurPost sits in between, favoring 8 PM. 

If you’re going to test one day against your own Analytics, make it this one.

Sunday. Similarly split – Sprout again flags weekends as weak, but Buffer identifies Sunday at 9 AM as the single best time slot in its entire dataset. RecurPost spreads activity across midday and early afternoon (12-4 PM). 

Another day where your own data should have the final say.

Where the data actually agrees:

Strip away the noise and the one pattern all three studies share is this: weekday afternoons and evenings consistently outperform early mornings. Beyond that, the specifics ((and especially anything involving weekends) vary enough by source that no single “best time” claim holds up across the board. 

Use the table above as your starting point, then let your own TikTok Analytics tell you which pattern fits your specific audience.

For How Long are TikTok Users Active? 

TikTok usage has grown a lot since this stat first made the rounds. As of 2026, the average user spends 1 hour and 37 minutes a day on the app (more than triple what it was back in 2019) according to Datareportal’s Digital 2026 report.

Sessions themselves have gotten longer too: Semrush data puts the average visit at 9 to 12 minutes, not the quick few-minute check-ins TikTok was known for early on. Users still open the app frequently, around 8 times a day on average, but they’re staying longer each time they do.

What this means for your posting strategy: longer sessions mean more scroll depth per visit, so timing your post right before a peak session window matters less than it used to. What matters more is whether your first 2-3 seconds earn a watch-through, since users now have more patience (and more competing content) once they’re in the app.

Global Audience

The Global TikTok audience has become quite important to influencers and social media platform marketers to promote their brand and business actively. Now that you know when users are active you will be able to find the right users for your TikTok content.

For the highest TikTok engagement, you need also to know the demographic time zone of your global audience and the top territories.

To keep your audience engaged you also need to have good quality content, so you can compete with the very competitive marketplace.

With a presence in more than 200 countries around the world, TikTok gives you a very large user base to play with. This means many different time zones to keep track of to reach all those TikTok users for your marketing content.

It is a large marketplace so you need to be on top of the users’ active times all the time to keep the viewers captivated.

But do not let this discourage you, there are great tools available in the TikTok app to help you with your research.

You should also know where the audience is located so you can adjust your video content to specific criteria.

Target Audience

With the information already accumulated, it is much easier to find the right audience for our TikTok marketing content. With the average watch time of viewers, you can strategize your video feeds to post on TikTok on the best times for the best results.

Finding the best time to post on TikTok has never been that easy with all the great tools available to determine your audience’s location. These tools will help you find the best time to post, gender, and a lot of other information that will be helpful for your brands.

Even though it is good to find the best time to post, it is also important to find the right audience relevant to your content.

For the highest engagement from your target audience, you as the content writer must provide engaging content that will be shared more often.

Users of TikTok in multiple time zones from around the world want to feel the time they spent on the app is worth it. That is why your posting content must be engaging and on the spot when you post on TikTok at the best time.

TikTok Videos

Not just the best time to post, but also the content of the videos you post on TikTok will determine how many followers you find. This will help your brand or business to become part of the audience’s lives with high-performance content.

There are a number of great video creation platforms available to make your video content creation job so much easier.

One of the platforms is the Billo app that comes with easy-to-use features included for top-quality videos for aspiring creators.

With it, you will be able to create high-performing video ads to use on TikTok for much better post-performance. You will find many interesting ways to present your videos to the audience when it is time to post them.

This type of content can also be used on other platforms to improve your brand presence and videos discoverability.

The quality of your video content goes hand in hand with the best time to post on TikTok and the area you want to target.

TikTok Analytics

When you create a TikTok account you first want to see what is going on and how the users are reacting on the app. The creation of your profile is a one-time process and you can always change to a pro account at a later stage.

Switching to a Pro account is quick and free – you’ll find the option under your account settings, with TikTok walking you through the rest. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up.

The analytical tools available for pro accounts are great to determine the best time to post on TikTok for better results. The tools for your TikTok pro account will also help to find the right audience for your content for better hits.

By using relevant hashtags in your posts you can easily use them to determine many different things to help you find your audience.

So when it is the best time to post on TikTok you will be on target with your video content to keep the audience engaged.

The algorithm tools will help you plan the posting of your content strategically to make your videos discoverable at the best time to post. There is also a history section for past interaction with your viewers so that it can be used strategically.

Summing Up

Timing your TikTok posts well can meaningfully improve how much of your audience actually sees your content – but it only gets you halfway there. You still need content worth posting at that moment.

If you’re looking to keep a steady stream of scroll-stopping TikTok content ready to go, see how Billo connects you with creators who can produce it for you, on schedule.