Best Time to Post on YouTube (Shorts and Videos)

Best time to post on YouTube: five studies compared

We have no first-party data, so this page compares published studies and explains where they split. It is part of our YouTube Shorts guide. Four of the five pages were read on October 27, 2026; see the Buffer note below. Times are local to the poster or audience unless stated.

We could not open Buffer’s page, which blocks automated requests. Its figures come from search excerpts and from FrameOS and Quickframe write-ups, which date the study March and July 2026. Read Buffer’s page for its full method. We found no YouTube-specific times in the Hootsuite guide we could open, and Sprout Social’s page was also blocked, so neither is in the table.

Why do the studies disagree about the best time to post?

• Different people. SocialPilot, PostEverywhere and PostFast count only posts scheduled through their own tools, which skews toward creators who use schedulers. vidIQ counts US long-form uploads, so its result may not carry over to Shorts.
• Different yardsticks. One scores engagement per view, another 30-day views, another views against a channel median measured 48 hours after posting. A slot can win on one scale and lose on another.
• Different clocks. PostFast’s strongest hour is 5 p.m. UTC, which it says is 1 p.m. in New York in summer. Mixing UTC and local time can move an answer by hours.
• Different formats. Buffer and SocialPilot report separate peaks for Shorts and long-form, and vidIQ measured only long-form.
• Thin cells. PostFast urges caution with any cell holding fewer than 300 posts, and a day-by-hour grid has 168 cells.

Which days do the studies agree on?

In vidIQ and PostFast the weekend leads and Wednesday is last. SocialPilot ranks Wednesday among its strongest long-form days, and PostEverywhere says days barely differ. Read each column as its own scale, not a shared one.

What do the Shorts-heavy datasets say hour by hour?

PostEverywhere names a strongest three-hour block for each weekday, in the uploader’s own clock. The last column is how many more views a video got in that block than the same channel’s typical video.

Morning and late-evening windows both appear, which is another reason a single clock time cannot be right for everyone.

What is the best time to post YouTube Shorts?

No answer survives all the data. Friday afternoon or evening shows up in Buffer, PostEverywhere and SocialPilot. PostFast, built mostly on Shorts, instead points to 1 p.m. and 8-9 p.m. local time, with weekends ahead. vidIQ’s advice for Friday evening comes with no performance figure.

The agreed point is “publish before your audience peaks”. vidIQ suggests two to four hours ahead and SocialPilot one to three. Both are vendor tips, not YouTube guidance.

Which slots are worth testing first?

These are test candidates built from the studies above, not a recommendation from YouTube.

Should Shorts and long videos share a schedule?

Buffer and SocialPilot, working from different data, both report separate peaks for the two formats. vidIQ goes further and advises never posting a long video and a Short in the same four-hour window, because they compete for the same notification slot. That reasoning is vidIQ’s, not YouTube’s. If you only post Shorts, ignore the long-form columns above and read the Shorts-heavy datasets first.

What does YouTube say about when to post?

YouTube’s Help Center gives no recommended posting time. We found none. It documents a report, “When your viewers are on YouTube”, under Analytics, Audience, which shows when your viewers are active anywhere on YouTube during the past 28 days. YouTube says to use it to plan Premieres and live streams. Because it measures activity across YouTube, not only views of your videos, it is a hint about reach, not proof of a good slot.

How do you find your best time to post in YouTube Studio?

YouTube describes the reports but no testing method. This routine is ours, built on those reports.

1. Open the audience report. In YouTube Studio choose Analytics, then Audience, and find “When your viewers are on YouTube”. YouTube’s page does not state the chart’s time zone, so check the label in Studio.
2. Shortlist three slots. Take your two busiest blocks and add one slot from a study, such as Friday afternoon.
3. Rotate uploads through the slots. Keep the format and topic style steady for about four weeks, so the slot is the main difference. Scheduling in YouTube Studio uses the Schedule card (date, time and time zone); the page does not mention Shorts specifically.
4. Compare like with like. In Analytics, open Content, then the Shorts view. Look at views and “How many chose to view”, the share who watched instead of swiping away. YouTube advises comparing videos of the same type.
5. Keep the winner, then retest. The audience report covers only 28 days, so look at it again every few months.

Does the time you post matter?

Less than most guides imply, and more for some topics. vidIQ found the best and worst hours within a few percent by day 30. It also found that a channel’s strong windows beat its weak ones by more for time-sensitive categories such as News and Politics (about 32% at 30 days) than for How-to and Style (about 15%). PostFast’s own data shows a larger weekend gap, about 25%, for Shorts.

vidIQ adds that a channel under 1,000 subscribers may have too little audience data for a useful heatmap, and that beyond roughly 5,000 subscribers you should trust your own numbers over generic advice. Those thresholds are vidIQ’s judgment, not YouTube’s. See the YouTube Shorts length page for what else to test, and the TikTok and Instagram studies if you cross-post.

Which time zone should you schedule in?

Use the time zone where most of your viewers live. The Audience tab in YouTube Studio has a Top geographies report that shows which places bring the most watch time. When you schedule an upload, YouTube’s Schedule card lets you set the date, time and time zone. YouTube also notes that the “Published on” date on the watch page follows Pacific Time, so it can differ from the date you see in Studio if you schedule in a zone ahead of Pacific.

FAQ

What is the best time to post on YouTube?

The studies disagree. Buffer reports Sunday at 10 a.m. for long videos, SocialPilot says 2-4 p.m. on weekdays, and vidIQ finds Sunday roughly 3.5% better than a channel’s usual day. YouTube gives no recommended time.

What is the best time to post YouTube Shorts?

Friday afternoon or evening appears in Buffer, PostEverywhere and SocialPilot. PostFast’s mostly-Shorts data points to 1 p.m. and 8-9 p.m. local time. Treat these as slots to test, not rules.

What is the best day to post on YouTube?

Sunday leads in vidIQ’s 40.2 million US uploads, roughly 3.5% better than a channel’s usual day. Wednesday is the weakest there (about -2.2%), while SocialPilot ranks Wednesday among its strongest long-form days.

Does upload time matter for YouTube Shorts?

Only a little in most studies. vidIQ found the best and worst hours within a few percent by day 30, and PostFast found about a 25% gap between weekends and Wednesday in its Shorts-heavy data.

How do I see when my viewers are on YouTube?

In YouTube Studio, open Analytics, choose Audience, and find “When your viewers are on YouTube”. It shows when your viewers are active on YouTube during the past 28 days.

Should I post Shorts and long videos at the same time?

Buffer and SocialPilot report different peaks for the two formats, so test them separately. vidIQ suggests not posting both in the same four-hour window.

What time zone should I use?

Use your audience’s local time. Studies that mix UTC and local time, such as PostFast’s 5 p.m. UTC peak, can differ from local-time advice by several hours.

Sources

1. YouTube Help: Understand your YouTube audience, checked October 27, 2026
2. YouTube Help: Content tab analytics tips for Shorts, checked October 27, 2026
3. YouTube Help: Schedule video publish time, checked October 27, 2026
4. Buffer: Best time to post on YouTube, data from 1.8M videos (2026; figures from search excerpts and secondary reports), page blocked automated access on October 27, 2026
5. vidIQ: Best time to post on YouTube, what 40 million videos show (updated June 23, 2026, reviewed October 8, 2026), checked October 27, 2026
6. SocialPilot: Best time to post on YouTube in 2026 (May 1, 2026), checked October 27, 2026
7. PostEverywhere: Best time to post on YouTube in 2026 (updated October 2026), checked October 27, 2026
8. PostFast: Best time to post on YouTube in 2026 (updated September 20, 2026), checked October 27, 2026
9. FrameOS: Best time to post on YouTube, what 4 studies found (August 9, 2026), checked October 27, 2026
10. Quickframe: Best time to post on YouTube (September 22, 2026), checked October 27, 2026
11. Hootsuite: Best time to post on social media, checked October 27, 2026

Method: how we research.