What is the best time to send cold email?
A weekday morning in the recipient's time zone, though the size of the edge varies by study. The two studies that publish reply rates by time of day both put the morning first: Belkins' 7.5 million emails from 2025 peaked at 0.54% for sends between 8am and noon, and Smartlead's data peaks at 1.34% for emails sent at 7am in the recipient's local time.
The day matters even less. In the two studies that publish rates by day, every weekday sits within 0.04 percentage points of the others, and Hunter found no meaningful effect from the day of the week at all.
In Belkins' own data, the send-time gaps are small next to the gaps between audiences: reply rates ran from 0.22% at companies with 10,000 or more employees to 0.72% at companies with up to 10. Set a sensible morning window once, then spend your time on the list.
What Belkins found in 7.5 million cold emails
Mornings and midweek did best, by margins that are mostly small. Belkins, a B2B lead generation agency, analysed more than 7.5 million cold emails sent in its client campaigns from January to November 2025, in its send-time study updated on 26 June 2026. It divides replies by emails sent, and it records the time each email was sent, which it notes may differ from the recipient's local time.
| Day sent | Reply rate | Time sent | Reply rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 0.45% | Early morning, 5 to 8am | 0.52% |
| Tuesday | 0.45% | Morning, 8am to noon | 0.54% |
| Wednesday | 0.48% | Afternoon, noon to 5pm | 0.47% |
| Thursday | 0.48% | Evening, 5 to 8pm | 0.43% |
| Friday | 0.44% | Late evening, 8 to 11pm | 0.40% |
| Saturday | 0.35% | Night, 11pm to 5am | 0.40% |
| Sunday | 0.57% (very low volume) |
The weekday gaps are small: Wednesday and Thursday beat Monday and Tuesday by 0.03 percentage points. Belkins calls that difference "modest but consistent" and says it is not noise. Its companion reply-rate study of 7,530,489 emails from 2025 treats variations below ±0.05 percentage points as within the margin of error. Sunday's 0.57% comes from 21,615 emails against more than 1.6 million on Monday, according to that companion study.
The time-of-day gap is wider. Morning sends replied at 0.54%, against 0.47% for the afternoon, which received by far the most sends, and 0.40% for late evening and night. Belkins also reports a meeting rate, booked meetings divided by emails sent, of 0.4% for early-morning and morning sends and 0.1% for every other window. Those figures are hard to reconcile: Belkins' chart labels the night window 0.01%, and the companion study reports over 1,200 appointments from 7.5 million emails, fewer than a 0.1% rate on every email would produce (0.1% of 7.5 million is 7,500).
What other send-time studies found
Mostly the same pattern: little difference between weekdays, and mornings ahead in the one study that publishes hourly rates. Four other vendors publish send-time findings. Each uses its own base and sample, so compare the pattern within a row, never the numbers across rows. All were checked on 20 October 2026.
| Source | Sample | Day of week | Time of day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smartlead (no date shown) | More than 850 million emails from senders with 500+ sends; period not stated | Weekdays 0.87% to 0.91%; Wednesday highest; Saturday lowest at 0.82% | Peak 1.34% at 7am; 0.78% to 0.86% for every hour from 1pm to 11pm, in the recipient's local time |
| Hunter (2026 report) | 31 million emails sent by its users in 2025 | No meaningful effect found | Not published |
| Instantly (updated 12 January 2026) | Billions of interactions in 2025, by Instantly's description | Wednesday highest; no rates published, only a chart of opens and replies | Not published |
| Saleshandy (updated 7 October 2026) | 30.31 million emails sent in 2026 | Tuesday to Thursday ahead; no rates published | Tuesday 9 to 10am best; 8 to 10am in the US and UK; afternoons better across Asia-Pacific, in the prospect's local time |
Smartlead's hourly gap is wide: 75 contacts per reply at 7am against 116 at 1pm. Smartlead is careful about what that means. It says the data shows which send hours earned the most replies, not why, and it doesn't show how many emails went out in each hour.
When do replies arrive after you send?
Fast. Smartlead says 64% of cold email replies arrive within an hour of sending, 88.5% within 24 hours and 93.9% within 72 hours. Smartlead notes that the data doesn't say whether automatic replies such as out-of-office messages are included, and that it counts hours after sending, not business days.
That makes send time a question about your own calendar as much as the recipient's. If nearly two in three replies land within the hour, send when someone on your side can answer them. Jed Mahrle, founder of the outbound agency Practical Prospecting, advises replying in under 10 minutes in a February 2026 issue of the newsletter, saying momentum can die otherwise.
Instantly suggests a weekly rhythm built around the same habits: launch new sequences on Monday, send follow-ups on Wednesday, and use Friday to sort the auto-replies that pile up as people set out-of-office messages. That is one vendor's advice, and its report publishes no reply rates by day to test it against.
Does targeting matter more than send time?
In Belkins' 2025 data, yes: reply rates varied far more by who received the email than by when it was sent. These ranges come from Belkins' two 2025 studies, which both divide replies by emails sent.
| What varies | Lowest | Highest |
|---|---|---|
| Weekday sent | Friday, 0.44% | Wednesday and Thursday, 0.48% |
| Time of day sent | Late evening and night, 0.40% | Morning (8am to noon), 0.54% |
| Recipient's seniority | VPs, 0.32% | Founders and owners, 0.57% |
| Company size | 10,000+ employees, 0.22% | 0 to 10 employees, 0.72% |
| Industry | Banking, 0.18% | Food and beverage, 3.47% (among industries with at least 20,000 emails) |
Hunter's 2026 report points the same way. Sequences sent to 21 to 50 recipients replied at 6.2%, against 2.4% for sequences with over 500, and emailing one or two people per company beat emailing three or more (5.1% against 3.5%).
Two limits apply. All of this is observational, so a gap between groups doesn't prove that changing one thing would close it; Smartlead says its day data doesn't show whether moving a campaign to another day would change its reply rate. And you can't switch to an industry or company size you don't serve. What you can change is how tightly you define the list inside your market: the roles, the company sizes and a reason to write now. As Belkins puts it: "Timing doesn't write your email. It doesn't fix a weak offer or a bad list."
How to schedule cold email this week
Set one morning window in each recipient's time zone, send on weekdays, and put the time you save into the list. These steps are our advice, based on the data above:
Set a morning window in the recipient's time zone
Use roughly 7am to 11am, local to each recipient. That overlaps Smartlead's 6am to 10am peak and Belkins' 8am to noon window. If most of your list is in Asia-Pacific, test afternoons too, since Saleshandy reports afternoon sends did better there.
Send on any weekday
Skip Saturday, the lowest day in both Belkins' data (0.35%) and Smartlead's (0.82%). Don't build a plan around Sunday either: Belkins' 0.57% rests on low volume, though Smartlead's Sunday matches its Tuesday at 0.90%.
Fit your volume to the window
Spacing decides how much fits. At 2 to 5 minutes between emails, the spacing Siela's AI SDR uses, a four-hour window holds 48 to 120 emails per mailbox (240 minutes divided by 5, and by 2). Smartlead makes the same point from its data: a morning-only schedule may need more mailboxes rather than more sends per mailbox.
Spend the saved hours on the list
Narrow by role and company size first, then look for a reason to write now, such as hiring or a recent funding round. Our guides to buying signals and a lead scoring framework show how. Siela's AI SDR scores every lead hot, warm or cold with a one-line reason and, with Hot leads selected, contacts only people with a buying signal right now.
Only test send time at scale
At a 0.5% reply rate, 1,000 emails bring about 5 replies. A standard sample-size calculation (95% confidence, 80% power) puts the volume needed to tell 0.48% from 0.45% at roughly 800,000 emails per group. Most small teams will learn more from testing the list and the first line; our cold email templates give you starting points.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth sending cold emails on a Sunday?
Probably not as a plan. Sunday had the highest reply rate in Belkins' 2025 data, 0.57%, but it came from 21,615 emails against more than 1.6 million on Monday, and Belkins calls the rate statistically noisy. Smartlead's Sunday rate, 0.90%, matches its Tuesday. Saturday was the lowest day in both datasets.
Should cold emails go out in my time zone or the recipient's?
The recipient's. Smartlead's hourly figures are in each recipient's local time, and Belkins recommends scheduling 8am to noon in the prospect's time zone, while noting that its own data records when an email was sent, which can differ from the recipient's local time. Saleshandy also found that local-time sending beat a single global schedule.
Which month gets the best cold email reply rates?
In Belkins' 2025 data, February, at 0.54%. The first half averaged 0.50% against 0.40% for the second, which bottomed at 0.35% in December after a September and October recovery to 0.45%. Smartlead's figures barely moved: its median sender needed between 123 and 147 contacts per reply month to month.
Does send time affect meetings booked as well as replies?
Belkins says it does. In its 2025 data, early-morning and morning sends had a 0.4% meeting rate against 0.1% for every other window, and Wednesday, tied for the best weekday reply rate, had the lowest weekday meeting rate. The rates are hard to square with the 1,200-plus appointments Belkins reports, so treat them as a hint.
Why do send-time studies name different best days?
The weekday gaps are tiny. Instantly names Wednesday, Saleshandy names Tuesday, Belkins names Wednesday and Thursday, and Smartlead names Wednesday by a narrow margin. In the two studies that publish daily rates, every weekday sits within 0.04 percentage points of the others, so the best day in any one dataset is close to a tie.
Sources
- Belkins: What is the best time to send B2B emails? (2026 study) (first published 24 Apr 2022, updated 26 Jun 2026)
- Belkins: What are B2B cold email response rates? (2026 study) (updated 26 Jun 2026)
- Smartlead: What is the best time to send cold emails? (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Smartlead: What is the best day to send cold emails? (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Smartlead: What is a good cold email response rate? (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Hunter: The State of Email Outreach 2026 (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Instantly: Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 (updated 12 Jan 2026)
- Saleshandy: I Analyzed 30.31 Million Cold Emails (Dhruv Patel) (updated 7 Oct 2026)
- Smartlead: How long should you wait before following up on a cold email? (checked 20 Oct 2026)
- Jed Mahrle, Practical Prospecting #141: 14 Things That Kill Outbound Results (published 22 Feb 2026)
- Jed Mahrle, Practical Prospecting: Update (newsletter has a new home) (published 19 Jun 2025)