You will find plenty of articles naming a single best hour to send a text. We are not going to do that, because there is no universal answer and we would rather not invent one. What there is, is a legal window you have to stay inside, a time-zone problem most senders underestimate, and a simple principle for everything else: send when the thing you are asking people to do is easy to do.
Start with the legal window
Federal rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibit telephone solicitations before 8am or after 9pm, and marketing texts are treated as calls for this purpose. The hours that count are the recipient's local time, not yours and not your provider's.
Some states go further. Florida, for example, limits sending to 8am to 8pm, and a number of states restrict marketing on Sundays or public holidays. If your list covers several states, the strictest rule that applies to each contact is the one you have to meet. Our SMS compliance guide covers the wider rules.
Treat the legal window as the outer fence, not the target. A text that arrives at 8:01am or 8:58pm is legal and still likely to annoy. Aim for the middle of the day.
Time zones: the part that catches people out
If everyone on your list lives in one metro area, timing is easy. Once the list spans the country, the window everyone shares shrinks quickly:
- 8am on the West Coast is 11am on the East Coast, so a nationwide send cannot start before 11am Eastern.
- 9pm on the East Coast is 6pm on the West Coast, so it has to finish by 9pm Eastern.
- That leaves roughly 11am to 9pm Eastern for the continental US. If the list includes Florida, pull the end back to 8pm Eastern.
- Add Alaska and Hawaii and the start moves into the afternoon Eastern. Hawaii does not change its clocks, and neither does most of Arizona, so the gap shifts twice a year.
Do not rely on area codes to tell you where someone is. People keep their mobile numbers when they move, so a 212 number may well belong to someone in Denver. If you hold a ZIP code or address for each contact, you can split the list by time zone and send each part at a sensible local time. If you do not, use the shared window and stay well inside it.
Also allow for the size of the send. A campaign to hundreds of thousands of numbers goes out over a period rather than in a single instant, so start early enough that the last message still lands comfortably inside the window. When we agree launch timing with you, tell us the window you want and where your contacts are, so the launch can be planned around it.
Pick the time around the action
People tend to act on a text soon after they read it, or not at all. So the useful question is not "when do people read texts?" but "when can my recipient actually do what I am asking?"
- Restaurants: late morning for a lunch offer, mid-afternoon for a dinner offer, while people are still deciding where to eat.
- Weekend sales and open houses: Thursday or Friday, so people can plan, with a short reminder on the morning itself if the offer warrants it.
- Events and deadlines: the day before and the morning of. A reminder a week out is easy to forget.
- Appointments and renewals: during working hours, when your team can answer a reply or take a booking straight away.
- Business customers: weekday working hours. A text about an invoice discount at 7:30pm on a Saturday is legal and still badly timed.
- Fundraising and community appeals: a weekday daytime send for the appeal itself, and a final reminder on deadline day, before the evening.
The common thread is that a reply keyword only works if someone on your side is ready to respond. Sending at 6pm on Friday to an office that closes at 5 wastes the replies you worked for.
Day-of-week reasoning
Without inventing numbers, a few patterns follow from how people spend their week. Monday mornings are crowded with catching up, so a promotional text competes with everything else. Midweek daytime is usually calm and predictable, which suits most offers. Friday afternoon is when people plan weekends, so it suits anything happening on Saturday or Sunday. Sunday is quieter, but some states restrict it and many recipients treat it as personal time, so we would avoid it unless the offer is about Sunday. Public holidays are best skipped unless the holiday is the reason for the message.
These are starting points, not rules. Your own list will tell you more than any general pattern.
How often to send
Frequency is set first by what you promised. If your sign-up form said "occasional offers", a text every other day breaks that promise. Beyond that, every message should earn its place: if you would struggle to explain why this particular text is worth interrupting someone for, do not send it.
Leave space between campaigns, avoid stacking two sends on the same day, and watch what happens after each one. A jump in opt-outs is the clearest signal that you are sending too often or to the wrong people. Over-sending will also get more expensive from 31 January 2027, when the TCPA revoke-all rule means one opt-out can stop every message a business sends.
Test your own timing
The best data about your audience is your own. If you send regularly, vary the day and time between campaigns and compare replies, clicks and opt-outs. Change one thing at a time, keep notes, and within a few campaigns you will know more about your list than any general guide can tell you. For an example of timing built into a real campaign plan, see our guide to restaurant SMS promotions.
Plan your next send
One-time SMS packages from $449. Tell us your list size and your window, and we agree the launch timing with you.
See SMS packages →Frequently Asked Questions
What hours can I legally send a marketing text blast?
Under federal rules, between 8am and 9pm in the recipient's local time. Some states set a narrower window, Florida for example limits sending to 8am to 8pm, so check the rules for every state on your list.
Is the 8am to 9pm window based on my time zone or the recipient's?
The recipient's. If your list spans several time zones, either split it by zone or send inside the hours that fall within the window for everyone, which for the continental US is roughly 11am to 9pm Eastern.
How often should I send a text blast?
As often as you told people they would hear from you when they signed up, and only when you have something worth their attention. Watch opt-outs and replies after each send; a rise in opt-outs is the clearest sign you are sending too often.