YouTube Upload Time Study

Key takeaways

1. Big channels schedule. Of the 1,484 latest uploads from 99 of the most-subscribed YouTube channels, 51% went live at exactly :00 or :30 (43% on the hour, 8% on the half hour), where an even spread across the minutes would put about 3%. See details
2. 50 of the 99 channels published at least half their recent uploads at :00 or :30, and 33 put at least half in the same hour of the day. See details
3. The afternoon is the busiest stretch: 48% of uploads went live between noon and 6 p.m. in the channel's home time zone, and noon was the single busiest hour (12.3%). Only 3.5% went live between midnight and 6 a.m. See details
4. No day stands out. Each day drew between 11.6% (Tuesday) and 16.6% (Saturday) of uploads, and 30.4% went live on a weekend, close to the 28.6% an even spread gives. See details
5. Regular videos were scheduled more often than Shorts (59% vs 47% at :00 or :30); live streams almost never (4 of 64). See details
6. MrBeast's latest uploads went live at noon Eastern 13 times out of 15; Mark Rober's at 9 a.m. Eastern 12 times out of 15. See details
7. Popular "best time to post" answers disagree: Buffer's 2026 study of 1.8 million videos picks Sunday at 10 a.m. for long-form; SocialPilot's picks 2 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday to Friday. Both measure engagement on posts scheduled through their own tools. See details

Do big YouTube channels schedule their uploads?

Most of them, judging by the clock. We read the publish time of the 15 latest uploads (14 for Aaj Tak) of 99 of the 100 most-subscribed YouTube channels, 1,484 uploads in all, and 757 (51%) went public at exactly :00 or :30 in the channel's home time zone: 632 (43%) in the first minute of an hour and 125 (8%) at half past. If uploads went live at random minutes, about 2 in every 60, roughly 3%, would land there.

Releases that land on the minute are what YouTube's scheduled publishing produces; an upload a person makes public by hand rarely does. Channel by channel, 50 of the 99 published at least half their recent uploads at :00 or :30, and 12 published every one that way. The median channel did so 53% of the time. 33 channels put at least half their recent uploads in the same hour of the day, so most big channels keep a slot.

What time do the biggest YouTube channels post?

In the afternoon, in their own time zone. 48% of uploads went live between noon and 6 p.m., 26.7% between 6 a.m. and noon, 21.8% in the evening and 3.5% overnight. Noon itself was the single busiest hour, with 12.3% of uploads, followed by 5 p.m. (9.8%).

These shares use the 63 channels whose 15 latest uploads span at least a week (945 uploads), with each channel weighted equally. A channel that posts many times a day contributes only the hours just before we read its feed, which would tilt the clock toward Monday morning in the U.S., so those channels are left out of the time and day figures; they are still in the scheduling figures above, which the time of the read doesn't affect.

U.S. channels (18 of the 63) post earlier, measured in Eastern time: 42.2% between 6 a.m. and noon and 45.2% between noon and 6 p.m. Counted in Pacific time instead, the same uploads would sit three hours earlier, so a 9 a.m. Eastern release is 6 a.m. on the West Coast.

Which day of the week do big channels post?

No day stands out. Each day drew between 11.6% (Tuesday) and 16.6% (Saturday) of uploads, against 14.3% for an even spread, and 30.4% went live on a Saturday or Sunday, close to the 28.6% an even spread gives. Big channels publish every day of the week.

Are Shorts and live streams timed differently?

Shorts are scheduled less tightly than videos. Of the 721 regular videos, 423 (59%) went live at exactly :00 or :30; of the 646 Shorts, 303 (47%). Live streams start when the broadcast starts, and only 4 of 64 began on the hour or half hour. Each upload is classed by the channel tab YouTube lists it under, as in our video length study.

When do MrBeast and other big creators upload?

At the same minute, week after week. 13 of MrBeast's 15 latest uploads went public at exactly noon Eastern. Mark Rober's went live at 9:00 a.m. Eastern 12 times out of 15, and Cocomelon's most often at 8 a.m. Eastern (8 of 15). Vlad and Niki released 14 of 15 at 10:00 UTC.

The pattern holds well beyond the famous names: in the table of every channel, the most common hour accounts for at least half of a channel's recent uploads on 33 of the 99. Channels that post several times a day, mostly TV networks and music labels in India, are the exception: their uploads go out across the day.

Every channel's upload timing

Is there a best time to post on YouTube?

Not one that the published studies agree on. Two of the most visible data studies both come from social-media scheduling tools, both rank posting times by engagement on their own customers' channels, and they point to different days.

Our study measures what the biggest channels do, not what works best, and it can't separate timing from everything else about an upload. The tool studies measure performance, but only on channels that schedule through those tools. Where they agree with the biggest channels is the afternoon; where they disagree is the day.

What this means if you publish video

• Pick a slot and keep it. The biggest channels release at the same hour, often the same minute, week after week. A fixed time lets subscribers expect you.
• Schedule rather than publish by hand. Uploading early and scheduling the release leaves time to check the title, thumbnail and captions before anyone sees them. Our YouTube upload checker covers that list.
• Start from the afternoon, then use your own data. Your channel's audience may live in other time zones; your own analytics show when your viewers are online better than any study.
• Don't chase a "best day". The big channels publish every day and the tool studies disagree on which day wins.

Mark Studios edits YouTube videos and Shorts for creators and brands and delivers them ready to schedule. This study uses the same channels and feeds as our video length study.

How we ran the study

Channels. Every channel in Wikipedia's list of the most-subscribed YouTube channels as listed on October 25, 2026, the same list as our video length study, dubbing study and caption coverage check. The list had 100 channels; our collection missed Karla Bustillos (92nd), whose entry links to youtube.com without the www, so 99 are counted, and the ranks in our table and CSVs from Techno Gamerz on (92 to 99) are one below Wikipedia’s.

Publish times. On October 26, 2026 we read each channel's public RSS feed, which lists its 15 latest uploads with the time each went public, to the second, in UTC. The uploads span 2024-11-18 to 2026-10-26. Each upload is classed as a video, Short or live stream by the channel tab it is listed under, read the same day with the open-source yt-dlp tool. Another 53 uploads that no tab listed that day are left unclassed (“unknown” in the CSV).

Local time. Each channel's times are converted to the main time zone of the first country Wikipedia lists for it, using the IANA time zone database (for example India Standard Time for India). U.S. and Canadian channels are counted in Eastern time.

Weighting. Scheduling figures (the minute of the hour) use all 1,484 uploads. Time-of-day and day-of-week figures use only the 63 channels whose 15 latest uploads span at least seven days, each channel weighted equally, because a channel that posts many times a day contributes only the hours just before the feed was read.

The analysis script and the per-upload results are in the CSV files below and in this page's study folder. None of the channels reviewed or endorsed this study.

Limitations

• The biggest channels, not all of YouTube. These 99 lean toward music, entertainment and kids' channels, many in India and the U.S.
• Home time zone is a guess. Wikipedia lists one or more countries per channel, which isn't always where the uploads are scheduled from, and one zone stands for countries that span several. U.S. channels are counted in Eastern time.
• What they do, not what works. We don't measure views or engagement by publish time; timing can't be separated from everything else about an upload here.
• 15 uploads per channel. That spans hours for a TV network and months for a quiet creator.
• Minute marks suggest scheduling but don't prove it. A person could make a video public at exactly noon by hand.

How to cite this study

Link to the section you use, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-upload-time-study#scheduled. To cite the study as a whole:

Mark Studios. "YouTube Upload Time Study." Published Oct 29, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-upload-time-study

@misc{markstudios_youtube_upload_time_study_2026,
  author = {{Mark Studios}},
  title = {{YouTube Upload Time Study}},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/youtube-upload-time-study},
  note = {Last verified 2026-10-29}
}

Our measurements and the CSVs are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. The uploads remain the property of the channels that published them.

Sources

Download the per-upload publish times (CSV) · Download the per-channel results (CSV)

Widely quoted video statistics on other topics are traced to their origin, with a verdict on each, in our research fact-check.

1. Wikipedia, List of most-subscribed YouTube channels (revision used). Accessed 2026-10-29.
2. yt-dlp, yt-dlp: a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader. Accessed 2026-10-29.
3. IANA, Time Zone Database. Accessed 2026-10-29.
4. SocialPilot, Best Time to Post on YouTube in 2026: Videos and Shorts. Accessed 2026-10-29.
5. Buffer, The Best Time to Post on YouTube (Jul 24, 2026). Accessed 2026-10-29.

Update policy and change log

We plan to rerun the check every six months on the same list. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

• Oct 29, 2026: First published: 1,484 uploads from 99 of the most-subscribed channels.