The numbers are in. The best time to send email newsletters in 2024 is…

It’s an important question! Your subscribers have busy lives and the last thing you want is to send them a newsletter while they’re preoccupied with work or dreaming about their weekend plans. 

Ideally, you want people to have the time and mental space to read your newsletter. You want to choose the sending times that will give you the best email engagement. 

Is there a time when your subscribers are perfectly primed and ready to receive your email? And if this ‘perfect time’ does exist, wouldn’t everyone be sending their newsletters at exactly the same time? That would defeat the whole purpose.

Before we get too philosophical, let’s get back to the facts (aka the data). We’ll cover:

• The conventional approach to email timing

• What our 2022 and 2023 data shows about email timing

• Other factors that influence email timing

• Best email marketing tools for email sending 

We want to help you figure out this million-dollar question!

As a starting point, put yourself in the shoes of your subscribers. Think about their daily routines, habits and mindsets. You might not have all the data yet, but you probably know your target audience pretty well. When would they be most likely to engage with your email campaigns? 

Often, their week plays out something like this:

Monday

Monday is the least popular weekday for sending among email marketers. It’s a fair assumption that people are busy adjusting back to their workweek. Business emails will inevitably be prioritized over promotional emails. Because of the emphasis on catching up with work, many say that Monday is one of the worst times to send your newsletter (although our 2023 data suggests it can still generate surprisingly high open rates). 🤷

Midweek 

Most email marketers believe that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are good days. In the middle of the week, your email subscribers are settled into their work routine and consistently checking their inboxes. 

Friday

On Friday, everyone is daydreaming about the weekend and rushing to finish work so that they can go offline. However, we have found that Friday at lunchtime can be a good time to send emails. After that, people are usually winding down for the weekend and are less likely to start new tasks, giving them more time to check their inboxes. 

The weekend

This is a tricky one. Although there are always exceptions, some cultures, such as in France and Italy, will rarely check their mailboxes outside of working hours. But in other cultures, such as the United States, Sunday evenings can be an ideal time, as Americans tend to prepare for the work week the evening before.

Also, people generally receive fewer emails over the weekend, so it could be easier to capture their attention. As a rule, it’s best to test different sending times for your target audience, to find out what generates the highest open and click-through rates.

By logically going through the days of the week, you can make some educated guesses about when to send your email. But we’ve taken it a step further and dug up our 2022/2023 data based on campaigns sent in MailerLite. 

When testing your send times, consider the email marketing benchmarks for your industry. No two industries are exactly alike when it comes to email metrics. Check out the article below to see where you stand among your competitors:

We love crunching the numbers, and we’re big believers in analyzing data from a human perspective. We’ve looked at over a million MailerLite campaigns to find insights that we paired with our own real-world experience to see if there is, in fact, an ideal sending window. 

What’s the best time to send an email, based on the day and open rates? 

What is the best day of the week to send emails? Let’s compare these two graphs showing sending rates and email open rates throughout the week.

Ta-da! The data shows that most newsletters tend to be sent out on weekdays. Tuesday and Wednesday are the most popular days for email marketers to send out their campaigns, while Sunday and Monday bring up the rear as the least popular (awww, bless them 💔).

But how does this correlate with average open rates for each weekday? Let’s take a look below.

Reassuringly, open rates are pretty consistent across the week, with Saturday sneaking in and technically taking the number one spot. But bear in mind, far fewer emails are sent on Saturdays, and not all open rates were created equal. Some people won’t open their Saturday emails until the following Monday.

For a more holistic view of overall campaign performance, we analyzed the total open rate—where all campaigns in the data set, regardless of size, contribute equally to the total open rate.

The most favorable options would be Thursday (30.6% total open rate) and Monday (30.3% total open rate).

With more emails being sent during the weekdays, you could take the opportunity to stand out from the crowd on the weekends. However, Saturday and Sunday are also the worst days for open rates, and email marketers generally agree that weekends are the worst time to send out a campaign—so the decision is yours! It might be a goldmine, or it might be a hard pass. 

What’s the best send time, based on the hour? 

Let’s take a look at each weekday to get an idea of which times have the highest open rates. Overall, most opens take place between 10AM-12PM (based on the subscriber’s time zone).

Many industry experts have hailed these times as a prime sending window, as your subscribers have settled into their day, but are not yet too focused on their daily tasks to ignore their inboxes. There’s a mini peak around 5PM-7PM and, more surprisingly, a notable bump in opens between 1AM-2AM. 

Best time to send an email on a Monday

According to the data, 11AM is the peak time when people open their emails on a Monday—and there’s also a nice little boost at 6PM, as well. In mid-afternoon, open rates drop a little, perhaps as people shake off the “Monday blues” and get on with their workday tasks.

Best time to send an email on a Tuesday

On Tuesdays, email opens peak at 12PM although there’s a midnight boost between 1AM-2AM and a bigger bump at 7AM-8AM (maybe while everyone is waking up or on their morning commute). It drops off at 9AM before building back up for the peak at midday. From there, they stay pretty consistent before trailing off at about 7PM.

Best time to send an email on a Wednesday

12PM takes the gold medal again! Wednesday’s open rates follow a fairly similar pattern to Tuesday, except open rates start to decline from 2PM onwards. Perhaps while people focus on getting their hump day tasks done so they can ease into the end of the week.

Best time to send an email on a Thursday

Once again, 12PM is still the prime time for open rates, with another spike at 2AM and a morning boost between 7AM-8AM. Interestingly, opens stay fairly consistent throughout the day and don’t teeter off until 9PM. This might be because people have finished the bulk of their weekly tasks, and aren’t starting any new big projects before the weekend, so they have more time to check their emails.

Best time to send an email on a Friday

Open rates are consistently high on Friday mornings from 10AM-12PM, with another early morning spike around 8AM. Opens start to drift off from 2PM. Although, this can be an interesting day to send a newsletter because you’re catching people just before they head out for the weekend, when they might be most inclined to buy something or try a new experience. 

Best time to send an email on a Saturday

Open rate patterns on Saturday are pretty similar to weekdays, with a spike at 7AM then peaking at 11AM before steadily declining throughout the afternoon, as people switch off to enjoy their weekend. 

Best time to send an email on a Sunday

The pattern breaks on Sunday. There’s still a bump at midday, but instead of a steady decline for the rest of the day, there’s an uptick in opens on Sunday evenings. Probably as people start to prepare for the following workday. This is an interesting opportunity for email marketers, as there’s less traffic on Sundays.

Our data shows that while open rates are consistent across all weekdays, Mondays and Thursdays are leading the pack. But regardless of which day you choose, 11AM-12PM appears to be the best time to send a newsletter. 

These stats also show the worst time to send an email is anywhere between 9PM-7AM, when subscribers are winding down for the evening, sleeping and then rushing to get ready for the new day.

But what about those 2AM spikes? Isn’t that the wrong time to send emails? Clearly, midnight emails aren’t as big a faux pas email marketers once thought. Well, we turned to our Email Marketing Specialist, Georgia, for answers.

No matter when you send your newsletter, the best practice is to keep it consistent. We are all creatures of habit and we subconsciously crave consistency. By maintaining a regular email cadence, you build trust and anticipation. Your audience will expect to receive your content during a designated time. 

This is a rule we live by. At MailerLite, we deliver weekly email marketing tips and product updates to our subscribers every Thursday afternoon. 

Many email marketers send out email blasts in the minutes of the hour (00:15, 00:30, 00:45). It might be worth following the “sun tactics hack” instead, which is where you send your emails during the quiet minutes (00:07, 00:38, 00:42). This reduces the risk of your email being delayed due to a high number of emails crowding the servers at the same time. 

Finding the best day and time from the data isn’t the only variable you need to consider. Look at your campaign holistically, as other factors may influence your sending time, including: 

• Your marketing goals

• Your messaging

• Your target audience

1. Your email marketing goals

Think about what you want your audience to do when they get the email. Read it? Click through? Make a purchase? 

Here are 3 types of goals that will inform your sending times.

2. Your content topic

Different types of emails are better sent at certain times of the day. The most obvious example is a news and media email. If something newsworthy happens, make sure you send it as soon as possible. 

Newsletters promoting B2B services or products perform better during working hours when your subscribers are in their work mindset. On the other hand, a travel agency or an author can capture more attention if they send emails after work hours or on the weekend. Some pizza companies send their promotions and coupons at 4:15PM, just around the time that their subscribers will be starting to think about their evening meal!

Think about the type of message you are sending and time it accordingly. 

3. Your target audience 

Did you know that the ‘best time to send an email’ data is based mostly on desktop users? Check which type of device your subscribers use to open your newsletters. Mobile users tend to be more active late in the evening and during weekends. 

Or perhaps your primary audience is not a 9-5 business person, but rather a remote worker, a stay-at-home parent, or retired. Use this to your advantage by understanding their email habits and sending them newsletters at a time of day that works best for them. 

Once you’ve analyzed your data and determined the key times to send your newsletters, take advantage of email marketing’s best sending features. They’ll make your life a whole lot easier! 

Smart sending

Smart sending, one of many AI tools available on the Advanced MailerLite plan. is the absolute best way to make sure your emails are arriving at the best time. Your email list is full of real humans with diverse needs and routines. Rather than trying to find the perfect time of day for everyone, let Smart sending individually deliver emails at a custom send time for each subscriber.

Smart sending automatically analyzes historical data to determine the best send time for each subscriber, then continues to analyze and adapt to your audience the more you use it. Pretty cool!

Auto-resend

Most email opens will happen within an hour of arrival. If your message is very important, use auto-resend to re-engage your subscribers without lifting a finger. With this feature, your email will resend automatically to everyone who didn’t open it the first time. 

You can add a personalized message to the second email to let people know it’s important. When resending unopened email campaigns, the goal is to make everyone feel as if the second email was designed especially for them. 

Deliver emails by time zone

With MailerLite, you can check your ‘opens by location’ to understand where your subscribers are based. When you deliver emails by time zone, you don’t risk delivering newsletters to your international audience at off-peak times. Each reader will receive the newsletter at the same time in their own time zone. Just bear in mind that some location and open tracking may now be affected by Apple Privacy Protection.

Link triggers

Sometimes, you can use automation triggers to send emails at the perfect time. Instead of trying to work out the best time to send a newsletter to your entire email list, link triggers send individual emails based on each subscriber's action. 

When a reader clicks on a link in your email campaign, they can trigger another email that matches the topic they are interested in at that very moment. This takes out the guesswork and lets the subscriber's behavior dictate a good time to send your message. 

A/B testing and Multivariate testing

Send time isn’t the only factor that influences email open and click rates. Your email subject line, sender address and email content can also be major players. Fortunately, you can test out these 3 things, and more,  to find out which one generates the most engagement.

A/B testing is where you create 2 versions of the same email (e.g. with different subject lines), and then you send them to a sample of your audience. The version which generates the highest opens or clicks* will be declared the “winner”, and get sent to the rest of your email list. 

Multivariate testing is similar to A/B testing, only it allows you to go much deeper by testing different combinations of variables for a more advanced look into what resonates with your audience.

*Since the Apple Mail Privacy Protection feature was released on 20 September 2021, we recommend A/B testing by click rates rather than open rates. 

When all's said and done, sending time is a minor detail in the broader email marketing strategy. Your audience will open and read emails because of the content and value that you provide them with. It’s no good sending your email newsletter at the perfect time if it doesn’t match up with other email marketing benchmarks.

So if a deadline is coming up, and you’re not happy with your email, wait until it’s ready. It’s better to deliver a quality experience, rather than sacrificing it for the sake of a specific date and time. When your readers are looking out for your newsletters with excitement, the timing becomes less relevant.

To wrap up, here are your main email sending time takeaways: 

• Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes, and think about what their daily habits and routines will look like

• Send your newsletter on weekdays if you want higher open and click rates, and on weekends if you want your audience’s undivided attention

• Think about your marketing goals, your messaging, and your target audience before choosing a specific day and time

• Make use of email marketing tools to fine-tune your sending, such as auto re-sends and link triggers

• Remember: high-quality newsletters are more important than perfect timing

Have you found the perfect sending time for you? Tell us about it in the comments.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2020. It has been updated with new insights from our 2023 data.