Best time to post on Instagram on a Thursday

Thursday is where the studies agree least. Put their picks in order and they never touch: Later’s 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., Buffer’s 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., Sprout Social’s 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. and Hootsuite’s 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. The small hours, breakfast, lunch and the end of the working day each have a study behind them.

None of this makes Thursday a weak day. Hootsuite names it one of its three best days for reach, and in Buffer’s data Thursday at 9 a.m. is a top slot for carousels as well as for posts overall. The studies only disagree about when.

Part of the gap is what each study counts. Buffer’s ranking uses the median engagement rate: every like, comment, share and save as a percentage of followers, with medians so a few viral posts or very large accounts can’t tip the result. Sprout Social adds up engagements across about 307,000 profiles from late November 2025 to late February 2026, a span that includes the December holidays. Hootsuite talks about its best days in terms of reach.

A slot can win on one of those measures and lose on another, and none of them describes your account. Hootsuite’s explanation for its late-afternoon pick, people winding down the working week and browsing for evening plans or weekend ideas, is a plausible story. Buffer’s 9.6 million posts point to the morning instead.

With no overlap to lean on, Thursday is the day a test pays off most. Start with 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., the morning and afternoon picks from the 2026 data. First open your Professional dashboard, tap Total followers and scroll to Most active times: if your Thursday hours show a lunchtime bump instead, swap one slot for 12 p.m.

1. Alternate the two slots for six Thursdays, with the same kind of post each week.
2. Two days after each post, note its reach and how many likes, comments, shares and saves it has.
3. If one slot wins at least four of the six weeks, make it your Thursday time.
4. If they split three and three, the hour matters less than the post for your account, so choose whichever fits your week.

Tip: Testing a Reel? Give it its own evening slot between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. instead of 9 a.m. In Buffer’s data Reels peak later than other posts, and Thursday is one of their two best days.

Sprout Social’s industry figures shift on Thursday. Retail gets its longest window of the week, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; on other weekdays its retail data stops at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Travel and hospitality narrows to 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., after starting at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. earlier in the week. Healthcare shrinks to 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Government (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), nonprofits (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and software and tech (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) keep broad daytime windows, and food and beverage keeps its weekday lunch slot, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Education has no Thursday slot at all; its only two are Tuesday and Wednesday at 11 a.m. Financial services does best between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., or at 7 p.m.

Hootsuite ties its 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. window to people starting to think about the evening and the weekend. That makes late Thursday afternoon a sensible slot to test for posts with a weekend hook: a Friday launch, a Saturday market stall, weekend opening hours or a restaurant’s weekend menu.