What’s the Best Time to Send a Marketing Email?

There is no single best time to send email. Here is how to find yours: audience habits, time zones, testing, and send-time optimization.

In short: Send when your customers can act on the email — mid-morning on weekdays is a sensible default — then test two times against each other and keep the winner. Consistency and relevance matter more than the exact hour.

Search for "best time to send email" and you'll find confident answers — Tuesday at 10 a.m., Thursday at 2 p.m., Sunday evening. The truth is less tidy: the best time is when your subscribers read email, and that differs by business, audience and person.

Start with what you know about your customers

Office workers often check email early in the workday and after lunch.
Parents and shift workers may read in the evening.
Restaurant and café customers respond to emails sent shortly before a meal decision — late morning for lunch, mid-afternoon for dinner.
Weekend shoppers may browse on Saturday or Sunday mornings.
Business buyers rarely read marketing email on weekends.

Think about the action, not just the open

Time your email for when people can act on it:

An event invitation needs to arrive with enough notice to plan.
A "tonight only" offer needs to arrive in the afternoon, not at midnight.
A weekend sale works best when it lands before the weekend starts.

Respect time zones

If your customers are spread across the US and Canada, "10 a.m." covers a range of up to several hours depending on where they live. Sending at one moment means some people get it at an odd hour. Sending in each subscriber's own time zone solves this.

Test it

The reliable way to find your best time is to test:

Split a campaign between two send times (for example, morning vs evening).
Compare click rates, not just opens.
Repeat a few times — one test can be a fluke.
Keep the winner, and test again every few months.

See our simple A/B testing guide.

Let the data choose for each person

Even within one list, people have different habits. Send-time optimization learns when each subscriber tends to open and click, and delivers each email at that person's best time within a window you choose.

A sensible default

If you have no data yet: send on a weekday, mid-morning in your customers' time zone, then test from there. Consistency matters too — subscribers who get your newsletter every Thursday morning come to expect it.

Starting points by business type

Restaurants and cafés: late morning for lunch offers, mid-afternoon for dinner and weekend plans.
Online stores: test weekday evenings against weekend mornings — many shoppers browse after work.
Salons, gyms and studios: early in the week for booking reminders and class schedules.
B2B services and consultants: weekday mornings, Tuesday to Thursday.
Events: two to three weeks ahead for the invitation, a reminder the day before.

How to read your own data

Look back at your last ten campaigns. Note the day and time each was sent and its click rate. Patterns often appear quickly — for example, evening sends getting more clicks than morning ones. Then test that pattern deliberately.

Don't forget frequency and consistency

A predictable schedule ("every Thursday morning") helps subscribers expect and look for your email. Changing the time every week makes your results harder to compare.

Time zones in practice

If you serve both the US and Canada, a single send at 10 a.m. Eastern lands at 7 a.m. on the Pacific coast. Either schedule by time zone or choose a time that works across your main regions — or let send-time optimization handle it per subscriber.

Special cases

Automations. Welcome emails, receipts and cart reminders should go out based on what the person did, not at a fixed hour — a welcome email sent instantly beats one sent "at the best time" the next morning.

Local businesses. Think about when people decide to visit. A restaurant's dinner offer works mid-afternoon on the day; a weekend event invite works best a few days ahead, with a reminder the day before.

B2B (selling to other businesses). Working hours on weekdays usually perform best. Avoid Monday mornings, when inboxes are full, and Friday afternoons.

Holidays and big news days. Inboxes are crowded before major holidays and during big events. Send a day or two earlier, or wait until things are quieter.

Audiences across time zones. If your subscribers are spread across North America, sending at 10 am Eastern means 7 am Pacific. Either send based on each subscriber's time zone, or pick a time that works reasonably for both coasts, such as late morning Eastern.

How to run a simple send-time test

Pick two times you think could work (for example 9 am and 7 pm).
Split your list randomly in half and send the same email at each time.
Compare clicks (not just opens) after two or three days.
Repeat with your next two or three campaigns to make sure the result holds.
Keep the winner, then test it against a new challenger in a few months — habits change.

In Reepio

Reepio's send-time optimization learns each subscriber's engagement pattern hour by hour, in their own time zone, and shows how confident it is. You choose the delivery window; Reepio picks the moment for each person. Start free.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tuesday really the best day to send email?

Not universally. Midweek mornings are a reasonable starting point for many businesses, but your own audience’s habits matter more. Test different days and times and compare clicks.

Should I send emails on weekends?

It depends on your audience. Consumer brands and local businesses often do well on weekend mornings; business-to-business emails usually perform better on weekdays.

What is send-time optimization?

A feature that learns when each subscriber usually opens and clicks, then delivers each email at that person’s best time within a window you choose.