What is the best time to post on YouTube in 2026 [Research]

TL;DR: best day and time to post on YouTube

We analyzed 325 creator collaborations across the U.S. and UK to answer one question: when should you publish to get the most engagement, not just views?

🕒 Best Time (global trends)

• U.S.: Evenings between 6–9 PM perform best.

• U.K.: Slightly later, with a sweet spot around 7–8 PM.

• Midday (12–3 PM) is a secondary peak, especially for mobile content.

If you're asking “what's the best time to post on YouTube?” — this is your baseline.

📅 Best days by country

• U.S.: Tuesday and Wednesday = top engagement days

• U.K.: Thursday outperforms every other day

• Saturday? Underperforms for UK audiences.

So yes, the best days to post on YouTube can vary — especially when you're running multi-market campaigns.

What is the best time to post on YouTube in B2B vs B2C

This insight is gold if you're juggling both segments in the same channel strategy — or across influencers.

Format-specific timing

This is your cheat sheet. If you’re running influencer collabs or managing a brand channel, dial in your YouTube posting schedule with this data — and you’ll never post into the void again.

Read also: How to turn YouTube Influencer Marketing Into Sales Machine 

What is the best day to post on YouTube?

You’re trying to answer one deceptively simple question: “On which day and at what time do we drop this YouTube collab so it actually performs?” You’ve got creators in three time zones, a media plan breathing down your neck, and a CEO who only cares about what moved revenue — not what “felt good” to post.

From our analysis of 325 brand–creator campaigns across the US, UK, and Canada, a clear pattern shows up: 

👉 mid-week beats weekends, 

👉 late afternoon beats mornings, 

👉 and uploads that land 2–3 hours before peak viewing in the first 24 hours. 

Think of what follows as your baseline, and then fine-tune with your own channel analytics.

The short answer to “what’s the best day to upload on YouTube?” Mid-week: Wednesday first, Thursday a very close second, with Tuesday and Friday right behind. Weekends are last in line.

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Monday?

For Mondays, our data says: treat the day as a warm-up, not a throwaway. 

The strongest performance window is 3–5 p.m. local audience time, with a smaller bump around lunch. 

That 3–5 p.m. slot gives YouTube enough time to test your video before people sit down after work and start their evening watch sessions.

If you need a single rule for the best time to post on YouTube Monday, schedule for around 4 p.m. in your audience’s main time zone — especially for B2B or “brain-on” content where working professionals watch after they close Slack.

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Tuesday?

Tuesday behaves like Monday but with more confidence. Viewers are back in their routine, and

3–6 p.m. band becomes reliably strong across the US, UK, and Canada. 

Lunch still works, but the after-work spike brings better retention and CTR for sponsored videos.

If you’re optimizing Shorts, anchor your best time to post a YouTube short on Tuesday around those micro-breaks: we saw sharp lifts at ~12–1 p.m. and again after 7 p.m., when people are scrolling vertically on their phones, not hunting for 20-minute deep dives.

For long-form collaborations, the best time to post on YouTube Tuesday is roughly 3–4 p.m. local — enough runway for the algorithm to test before the evening binge starts.

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Wednesday?

Wednesday is your hero day. 

Across our dataset, Wednesday late afternoon consistently delivered the highest median views and engagement for collabs, especially in B2C verticals (beauty, gaming, lifestyle) and for Gen Z / young adult audiences.

If you need to circle one slot on the calendar, aim for 3–5 p.m. and keep it sacred. 

In practice, the best time to post on YouTube Wednesday 

• for US/Canada is around 4 p.m. in the core time zone of your audience; 

• for UK-led campaigns, 4–5 p.m. local behaves similarly — right before people settle into their evening scroll.

What is the best time to post on YouTube Thursday?

Thursday is where “weekend energy” quietly starts. Viewership climbs through the afternoon and holds into the evening. 

For both B2B and B2C, 3–6 p.m. local time is the money window.

Especially if your content is more entertainment-leaning or designed to drive impulse clicks (drops, promos, launches).

When you’re planning global or multi-market campaigns, we’ve seen Thursday handle staggered posts well: 

• NA creators at 3–4 p.m. Eastern, 

• UK creators at 4–6 p.m. local. 

That’s why we treat this slot as the best time to post on YouTube Thursday when you need both reach and purchase-driving traffic.

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Friday?

On Fridays, people mentally clock out earlier — and YouTube opens earlier too. 

We see meaningful activity starting late morning, then a strong ramp from 1–4 p.m., especially for consumer brands.

If your goal is to catch end-of-week mood and payday behavior (shopping, food delivery, entertainment), you’ll want your video live before commuting and plans kick in. 

For that reason, the best time to post on YouTube Friday for collabs is usually 2–3 p.m. in your primary market: early enough for North American office workers, still perfect for the UK early evening.

Read also: Setting Goals for Influencer Marketing That Drive ROI 

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Saturday?

Saturday is tricky: overall volume dips versus mid-week, but if your audience is students, families, or hobby communities, it can still earn its place in the calendar. 

The cleanest pattern is late morning to early lunch, roughly 9 a.m.–12 p.m. local, when people wake up, grab coffee, and start browsing without work in the way.

For Shorts, our campaigns showed that the best time to post YouTube shorts Saturday clusters around late morning and early evening — think 10–11 a.m. and then again near 6–7 p.m., when people are scrolling while out or in between plans.

Long-form brand or creator collabs do best when you avoid late nights and aim for the best time to post on YouTube Saturday between 10 a.m. and noon, giving the video the full day to compound views.

What is the best time to post on YouTube on Sunday?

Sunday is consistently the lowest-energy day in our dataset, especially after mid-afternoon, when people flip from “entertain me” to “prep for Monday.” When you do use it, lean into

morning and late-morning: 9 a.m.–12 p.m. local is where most of the viable traffic sits.

Parent and family content can still perform on Sundays because co-watching happens in those late-morning windows. For almost every other niche, treat Sunday as a supporting day, not your anchor for big launches. 

If you must choose one slot, the best time to post on YouTube Sunday is around 10–11 a.m. in your audience’s main time zone — early enough to catch them before they slide into “new week” mode.

If you treat these ranges as your starting grid and then layer your own YouTube Analytics (“When your viewers are on YouTube”) plus IQFluence post-level performance, you’ll stop guessing and start shipping creator collabs into the windows where your audience actually shows up.

The best times to post on YouTube shorts vs videos vs podcasts

Shorts want quick-hit attention, videos want focus, podcasts want routine. If you drop them all randomly, they compete. If you stagger them with a plan, they compound.

Here’s how I’d schedule each format so your creators stop cannibalizing themselves and start feeding one another.

What is the best time to post podcast on YouTube?

For podcasts, think routine + stamina. This is long-form content that lives on in playlists, has serious average view duration, and works best when it becomes part of your audience’s weekly rhythm.

The cleanest pattern: drop the full video podcast early in the morning on a mid-week day — around 5–7 a.m. in your core time zone. 

That way it’s sitting in the feed before commutes, dog walks, school runs, and the “headphones in, world out” part of the day. Evenings and weekends then act as your binge window, where episodic content gets played back-to-back while people cook, clean, or collapse on the couch.

Then you layer in your chopped clips and Shorts from episodes. Those are your hooks. Release them into scroll windows — lunch, late afternoon, early evening — and let them pull new people into the full episode. Each clip should feel like a highlight, but always point back to the main show with consistent titles, thumbnails, and smart playlists.

To stop formats cannibalizing each other, give them a clear order. Full ep first. Clips over the next 48–72 hours. Shorts as the most shareable, brand-friendly moments. All roads lead back to the long-form content, so the campaign’s total watch time keeps climbing instead of fragmenting.

What is the best time to post YouTube shorts?

Shorts are your attention snipers. They hit when your audience is already scrolling and half-distracted — which is why timing matters just as much as the hook.

If you’re trying to decide the best time to post YouTube shorts today for a paid collab, default to two slots: late morning and early evening in your audience’s local time. Late morning catches coffee breaks and study breaks; early evening catches that “phone in hand, brain on low power mode” window after work or school.

When creators ask for the best time to upload YouTube shorts for campaigns, I usually tell them:

Aim for 12–2 p.m. and 6–9 p.m. 

Office workers, students, and parents all pass through at least one of those windows. It’s when vertical video is an easy yes — no one’s ready for a 40-minute deep dive, they just want quick hits that feel fun and effortless.

For always-on strategy, treat the best time to post YouTube shorts as the warm-up act for your long video or podcast. Publish the Short a couple of hours before the main asset goes live, or right after, when interest is hottest. 

That way Shorts amplify the campaign: they tease the story, drive curiosity, and send the most engaged people straight into the longer piece instead of stealing the spotlight from it.

Read also: 20 Influencer Marketing Best Practices for Instagram, TikTok & YouTube 

What is the best time to post YouTube videos?

Every marketer eventually hits this question in a planning doc: when is the best time to post a YouTube video so the brand integration doesn’t die in the first 24 hours. 

The pattern across US, UK, Canada, and Australia is boringly consistent: late afternoon into evening on weekdays wins for most collabs.

For brand content and sponsored uploads, the best time to post YouTube video usually sits 2–3 hours before your audience’s prime time. If your viewers are most active around 7 p.m., you publish at 4–5 p.m. 

That buffer lets the algorithm process, test, and start distributing the video so it’s already warming up by the time everyone actually sits down to watch.

This is where you turn timing into a system instead of vibes. Your YouTube posting times strategy should lock in those late-afternoon weekday slots as anchors for big launches and hero creator posts, then arrange Shorts, clips, and supporting assets around them. 

Long-form owns the “I’m ready to watch” moments; Shorts and clips own the “I’m just scrolling” moments — and your calendar makes them work together instead of fighting for the same viewers at the same minute.

The best time to post on YouTube by industry

You and I both know the brief behind this question.

You’ve got a beauty haul with a London creator, a SaaS walkthrough with a Toronto founder, a gaming collab out of Vancouver… and one simple, annoying decision to make for every single one:

“When do we post so this thing actually gets watched?”

That’s really what sits behind what is the best time to post on YouTube — and the answer is never “one magic hour.” It’s patterns: by country, by industry, by how your audience’s day actually flows.

Below is how I’d plan YouTube timings for UK and Canada collabs if we were in Figma together, mapping a calendar for: beauty, fitness, tech, finance, parenting, gaming, restaurants, fashion, and B2B SaaS.

Big picture timing rules (before we slice by industry)

Across UK and Canada, our IQFluence data keeps repeating the same chorus: mid-week, late afternoon into evening for long-form… and “breaks + couch time” for Shorts.

So when someone asks you in a meeting about the best time to post YouTube, you can comfortably say:

For most influencer videos, think Tuesday–Friday, roughly 3–7 p.m. local — and then adjust by niche and audience.

From there, you fine-tune based on who is watching and why they open YouTube at that moment.

Shorts vs long-form vs your upload buffer

Formats obey different clocks.

That’s why when people ask about the best times to post YouTube shorts, I don’t give one time — I give two windows: late morning / lunch and early evening, then shift them slightly by vertical.

And behind all of this is one boring but important rule for uploads: don’t press publish at the exact second you expect peak traffic.

You want a 2–3 hour runway.

In other words, your best times to upload on YouTube are a little earlier than your audience’s prime time so the algo can index, test, and start surfacing the video before the real wave hits.

How to use this guide in campaigns

Think of each section below as a playbook per niche for UK + Canada:

• When to drop long-form on the creator’s channel

• When to slot Shorts to warm up or extend the collab

• Why those times line up with how that audience actually lives their day

Later, when you build your own best times to post on YouTube shorts benchmarks per brand, you can stack them against these patterns and adjust.

Alright, let’s go industry by industry.

Beauty – “When are they actually in ‘play with my face’ mode?”

For UK and Canadian beauty audiences, you’re looking for slow mornings and unwind evenings.

Long-form (tutorials, GRWMs, deep-dive reviews) performs best:

• Weekend late mornings – roughly 10 a.m.–12 p.m. People are in pyjamas, coffee in hand, open to a 20-minute tutorial.

• Weekday evenings – around 7–9 p.m., especially Thu/Fri. They’re planning outfits and looks for nights out and weekend plans.

The “why” is simple: these are the moments where they have time to watch and try, not just scroll.

Beauty Shorts are your craving hits:

• Lunch in the office? 12–1 p.m. works well for quick swatches or before/after clips.

• Late evening 9–11 p.m.? That’s the doom-scrolling skincare rabbit hole window.

Those Shorts make people save, share, and add products to cart — then the long video does the heavy lifting on education.

Fitness – “When do they plan or do the workout?”

Fitness timing is glued to routines.

For UK and Canada long-form workouts and wellness vlogs do best weekday early mornings (6–9 a.m.) and evenings (5–8 p.m.). Morning is “follow along with me”; evening is “research what I’ll try tomorrow” or “stretch out the day.”

Shorts work in the gaps:

• A 30-second form tip at 7 a.m. hits people lacing their shoes.

• A snack-size recipe or mobility clip around 12–2 p.m. catches office workers on lunch.

• An 8 p.m. “one move to fix your back” Short lands right when bodies start complaining on the couch.

You’re matching energy levels: long-form where they commit, Shorts where they browse and bookmark.

Tech – “News brain vs binge brain”

Tech audiences in UK and Canada often treat YouTube like an interactive tech blog.

Treat Shorts as fast intel and hooks, and long-form as the place where people sit down to actually decide what to buy or install.

Read also: Influencer Marketing For Start-Ups: 12 Steps To Your Next Collab 

Finance – “Market brain vs couch brain”

Finance viewers behave more like news consumers than entertainers.

You’re essentially syncing to information cycles: before decisions get made in the morning, and when people review the day in the evening.

Parenting – “Tiny windows, high intent”

Parents do not live in normal content consumption timelines.

For UK and Canada, long-form parenting content tends to work when the house is quiet:

• Very early – before 7 a.m., with the first coffee.

• Late night – after 9–10 p.m., once the kids are asleep.

Weekend early afternoons around 1–2 p.m. can also work for vlogs and longer stories — that’s nap time or quiet play for a lot of families.

Shorts need to slide into micro-breaks:

• Midday (12–2 p.m.) – quick hacks during nap or lunch.

• Around 3 p.m. – school pickup queue scroll.

• Late night 9–11 p.m. – “I survived the day” meme scroll.

If your collab is with a parenting creator, don’t be afraid of those “weird” hours. That’s literally when this audience can finally hold a phone with two hands.

Gaming – “Session time vs scroll time”

Gamers in UK and Canada cluster around after-school/work and weekends.

In gaming, Shorts are often the top-of-funnel awareness engine, long-form is community and conversion (subs, Discord joins, purchases).

Read also: Gaming Influencer Marketing: Turn Collabs Into Game Installs

Restaurants & Food – “Hunger clocks”

Food content is ridiculously timing-sensitive.

For UK/Canada long-form:

• Weekend late mornings – 10 a.m.–1 p.m. People plan brunch, day trips, grocery runs.

• Weekday mealtimes – a Wednesday 11 a.m. post, a Thursday 4–5 p.m. post; both hit “where should I eat / what should I cook?” moments.

Shorts thrive around cravings:

• 3–4 p.m. – office snack window. A 15-second dessert shot here is dangerous in the best way.

• Pre-meal – around 11 a.m. or 5 p.m. to hijack decisions.

• 9–11 p.m. – late-night snack scroll; excellent for delivery-driven brands.

If you ever wanted proof that timing affects offline sales, food is it.

Read also: How to do Influencer Marketing for Restaurants in 2026 

Fashion – “Outfit planning moments”

Fashion behavior is tied to social calendars.

For UK and Canada long-form:

• Thu/Fri early evenings – 4–7 p.m. Outfit planning for Friday night, Saturday brunch, parties, weddings.

• Saturday mornings – 10–11 a.m. Slow scroll, coffee, “what do I wear today?” vibes.

Shorts line up with shopping impulses:

• Lunchtime (12–1 p.m.) – quick styling hacks right before an online shopping session.

• Evenings (8–10 p.m.) – trend-driven OOTDs and “3 ways to style X” when people are scrolling on the couch.

• Friday ~5 p.m. – payday + end-of-week energy; very good moment for “new in” clips.

Here, Shorts sell the idea, long-form sells the whole look and brand story.

Read also: Your ultimate guide to fashion influencer marketing in 2026 

B2B SaaS – “Work brain only”

B2B SaaS is the one niche where you consciously stay inside work hours.

For UK and Canada long-form (demos, case studies, webinars):

• Mid-morning to lunch, Tue–Thu – about 11 a.m.–1 p.m. People have settled into the day and have breathing room for a 10–20 minute product or strategy video.

• Early mornings 7–9 a.m. for thought-leadership or “state of X” content executives watch before meetings.

Shorts slot into workday micro-breaks:

• Around 8 a.m. – one-minute tip on CRM, analytics, whatever your tool solves, as they commute or open their laptop.

• 12–1 p.m. – lunch scroll with a quick “here’s how to fix this annoying workflow” clip.

• Occasionally ~6 p.m. for the power users who are still in “optimize my stack” mode after hours.

With B2B, you don’t chase evenings and weekends. You meet them where they already think about work.

Bringing it all together for collabs

When you’re planning a big campaign and someone asks about the best times to upload to YouTube, zoom out:

• Map who you’re reaching (Gen Z, parents, professionals).

• Map what they’re doing at those times (commuting, planning outfits, collapsing after bedtime).

• Then anchor long-form in their “I can actually watch” windows and weave Shorts into their “I’m just scrolling” windows.

More detailed guide is below 👇

How to find your best time to post using YouTube analytics

You’re sitting with a brief and one annoying question looping in your head: “Okay, but when is the best time to post on YouTube for this collab?”

And of course, you don’t have access to the creator’s YouTube login — just a contract, a budget, and maybe a spreadsheet from your last campaign.

Totally fine. You don’t need their password. You need a process for making a smart timing call with the data you do control: your brand channel, the creator’s screenshots, and what your own analytics + IQFluence’s creator insights can tell you.

1️⃣ Steal from the data you already own

Start with the one channel you can open: your brand’s YouTube Studio.

Hop into Analytics → Audience → “When your viewers are on YouTube.” That purple heatmap is your best friend. Darker bands = more of your people online at that day and hour.

Scan it:

• Which days are consistently dark?

• Which hours light up across multiple days?

• Does it shift on weekends?

If the internet is screaming about generic “best time to post YouTube” advice, ignore the noise and trust this heatmap first. It tells you when your audience shows up, not someone else’s.

If you want to go deeper, export it, throw it into Sheets, group by day/hour, and highlight your top 3–4 blocks. That’s your prime-time shortlist for any creator who talks to the same audience you do.

2️⃣ Borrow the creator’s view of reality

You don’t have their login, but you can ask for proof.

In your brief or onboarding doc, add:

Please send a screenshot of YouTube Studio → Analytics → Audience → ‘When your viewers are on YouTube’ for the last 90 days, plus top geographies.

One screenshot gives you:

• Their peak day + hour pattern

• Main time zones from top countries

• A sanity check that their subs aren’t all in a region you don’t sell to

Ask them to note whether those peaks are driven by long-form videos, Shorts, or lives. If their heatmap is fueled by Shorts, don’t assume a 40-minute sponsored video will behave the same.

Now compare:

• Your dark bands vs theirs

• Their peaks vs the windows when your site / CRM usually see strong demand

You’re looking for a timing window where their audience is active and your buyer is in the right headspace to click through.

Inside IQFluence, this is also where you sanity-check fit: audience language, geography, interests, and audience overlap with other creators you already use. Right creator + right window beats any generic rule.

3️⃣ Read the “why” behind the numbers

Timing is easier when you know how viewers are finding a video.

On your own channel (and any creator case studies they’ll share), look at traffic sources for high-performing uploads: homepage, suggested, search.

• Homepage / Suggested: timing matters a lot. You want the video live 2–3 hours before those dark heatmap blocks so the algo can test and start surfacing it.

• Search: timing is looser. Search-led content (“how to…”, “X vs Y”) accrues over time. Avoid dead slots, but prioritize date (e.g. “before launch day”) over minute-perfect publishing.

IQFluence doesn’t decide “best time” for you — but it does help you line up which creators, which audiences, which collaborations were worth repeating. You pull performance from your own UTMs/analytics, attach those learnings to specific creators and niches, and next time you’re not starting from zero.

4️⃣ If you’re posting today

Sometimes reality is: you’ve got approvals, assets, a green light… and one slot left today.

Quick version for the best time to post on YouTube today for this creator:

1. Take their “When your viewers are on YouTube” screenshot.

2. Circle the darkest 3–4 blocks for today’s weekday.

3. Pick a slot 2–3 hours before the darkest band.

That buffer gives YouTube time to process, test with a small slice of viewers, and start pushing it as the true peak hits. No creator heatmap? Use your brand’s as a proxy and layer niche logic on top (gamers in the evening, B2B SaaS around lunch, etc.).

5️⃣ Sync creator timing with your brand channel

You’re not scheduling in isolation. You want creator posts and your brand channel to boost each other.

Simple rule:

• Anchor the hero integration in the creator’s prime window.

• Support it with a brand-channel video or Short landing inside your peak band the same day.

• Track clicks / sign-ups / sales in your own analytics, then use IQFluence to keep the creator + audience profile + campaign notes in one place.

Over the next few campaigns, do light A/B on adjacent slots (e.g. two similar creators at 4 p.m. vs 6 p.m. local). Let your own data — not generic charts — decide where the next collab lands on the schedule.