Best time to post on YouTube in 2026: what 100,000 videos actually show

Every "best time to post on YouTube" article gives you a different answer: 2 PM Thursday, 9 AM Saturday, "Friday afternoon". Most of them count how many views videos get at each hour, which mainly tells you when big channels publish.

We did it differently. Returbe tracks every upload of 9,800+ channels, and for each video we know its outlier score: views divided by the channel's own median. A 2× video did twice as well as that channel usually does. So the question becomes fair for small and big channels alike: does a video do better than its own channel's normal when it's posted at a given time?

Dataset: 102,431 English long-form videos and 107,055 English Shorts published over the last 180 days (each at least 7 days old), October 2026.

The short answer

• Best day: Saturday, then Sunday.
• Best hours: 7 AM to 12 PM Eastern Time (12:00 to 17:00 UTC).
• Worst hours: 9 PM to 3 AM Eastern.
• How much it matters: about 7% between the best and worst day, about 20% between the best and worst hour. Real, but far smaller than the effect of a good title or thumbnail.

Best day to post on YouTube (long-form)

Two things stand out:

1. Weekends win, and fewer people post then. Saturday and Sunday get 25% fewer uploads than Thursday or Friday, yet the median video does 5 to 7% better. Less competition in the feed, more people with time to watch a 15-minute video.
2. Friday makes the most outliers among weekdays. A Friday video is a little more likely to explode (12.6% hit 3×), probably because it rides into the weekend.

Best time of day to post on YouTube

Median outlier score by publishing hour, Eastern Time (12 PM ET = 5 PM in London, 6 PM in Paris).

The pattern is simple: post in the morning, Eastern Time. A video published between 7 AM and 12 PM ET has the whole US day (and the UK afternoon) to collect its first views, which are the signals YouTube uses to decide how far to push it. 7 AM to 9 AM ET is also the window that produces the most 3× outliers (up to 14.1% of uploads).

Late night is the only real mistake. A video posted at 2 AM ET performs 23% below the 11 AM median, and 9 PM to 11 PM ET makes the fewest outliers of the day.

Best time to post YouTube Shorts

Same story as long-form: weekends win, by about 10% at the median and one extra outlier per 100 Shorts. Shorts medians are lower overall (0.76× to 0.84×) because Shorts views are spikier: most Shorts underperform, a few explode. That's also why Shorts produce more 3× outliers than long videos (13–15% versus 11–13%).

Why timing matters less than you think

The best day beats the worst by 7%. The best hour beats the worst by about 25%. Now compare that to the spread between videos of the same channel: in our data, roughly 1 upload in 8 gets 3× the channel's normal, and 1 in 27 gets 10×. Those videos weren't posted at a magic hour. They had a better idea, title and thumbnail.

So use timing as a tie-breaker:

1. Pick a consistent slot in the 7 AM–12 PM ET window (or your audience's morning).
2. Favor Saturday for your most important video of the week.
3. Never publish late at night just because the edit finished at midnight. Schedule it.
4. Spend the time you saved on the idea. Look at what's outperforming in your niche this week, see what an outlier video is and why it beats raw view counts.

Should you trust your own analytics instead?

Yes, once you have them. Our numbers are averages over English channels, mostly with a North American audience. In YouTube Studio, go to Analytics → Audience → "When your viewers are on YouTube". Publish 1 to 2 hours before the darkest block. If your viewers are in France, India or Australia, your window moves accordingly.

If your channel is new and that chart is empty, start with Saturday morning Eastern Time, and focus on finding a niche where small channels break out.

Methodology

• Source: Returbe database, English-language channels in our top markets, videos published between May and October 2026, at least 7 days old when measured.
• Metric: outlier score = video views ÷ median views of that channel's recent uploads. Using each channel's own normal removes the bias of big channels posting at the same hours.
• Time zones: publish times converted to US Eastern Time (America/New_York).
• Limits: the effect of timing can't be fully separated from the type of channel that posts at a given hour (for example, news channels post early). The differences are small; treat them as a direction, not a law.

FAQ