Posting top-notch content material that your viewers can join with ought to all the time be your first precedence for Instagram progress. However while you really feel such as you’ve bought that down pat, is there the rest you are able to do to spice up your content material efficiency?
Because it seems, there is likely to be.
We dug into Buffer’s wealthy Instagram knowledge to reply a giant query: What’s the best posting frequency for progress on Instagram in 2025?
We analyzed over 2 million posts from 100,000+ Instagram accounts — and the info paints a extremely clear image: the extra you put up, the higher your content material performs.
Technically, this isn’t information. At Buffer, we bang on about persistently posting quite a bit. So do loads of profitable creators and, even Instagram’s high boss, Adam Mosseri.
However what does ‘consistency’ truly imply? How usually must you be posting on Instagram? How a lot is an excessive amount of?
You need specifics? We have now them.
Let’s discover what the info says about Instagram posting frequency’s impact on follower progress, attain, and extra.
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When you’re eager to dig into the info otherwise you need some receipts for the suggestions we’re making beneath (honest), scroll all the way down to the part The research: How posting frequency impacts progress on Instagram.
How usually must you put up on Instagram?
Buffer knowledge exhibits that posting 3-5 instances per week on Instagram is probably going the candy spot for reaching each attain and progress with out burning out or sacrificing high quality.
Posting extra regularly than this can result in extra attain and followers, however the returns are diminishing.
⚡️ Posting between 3 and 5 instances weekly can greater than double follower progress fee, in comparison with posting one or two instances weekly.
✨ Posting 3–5 instances weekly might enhance your attain per put up by round 12% in comparison with your baseline.
On this evaluation, we checked out Instagram feed posts — so pictures, reels, and carousels — not Instagram Tales, since tales aren’t very best for reaching new audiences. Extra on this beneath.
That stated, in case you’re a full-time creator or Instagram-focused model (and you are able to do so with out sacrificing content material high quality), you might bump that quantity as much as 6-9 or 10+ posts weekly for a follower enhance.
Our evaluation exhibits that posting 6–9 instances per week might yield almost 3.7× the rise in follower progress fee (0.44%) of posting 1–2 instances per week.
Posting 10 or extra instances per week might imply a few 5.5× enhance (0.66%).
Extra progress, sure, there are these diminishing returns we talked about.
The most important leap in attain per put up occurs while you transfer from 1–2 to three–5 posts per week — a few 12% carry.
Growing past that also drives positive factors, however the measurement of every step up will get smaller: 6–9 posts/week provides one other ~6 share factors, and 10+ posts/week provides ~5 extra.
On the alternative finish of the spectrum, the minimal quantity to put up on Instagram is 1-2 instances per week. Posting any lower than that might end in account stagnation or perhaps a drop in followers.
Our suggestions in a nutshell:
🌱 When you simply wish to keep energetic or keep your account: 1–2 posts/week🪴 Develop your viewers in a sustainable manner: 3–5 posts/week🌳 Maximize your progress (deal with with warning): 6–9+ posts/week
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Does posting extra usually damage attain?
By no means. In actual fact, the info exhibits that attain per put up truly goes up with extra frequent posting.
It’s a honest concern — you is likely to be wanting on the numbers above, pondering you’d be flooding your followers’ feeds with that a lot content material. Will extra posts simply cannibalize one another? Or will they annoy your viewers, prompting them to unfollow?
Neither of those is probably going. Bear in mind how a lot the varied Instagram algorithms and feeds have modified. The house feed, the place your present followers will probably come throughout your content material, hasn’t been chronological for years. It’s unlikely the algorithm will push all of your posts out one after the opposite (it’s a lot smarter than that!).
I all the time like to think about including extra posts to my content material calendar like shopping for extra lottery tickets — the extra you purchase, the extra seemingly you’re to hit the jackpot of touchdown on the discover web page or reels feed.
Sure, there are diminishing returns on the greater finish — however even these further few posts can transfer the needle if in case you have the bandwidth.
Right here for the info deep dive? Listed below are the numbers that again these suggestions up.
📚 The research 📚
How posting frequency impacts progress on Instagram
This most likely gained’t shock any veteran Instagram creators: The extra you put up, the extra seemingly you’re to succeed in new individuals and develop your viewers.
Buffer’s resident knowledge scientist Julian Winternheimer sliced and diced the info a number of other ways, and regardless of which angle you’re taking, a better posting frequency means extra attain and progress.
There’s some nuance right here, after all — we’ll dig into that beneath, too.
Earlier than we get into it: On this evaluation, we checked out Instagram feed posts — so pictures, reels, and carousels — not Instagram Tales.
Since tales are usually not sometimes proven to non-followers, they’re great for partaking present followers, however not a game-changer for rising your account.
With that in thoughts, Julian analyzed the efficiency and posting frequency of two.1 million posts from 102K Instagram accounts. He classed posting frequency into 5 completely different ‘buckets ’:
No posts1-2 posts per week3-5 posts per week6-9 posts per week10+ posts
On this research, we didn’t phase reels, single-photo posts, and carousels. All three of those codecs are included. (We’re engaged on it, although, so watch this house for extra!)
Right here’s what he uncovered.
1. Extra posts per week means extra progress
First, we explored the hyperlink between posting frequency and progress, which, as Julian places it, “exhibits a robust optimistic correlation.”
As cool as that is to see, take this evaluation with a pinch of salt. “This relationship is good to see, however it might not inform us the total story,” Julian says. “We have to management for variations in accounts’ pure progress charges.”
The straightforward (can we name it easy..?) calculation doesn’t account for the variations within the pure progress of enormous accounts versus small ones. Bigger accounts that develop sooner may naturally put up extra.
“For instance, think about a fast-growing account that positive factors 1,000 followers per week and posts 20 instances, whereas a smaller account positive factors 10 followers per week and solely posts twice,” Julian explains.
“If we merely common these collectively, we would conclude that posting 20 instances results in quick progress. Nonetheless, the bigger account would seemingly acquire a better variety of followers even when they posted much less regularly.”
So, with out accounting for these variations in accounts, we will’t inform whether or not frequent posting causes progress, or whether or not naturally fast-growing accounts simply occur to put up extra.
To verify the correlation between posting frequency and progress, Julian did the slicing and dicing I discussed.
As an alternative of evaluating completely different accounts, this technique (known as a z-score evaluation) compares every account to its personal baseline degree of progress. So, primarily evaluating every account to itself.
For every account, we calculated their common follower progress fee throughout all weeks, and the way a lot that quantity tends to fluctuate (i.e., their commonplace deviation).Then we checked out how every particular person week in comparison with that common.
Right here’s the info introduced one other manner:
Weekly posts
Common progress (Z-score)
No posts
🚫 -0.08 (decline)
1–2 posts
➕ 0.00 (baseline)
3–5 posts
📈 0.07
6–9 posts
🚀 0.11
10+ posts
🔥 0.14
And the way we outlined these Z-scores:
Z = 0: Typical efficiency for this channelZ = +1: Sturdy optimistic week (higher than ~84% of weeks)Z = +2: Distinctive week (higher than ~97% of weeks)Z = -1: Poor week (worse than ~84% of weeks)
“This knowledge suggests that there’s a robust optimistic relationship between posting frequency and follower progress on Instagram,” Julian says. “Channels that put up extra regularly persistently acquire extra Instagram followers relative to their baseline.”
2. Not posting in any respect might imply a lack of followers
You will have already noticed this — however check out the ‘No posts’ bar once more. The evaluation above additionally exhibits there’s a value to not posting.
Julian has dubbed this the “no-post penalty”.
On common, weeks with zero posts had follower progress that was ~0.08 commonplace deviations beneath the account’s typical progress.
In plain English, which may imply account stagnation, and even follower loss. As an Instagram creator, I can personally attest to the truth that no-content weeks — particularly consecutive ones — might end in a sluggish, regular decline in followers.
“Channels that don’t put up in any respect considerably under-perform their baseline progress charges,” Julian says. “Even posting a few times per week ends in a big enhance in follower progress in comparison with weeks with no posts.”
3. Constant posting drives actual, measurable progress
In one other evaluation, Julian explored how a lot posting frequency can affect progress, in comparison with weeks when customers don’t put up in any respect.
Just like the Z-score mannequin, the fixed-effects mannequin additionally compares every account to itself, however as an alternative of inspecting particular person weeks, it focuses on isolating the impact of posting roughly.
It controls for every account’s distinctive baseline and long-term habits, then it measures whether or not follower progress goes up throughout weeks when that very same account posts extra usually.
It confirms the identical story:
1–2 posts per week: +0.12% follower progress rate3–5 posts per week: +0.26% follower progress rate6–9 posts per week: +0.44% follower progress rate10+ posts per week: +0.66% follower progress fee
Observe that we’re speaking about a rise in follower progress fee, relatively than % enhance in complete followers. Right here’s a sensible instance:
I’ve 5K followers on Instagram. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that once I don’t put up in any respect, my account stays stagnant (my baseline progress fee is 0%).
Posting 1–2 instances/week might imply about 6 extra followers per week than not posting in any respect.Posting 3–5 instances/week might add about 13 extra followers/week.Posting 6–9 instances/week might imply 22 extra followers/week.Posting 10+ instances/week might imply 33 extra followers/week.
The instance above can also be a extremely clear manner to have a look at the diminishing returns of posting greater than 5 instances per week. I normally put up as soon as per week, so including two extra posts to my content material calendar would most likely web me round 13 extra followers. Nice! Two extra posts aren’t an enormous carry.
However to maneuver myself up into the following class (and solely acquire 9 extra followers, in comparison with the earlier leap) I’d must double the quantity of additional posts I’m creating. Extra followers, sure, however I don’t have the bandwidth to create six Instagram posts each week — a lot much less six good posts.
Armed with this knowledge, I’ll fortunately bump my frequency as much as 3 posts per week for a way more sustainable enhance I can keep long-term, with out sacrificing the standard of my content material.
4. Posting extra persistently will increase weekly attain
Right here’s one other discovering that wasn’t shocking, provided that attain and follower progress are inclined to go hand in hand.
The extra you put up in any given week, the upper your attain for the week can be.
That’s fairly frequent sense — the extra you put up, the extra alternatives you could have for showing in your followers’ house feeds, the reels feed, and even the discover web page.
However right here’s the place issues get fascinating…
5. Posting extra means extra attain per put up
We analyzed median attain per put up, and located that accounts that put up extra are inclined to get extra views on each piece of content material.
“Every step up in posting frequency delivers substantial share positive factors in attain per put up,” Julian says. “The most important leap happens when shifting from 1-2 to 3-5 posts.”
In comparison with posting simply 1–2 instances per week:
Posting 3–5 posts/week = ~12% extra attain per postPosting 6–9 posts/week = ~18% extra attain per postPosting 10+ posts/week = ~24% extra attain per put up
This can be a fairly clear sign that the Instagram algorithm rewards consistency.
“Even at greater frequencies, there are nonetheless significant 20-25% incremental positive factors for posting extra regularly, nonetheless the returns are diminishing.”
Extra diminishing returns right here? Yep. As Julian identified, the most important leap occurs while you transfer from 1–2 to three–5 posts per week. With every frequency leap, the attain acquire shrinks each time.
So, what does all this imply for creators and types trying to develop on Instagram?
The tempting conclusion is that posting greater than 10 instances per week on Instagram is the quickest solution to enhance attain and progress.
Technically talking, it’s. However creating greater than 10 posts on Instagram per week may imply:
It’s important to drop the standard of your content material with a purpose to produce at that volumeBurnout — so that you stop posting altogether after two or three weeks.
Each of this stuff may show extra detrimental to your general follower progress than taking a extra measured strategy.
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Extra doesn’t all the time imply higher
The perfect posting schedule is one you’ll be able to follow persistently.
“For me, the underside line is that Instagram rewards frequent and constant content material creation,” Julian says. “Nonetheless, there’s a huge caveat that a very powerful issue most likely stays content material high quality. You’re most likely not going to see huge positive factors in followers and attain by pumping out low-quality posts.”
Posting frequency is without doubt one of the strongest levers you’ll be able to pull to develop on Instagram, and the numbers again that up. However bear in mind: high quality issues, and burnout is actual.
Give attention to constant, sustainable effort over quick bursts of excessive quantity. Even small will increase in how usually you put up could make a giant distinction.
