Best time to post
Best time to post on Facebook
The best time to post on Facebook is when your own followers are scrolling, and Meta Business Suite can show you when that is. Until you have that data, post on weekday mornings (8 to 10 am), at lunch (12 to 1 pm), and in the evening (7 to 9 pm), in your audience's time zone, and give the weekend a fair test. The table below breaks that down by day.
Treat those hours as a starting point, not a rule. Every published list of 'best times to post on Facebook' is an average of other people's Pages, and your Page isn't average. This page gives you the first guess, explains what moves it (Reels, Groups, and where your audience lives), and walks you through a two-week test that replaces the guess with your own numbers.
One thing has changed since the old advice was written. Facebook now fills much of the feed with recommended posts and Reels from accounts people don't follow, so a Page post now competes with much more than updates from friends. The hour still matters most for regular Page posts, which are first judged by your own followers. It matters much less for Reels.
The short answer: starting windows to test
With no data yet, follow the rhythm of a normal day for your audience: the morning check, the lunch scroll, and the evening on the sofa. Facebook's audience tends to be a little older and more active at weekends than Instagram's, so the Saturday and Sunday windows deserve a real test, especially for local businesses and community Pages.
These are hypotheses, not findings. No one outside Meta can see when Facebook's users are online, and studies that claim a single best hour average very different Pages together. Use the table to choose what to test first.
| Day | Windows to test (local time) | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 8 to 10 am, 12 to 1 pm | A slow start; the lunch scroll usually beats the morning. |
| Tuesday | 8 to 10 am, 12 to 1 pm, 7 to 9 pm | Steady across all three windows for most Pages. |
| Wednesday | 8 to 10 am, 12 to 1 pm, 7 to 9 pm | A good evening to test a Reel against a photo post. |
| Thursday | 8 to 10 am, 12 to 1 pm, 7 to 9 pm | Often the strongest weekday for shares and comments. |
| Friday | 9 to 11 am, 12 to 2 pm | Attention drifts after lunch; post before it does. |
| Saturday | 9 to 11 am, 6 to 8 pm | Local businesses, events, and community Pages often do best here. |
| Sunday | 9 am to 12 pm, 6 to 9 pm | Long, relaxed sessions; a good day for longer posts and albums. |
Local time of your audience, not yours. If your Page serves two countries, schedule the same post twice rather than splitting the difference. Once you've run the test below, swap this table for your own hours.
How Facebook decides who sees your Page post
A new post from a Page goes first to some of the people who follow it, and Facebook watches what they do: comments, shares, reactions, and how long they stop on it. Comments that turn into a conversation count for more than a row of likes. If those first people respond, the post is shown to more followers and can be recommended to people who don't follow you. If they don't, it quietly stops.
That first test is why timing matters. Post at 3 am and only a few sleepy followers see it, so the early signals trickle in and the post looks weak. Post at 8 pm when your followers are on the sofa and the same post gets judged on what it is. Timing doesn't make a dull post interesting. It stops a good one from being mistaken for a dull one.
Reels play by different rules. Meta announced in June 2025 that every video uploaded to Facebook would be shared as a reel, whatever its length or shape, so video and Reels now share one clock. Reels are recommended to people who don't follow you based on their interests, and they keep finding viewers for days, so the exact hour matters less than posting regularly and making the first few seconds count.
Originality can matter more than the hour. In March 2026 Meta said it deprioritizes unoriginal content in Feed and Reels, meaning reposts of things a Page had no part in making. A video you filmed yourself, posted at an average time, will usually beat a reshared clip posted at the perfect one.
Groups have their own clock too. A post in a group goes to its members and stays visible while the discussion keeps going, so post when members are online and be around to reply for the first hour. Meta removed third-party access to Groups in April 2024, so outside tools, Lemonpost included, can't post to a group for you.
What changes the answer for your Page
Where your followers live
Open Insights in Meta Business Suite and check the top countries and cities under Audience. Facebook audiences are often more local than Instagram audiences, which is good news: one time zone means one best time. If you serve two, schedule twice.
US, UK, and Nordic audiences
A US-wide Page spans four main time zones: 9 am in New York is 6 am in Los Angeles. Post for Eastern and Central time, and add a later post for the West Coast. The UK runs one hour behind Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and the Nordics run six hours ahead of New York. Lunch in Norway and Sweden often starts closer to 11 than 12, so test an earlier lunch window there. Twice a year, for one to three weeks, the US and Europe are on different clock changes, so a queue set up for another country can be an hour off until both sides have changed.
Who follows the Page
A local restaurant's followers scroll in the evening and at the weekend. A software company's followers check at lunch and rarely after 8 pm. The windows above lean toward the first group; shift earlier if you're the second.
Format
Stories are seen in the first hours, so post them when followers are online right now. Reels can go out in a quieter slot and still travel. Photo and text posts lean hardest on the first hour with your followers. Link posts tend to reach fewer people than photos or plain text, so give them your strongest hour, or put the link in the first comment.
Your own posting history
If your Page has posted at noon for years, your followers have learned to expect noon. Moving to a better hour can dip engagement for a couple of weeks before it recovers. Change one thing at a time and give it a month.
How to find your own best time: in meta business suite (free)
- 1
Open Meta Business Suite, pick your Page, and open Insights.
- 2
Under Audience, note the top countries and cities so you know which time zone you're posting into.
- 3
Look for the chart of when your followers are most active. Meta has moved it between tabs over the years, so if it isn't under Audience, check the Content tab or the Active times suggestion that appears when you schedule a post in Business Suite.
- 4
Open Content, set the range to 90 days, and sort by reach. Note the posting hour and weekday of the top ten, and look at Reels and regular posts separately, since they reach people in different ways.
The active-times chart shows when followers are on Facebook, not when they engage with your Page. The reach sort is the cross-check that turns a busy hour into your hour. Ten posts is the minimum before a pattern means anything, and fewer than that per format means you're still guessing.
In Lemonpost
Lemonpost's analytics build a best-time heatmap for each Facebook Page from your own published posts, in your time zone, using engagement rather than follower presence. Set your posting queue to the hottest slots and every scheduled post lands there, first comment included. Photo posts, multi-photo posts, Reels, and Stories go out through the official API, to one Page or several at once.
A two-week test that settles it
- Pick three candidate windows from Insights (or the table above), on the days you actually post.
- For two weeks, rotate posts through the three windows. Keep the mix of photos, Reels, and links roughly even so you're testing the hour, not the format.
- After 14 days, compare average reach and comments per window, with Reels and regular posts in separate columns. Drop your single biggest post from the numbers; one viral share will mislead you.
- Move your queue to the winner for a month, then test it against the runner-up. Audiences drift with the seasons, and school holidays and long summer breaks (July in much of the Nordics) move habits by an hour or more.
FAQ
Facebook timing questions
Whenever your own followers are online and engaging, which Meta Business Suite shows you under Insights. With no data yet, start with weekday mornings from 8 to 10 am, lunch from 12 to 1 pm, and evenings from 7 to 9 pm in your audience's time zone, and give the weekend a fair test.
Consumer and community Pages usually lean evening and weekend; business audiences lean morning and lunch. Alternate the two for two weeks and let reach and comments decide.
The middle of the night in your audience's time zone. Few followers see the post early, the first signals come in slowly, and Facebook reads slow as weak. Friday evening is also quiet for business Pages.
Yes, it matters less. Reels are recommended to people who don't follow you and keep collecting views for days, so consistency matters more than the exact hour. Since 2025 every video uploaded to Facebook is shared as a reel. Regular posts and Stories depend on your own followers being online in the first hour or two.
When the group's members are online, which for most groups means evenings and weekends. Be ready to reply for the first hour, because a group post stays visible while the discussion keeps going. Third-party tools can't post to groups, so plan to post those yourself.
There's no sign it does. Nothing Meta has published says posts sent through Facebook's official API rank differently from posts made in the app or in Meta Business Suite. Scheduling is how you hit the right hour without being at your desk.
Three to five times a week is a sustainable target for a small team, with Stories on days you have something quick to show. Daily posting suits local businesses and news Pages with plenty to say; for most Pages it just thins the quality.
Post at the right hour without being awake for it
Schedule a week of posts in one sitting. Lemonpost publishes them at the times your own heatmap picks.