Best email send time: 10 platforms compared
Every major email platform publishes its own “best day and time to send.” We put all 10 side by side so you can see where they agree, where they disagree, and what the consensus actually is.
The data below comes from the published research and benchmark reports of Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Campaign Monitor, Brevo, GetResponse, MailerLite, Omnisend, Moosend, and Constant Contact — covering more than 150 billion emails.
Best Day shows which days each platform identifies as top performers for engagement. Large dots are primary recommendations; small dots are secondary. The bar at the bottom counts how many platforms recommend each day. Best Time plots each platform's recommended send hours, with blue dots for opens and green for clicks.
What the consensus tells us
Tuesday dominates. Eight out of ten platforms identify Tuesday as a top day for email engagement. It's the single strongest consensus point in the data — and also the most crowded send day, with 17% of all marketing emails competing for attention.
10 AM is the time-of-day anchor. The majority of platforms cluster their recommendations between 9:00 and 11:00 AM for open rates. But platforms that track clicks separately — Klaviyo, GetResponse, MailerLite, Omnisend — show a second peak in the late afternoon and evening, between 5:00 and 8:00 PM.
The outliers are worth studying. MailerLite's data puts Friday first. Constant Contact's data favors Sunday. These aren't errors — they reflect genuinely different audience compositions. If your audience looks more like MailerLite's (creators, small businesses) than Mailchimp's (broad market), the outlier may be your best starting point.
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Read the full analysisFrequently asked questions
Which email platforms were included in this comparison?
We compared the published send-time recommendations from 10 major email platforms: Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Campaign Monitor, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), GetResponse, MailerLite, Omnisend, Moosend, and Constant Contact. Together, these platforms process over 150 billion emails and represent the vast majority of the email marketing market.
Why do different platforms recommend different days?
Each platform’s recommendation is based on its own user base, which skews toward different industries and audience types. Klaviyo is heavily ecommerce-focused, so its data reflects consumer buying behavior. Campaign Monitor’s dataset includes a large share of B2B senders. MailerLite skews toward creators and small businesses. These audience differences produce genuinely different optimal days.
Why is Tuesday recommended by almost every platform?
Tuesday consistently produces the highest open rates because it avoids Monday’s inbox backlog while catching people early in their productive workweek. However, this consensus has created a saturation problem — 17% of all marketing emails are sent on Tuesday, meaning more inbox competition. Some senders see better results shifting to Thursday or Friday where there’s less noise.
Why do the best time recommendations vary more than best day?
Day-of-week patterns are driven by weekly work rhythms that are fairly universal. Time-of-day patterns depend much more on the specific metric being optimized. Platforms focused on opens tend to recommend mornings (8–11 AM). Platforms that track clicks and conversions often find evenings (5–9 PM) perform better. The “best time” is fundamentally a different answer depending on whether you’re optimizing for visibility or action.
Should I just follow my platform’s recommendation?
Use it as a starting point, not a rule. Your platform’s recommendation reflects aggregate behavior across all its users — your specific audience may differ. The most reliable approach is to start with the consensus window (Tuesday–Thursday, 9–11 AM for opens; Thursday–Friday, 5–8 PM for clicks), then A/B test against your own data.
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