Best Times to Post on TikTok in 2026 and How to Find Yours

According to Sprout Social, which analyzed nearly 2 billion engagements, the best window to post on TikTok is Tuesday to Thursday, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., in your audience’s local time. Other large studies point to the evening and Sunday morning as good moments, so a reference time is a starting point, not a rule.

Timing matters because TikTok uses viewers’ interactions to decide who sees each video. Posting when your audience is active raises the chances of those first interactions, but it does not replace good content.

Below, we compare the 2026 studies, show the best times by day and by niche, explain how to find your profile’s best time in TikTok Studio, and how often to post.

What is the best time to post on TikTok?

The three biggest 2026 studies agree that the afternoon and the evening concentrate the best performance, but they disagree about the weekend. The table summarizes what each one found.

The differences come from the datasets: each study analyzes different client accounts, from different industries and countries, and measures results in different ways (engagements or views). For that reason, none of them works as a rule for every profile.

Putting the data together, these are the safest windows to start testing:

• early morning, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., which shows up among the best times on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Buffer;
• lunch hour, 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., with Monday and Thursday at 1 p.m. standing out in Buffer;
• afternoon, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Sprout Social’s main window;
• evening, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., the peak for engagements in Buffer and for views in Metricool.

Best times to post on TikTok by day of the week

From Monday to Friday, Sprout Social recommends the afternoon; Buffer finds good times in the early morning and evening too, and also points to the weekend as strong. Both studies report times in the audience’s local time zone, so there is no need to convert.

Sources: Sprout Social and Buffer, 2026 studies.

What is the best day to post on TikTok?

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days according to Sprout Social, while Buffer points to Saturday as the best day, followed by Monday and Sunday. Both studies point to Monday between lunch and the afternoon as a good moment: 1 p.m. in Buffer and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Sprout Social.

In practice, a balanced strategy is to publish the most important video of the week in the middle of the week and use the weekend to test. If your audience performs well on Saturday or Sunday, your own data will show it within a few weeks. Scheduling posts with social media tools helps you keep those test times consistent.

Best times by niche

The ideal time changes by industry, because each audience has a different routine. Sprout Social included industry breakdowns in its 2026 study. The data reflects company and institution profiles, but it helps guide the first tests for anyone creating content on these topics.

Source: Sprout Social, 2026.

How does posting time affect reach on TikTok?

Posting time affects reach indirectly: it raises the chances that the video gets interactions right after it is published, and those interactions are what TikTok uses to recommend content. According to TikTok itself, the For You feed ranks videos based on people’s interactions (what they watch, like, share, and comment on), video information (caption, sounds, and hashtags), and account and device settings.

TikTok also states that follower count and the performance of previous videos are not direct factors in recommendations. That is why a small profile can reach a lot of people, as long as the video holds the attention of the first viewers.

In practice, timing helps a video start well, but what sustains reach is the content: a strong hook in the first seconds and a video people watch to the end. To go deeper into strategy, see our guide on selling on social media.

How do you find the best time for your profile?

To find your profile’s best time, follow five steps:

1. Open your profile analytics in TikTok Studio.
2. Check when your followers are most active.
3. Post a little before the peak.
4. Test different windows for a few weeks.
5. Compare the metrics for each window.

The first two steps show when your audience is online; the last three confirm, with results, which times work best. Next, we explain each one.

1. Open your profile analytics in TikTok Studio

Your profile’s metrics are in TikTok Studio, which you can access from your profile in the app or from a computer. There you will find data on views, followers, and the performance of each video.

2. Check when your followers are most active

In the followers section of the analytics, TikTok shows the days and times when your followers were most active over the past few days. Note these peaks for a few weeks to identify a pattern, instead of relying on a single day.

3. Post a little before the peak

Posting shortly before the time of highest activity gives the video time to start being distributed when people arrive in the app. If your followers’ peak matches one of the study windows, even better.

4. Test different windows for a few weeks

Post at different times, such as morning, lunch, afternoon, and evening, keeping the same type of content. Give each window at least a few weeks, because performance on TikTok varies a lot from one day to the next.

5. Compare the metrics for each window

Compare views, average watch time, likes, comments, shares, and new followers for each time you tested. Keep the times that stand out and keep testing from time to time, because audience behavior changes.

Best time to post on TikTok in Brazil: how to handle time zones?

The times in the 2026 studies apply to your audience’s local time zone: if they are on Brasília time, use Brasília times, with no conversion. Sprout Social states that all times in its study are in local time, and Buffer says it adjusted the data so that it applies in any time zone.

The caution is with older lists that use U.S. East Coast time. In them, the times appear one or two hours different from Brasília time.

If part of your audience lives in another time zone in Brazil or abroad, such as in Portugal, check your followers’ regions in TikTok Studio and prioritize the time zone where most of them are.

How many times a week should you post on TikTok?

Posting 2 to 5 times a week brings the biggest gain relative to effort, according to a Buffer analysis of 11.4 million posts from more than 150,000 accounts. Compared with accounts that post once a week, those that post 2 to 5 times got up to 17% more views per video.

Posting more also helps: at 6 to 10 times a week, the gain reached 29%, and at 11 or more, 34%. But the median views per video was similar across all frequencies, around 500. What changes with more posts is the chance of one video standing out far above the average.

That is why the ideal frequency is the one you can keep up with quality. A steady routine of a few posts a week tends to work better than days with many videos followed by weeks without posting.

Best time to go live on TikTok

There is no specific study on the best time for lives, but early evening, between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., is a good starting point to test. It is the window in which Metricool found the highest volume of post views, and the time when much of the audience has already left work or school. To learn more, see how to create live streams.

For sales lives, such as a course launch, announce the time in advance in your videos and stories, and check in TikTok Studio whether your followers’ peak confirms that window.

Best practices to increase video interaction

Beyond timing, what weighs most in performance is the content and the interaction with your audience. A few practices help:

• use calls to action in the video and caption to encourage comments;
• create short, dynamic videos that deliver value in the first few seconds;
• take advantage of trends and popular sounds that fit your topic;
• use hashtags related to the video’s subject;
• reply to comments, especially in the first hours after posting.

How can you use TikTok to sell digital products?

For people who sell courses, e-books, or mentorships, TikTok works as an entry point: videos attract people interested in your topic, and the link in your bio takes them to a capture page or a sales page. The right times help you reach more people, but it is the sequence between the video and the offer that turns an audience into sales.

At Hotmart, the all-in-one platform for creators who want to create, sell, and scale digital products, you build your sales page with Hotmart Pages, receive payments through the checkout, and deliver content in the members area. Lives are a good moment to present the offer, and anyone without a product of their own can promote Marketplace products as an affiliate. Learn more about affiliate marketing, how to sell online courses, and how to sell digital products.

Also see what a digital creator does and other ways to make money with your content.

Summary: where to start?

There is no magic time, but the 2026 data gives a good starting point: Tuesday to Thursday afternoons and early evening, with weekend tests. Then, confirm in TikTok Studio when your followers are active and adjust your routine based on the results.

With your audience growing, the next step is having somewhere to take those people. At Hotmart, you create your free account and get a sales page, checkout, and members area to turn your TikTok audience into sales.

References

• SPROUT SOCIAL. Best times to post on TikTok in 2026. Mar. 2026. Available at: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-tiktok/
• BUFFER. The Best Time to Post on TikTok in 2026: New Data from 7M Posts. Sep. 2026. Available at: https://buffer.com/resources/best-time-to-post-on-tiktok/
• BUFFER. How Often Should You Post on TikTok? Data From 11 Million+ Posts. Oct. 2025. Available at: https://buffer.com/resources/how-often-should-you-post-on-tiktok/
• METRICOOL. When Is the Best Time to Post on TikTok in 2026? 2026. Available at: https://metricool.com/best-time-post-tiktok/
• TIKTOK. How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou. TikTok Newsroom. Available at: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/how-tiktok-recommends-videos-for-you