The best time to send an email (2026 research)

Omnisend analyzed approximately 26 billion emails and found that the difference between an email that gets opened and one that drives a sale often comes down to just a few hours. This isn’t a case of “send whenever you can”, because the data shows clear gaps between the best times for opens, clicks, and conversions.

We’ll look at the best day to send an email, the best time to send each day, and the hours most likely to drive opens, clicks, or sales.

Let’s start with the key takeaways.

TL;DR: Key findings on the best time to send email

If you want the short answer, the best time to send an email depends on what you want the email to do. Omnisend’s dataset shows that opens, clicks, and conversions peak at different times, so there isn’t one perfect hour for every campaign.

Here are the six findings that matter most:

That means a newsletter aimed at visibility should be timed differently from a sales email built to convert. And if you’re sending too often, it also helps to balance timing with a smart email marketing frequency strategy and learn from the best email marketing campaigns that match your goals.

The best day of the week to send an email

Omnisend analyzed approximately 26 billion emails to find the best day to send an email. At the weekly level, the biggest pattern is straightforward: Tuesday leads for opens and clicks, while Friday leads for conversions.

Tuesday has the strongest top-of-funnel performance of the week, with a 31.27% open rate and a 0.81% click-to-sent rate. If your priority is getting emails seen and clicked, Tuesday gives you the best odds across the full dataset. To make sense of those numbers in your own reporting, it helps to keep an eye on the core email marketing metrics that matter most for your campaign type.

Revenue-focused campaigns do especially well on Friday. The day leads the week on conversions at 0.081%, and the high send volume — 4.51 billion emails — shows that many marketers are already treating it as a key sales window.

One useful takeaway here is how tight the open-rate spread really is. The gap between the highest and lowest day is only about 1.6 percentage points, so the day you choose should usually be guided by click and conversion goals, not by opens alone. That becomes even more important when you’re pairing campaigns with email automation and want timing to support a specific action.

The numbers are least convincing on Saturday. It has the week’s lowest click-to-sent rate (0.68%), lowest conversion rate (0.058%), and lowest send volume (3.14B), so it’s not the best day for campaigns built around fast results.

Best time of day to send an email, broken down by day

The hourly data shows that opens, clicks, and conversions peak at different times, so the best send time depends on what you want the campaign to achieve. The pattern also pushes back on the familiar idea that evening sends are the safest option. In Omnisend’s dataset, the strongest performance windows show up much earlier in the day.

The click pattern repeats in two parts of the day: first thing in the morning and again in mid-afternoon. Conversion activity appears earlier, with some of the best-performing revenue hours occurring before noon. The email marketing examples below make those patterns easier to picture in real campaigns.

Here’s the day-by-day breakdown.

Best time to send an email on Monday

• Best time for opens: 1 PM (32.68%)
• Best time for clicks: 4 PM (0.89% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 8 AM (0.114% conversion rate)

If you’re sending on Monday, the best hour changes based on what you want from the campaign. 8 AM is strongest for conversions, 1 PM for opens, and 4 PM for clicks.

Best time to send an email on Tuesday

• Best time for opens: 7 AM (33.41%)
• Best time for clicks: 8 AM (0.94% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 12 PM (0.131% conversion rate)

Tuesday is the most front-loaded day in the dataset. Subscribers are highly responsive early, with strong open and click activity showing up before the day gets busy. Then the pattern shifts toward action at 12 PM, which suggests a clear midday buying window. And that hour delivers the highest conversion rate of any midday slot in the dataset.

Best time to send an email on Wednesday

• Best time for opens: 9 AM (32.12%)
• Best time for clicks: 4 PM (1.08% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 1 PM (0.085% conversion rate)

Wednesday is a big day for clicks. At 4 PM, the click-to-sent rate climbs to 1.08%, the highest of any hour in the analysis. Conversions peak earlier, at 1 PM.

Best time to send an email on Thursday

• Best time for opens: 2 PM (33.06%)
• Best time for clicks: 8 AM (0.87% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 10 AM (0.093% conversion rate)

The Thursday data is pretty straightforward. If you want clicks, 8 AM is your best shot. If you want conversions, look at 10 AM. If you care most about opens, 2 PM comes out on top.

Best time to send an email on Friday

• Best time for opens: 9 AM (31.92%)
• Best time for clicks: 4 PM (0.94% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 7 AM (0.138% conversion rate)

Friday is the most important day in the dataset for conversion-focused sends. The 7 AM conversion rate of 0.138% is the strongest single-hour result in the entire analysis, which makes early Friday morning the clearest revenue window of the week. By 9 AM and 4 PM, subscribers are still opening and clicking, but the strongest purchase intent appears before the day fully gets going.

Best time to send an email on Saturday

• Best time for opens: 9 AM (33.19%)
• Best time for clicks: 6 AM (0.78% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 8 AM (0.074% conversion rate)

Saturday morning still gives you a chance to get seen, with 9 AM posting the top open rate for the day. What it doesn’t give you is much momentum for conversion. It’s better suited to awareness, editorial content, and softer promotional sends.

Best time to send an email on Sunday

• Best time for opens: 11 AM (33.69%)
• Best time for clicks: 7 AM (0.77% click-to-sent)
• Best time for conversions: 12 PM (0.109% conversion rate)

Sunday performs better than many marketers would expect, especially around late morning and midday. The 11 AM open rate of 33.69% is one of the strongest open rates of the week, and 12 PM also delivers a healthy conversion rate. That points to a clear Sunday lunch window, when subscribers have time to browse and are ready to act on the right offer.

The best send time depends on your goal

The clearest takeaway from Omnisend’s data is that the best time to send an email changes depending on what you want the campaign to accomplish. A send built for opens should be timed differently from one built for clicks or conversions, and that’s where a lot of generic email advice falls short.

If your goal is visibility, send between 9 AM and 11 AM. That’s the most reliable window for opens across the week, with strong late-morning performance showing up again and again in the dataset.

If your goal is clicks, the strongest windows are 7–8 AM and 4 PM. Those two peaks show a very clear pattern: subscribers engage early in the day, then return later in the afternoon when they have another moment to act. In this dataset, evening sends don’t come close to those click windows.

For revenue-focused campaigns, the best-performing window is early in the morning. The top result occurs on Friday at 7 AM, when the conversion rate reaches 0.138%. Monday 8 AM follows with 0.114%, indicating that early-morning purchase activity occurs on more than one day.

That’s a useful reminder for ecommerce marketers: the “right” send time depends on the action you want the reader to take. If you’re sending larger campaigns and want to compare tools for timing, segmentation, and scheduling, it’s worth reviewing your mass email service options alongside this data.

How to find the best send time for your own audience

Global benchmarks are a useful starting point, but they’re still benchmarks. The best send time for your audience depends on who you’re emailing, what you’re sending, and what result you want from the campaign.

1. Analyze your own campaign data

Start with a small sample — about 10 to 15 campaigns is enough to see early patterns. Focus on the timing of opens, clicks, and conversions, and see which days or hours most often appear among your winners.

2. Segment by audience behavior

Your best send time can shift depending on time zone, device habits, and audience type. A B2B list may respond during work hours, while a B2C audience may behave very differently, especially if most of your subscribers are shopping on mobile. If you’re still growing your audience, it helps to strengthen the quality of your list first with strategies like these for how to build an email list from scratch.

3. Run A/B send time tests

The only change in the test should be the send time. Keep the email and audience consistent, then repeat the experiment across 3 to 5 campaigns so you’re basing the decision on more than a single outcome.

For ecommerce brands, Omnisend is a strong fit for this kind of testing because it combines email and SMS on a single platform, offers a free plan, and delivers strong performance. Omnisend customers get $79 back for every $1 spent.

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