The best time to post on Instagram on Sunday: evening for Buffer, midday for Hootsuite

What the studies say about Sunday

Local times, your followers’ time. Read on 24 October 2026.

Sunday evening: the big contradiction

Buffer sees Sunday evening, 8 to 10 p.m., as the best window of the weekend: people scroll as they wind down before Monday. It rates Sunday as “moderate”, the same tier as Monday, well ahead of Saturday.

Hootsuite says the opposite about the evening: it recommends Sunday 12 to 3 p.m., when people relax at home or recap their weekend, and avoiding anything after 9 p.m., when users log off before the week ahead. In other words, Buffer’s 9 p.m. falls right in the window Hootsuite warns against.

Sprout Social is blunt: Sunday is one of the worst days, and the algorithm will likely bury your post before your audience logs back in on Monday afternoon. Later, with its 2024 data, sees midnight, 5 a.m. and 11 p.m.

Your account size matters on Sunday

Later also splits its results by account size, and Sunday stands out for large accounts: Sunday at midnight for accounts with 25,000 to 100,000 followers, and for those with 100,000 to 500,000. Its explanation: the bigger an account gets, the more its audience is spread across time zones, so someone is awake at every hour.

For a small account, Later points to weekdays instead: Monday to Friday at 5 p.m. for 1,000 to 5,000 followers. So Sunday at midnight isn’t advice for you if you’re just starting.

Sunday by industry

Industry breakdowns leave very little room for Sunday. In Sprout Social’s data, eight of nine industries have weekends as their worst time, and for the ninth, education, the worst time is Sunday itself. In Hootsuite’s, a single industry keeps a slot:

Test Sunday on your account

1. Pit the two theories against each other: Sunday 1 p.m. (Hootsuite) against Sunday 9 p.m. (Buffer), with the same kind of post.
2. Alternate from one Sunday to the next for several weeks.
3. Also compare your Sunday with your Monday noon or Tuesday afternoon, at a comparable post count: a good Sunday has to beat your week, not just your Saturday.
4. Read the grid in your local time and set aside any single-post cell.

Key takeaway

Sunday beats Saturday, but the studies disagree on the hour: midday for Hootsuite, evening for Buffer. That’s exactly the kind of question only your stats can settle. To read yours without fooling yourself, see the page on Instagram analytics.