How To Find Your Optimal Substack Posting Strategy

Simple process based on your historical engagement & activity

Photo by Some Tale on Unsplash

Want more reactions and restacks on your Substack Posts and Notes?

I analyzed one of Substack’s most prolific creators and used AI tools to discover the exact times that maximize engagement.

For this article, I selected

Kristina God

, who runs the fabulous Online Writing Club (I have been a paying subscriber since 2024). She’s one of the most engaging creators in the writing niche.

I have worked with Kristina before; she created this awesome video on my Substack Notes Scheduler:

Today, I worked on a simple data-driven process to maximize reactions and restacks while ensuring your publishing is sustainable and consistent. The whole process took less than 10 minutes.

Analyze Engagement and Posting Schedule

Kristina is an early adopter of Substack; I found this post dated Aug 13, 2021. According to the latest data, she has published 106 posts and an astonishing 3,283 notes during the last four years.

Post and notes statistics (by the author)

She has a community of over 13,000 writers and has helped many people like me to get started on Substack.

Here is a word cloud from the titles of her posts and the body text of her notes:

Word cloud from post title and notes body text (by the author)

I wanted to understand how Kristina produces engaging content and builds a strong community of writers.

I grabbed the two graphs below that provide insights into her engagement by posting hour (in UTC), focusing on reactions and restacks over time.

Engagement by posting hour and heatmap of engagement (by the author)

The following heatmap from the Substack Dashboard service shows her actual posting activity by the hour of posting (in UTC timezone) over the last few years.

In early 2024, we see a shift from morning hours (9:00 - 12:00 UTC) to late evening hours (21:00 - 23:00 UTC).

She frequently shares pictures of her growing family, and I cannot imagine how she has the energy to write after putting her toddlers to bed.

Posting schedule heatmap (by the author)

Finally, I looked at her volume of posts by hour during the same period. This is important because we want to normalize the engagement numbers by the volume of posts during that hour.

Posting volume by hour (by the author)

I uploaded these last three charts to ChatGPT with a request to analyze them and provide an optimal posting strategy using this prompt:

Analyze the following graphs for engagement metrics by hour and normalize using the volume of posts by posting hour. Find the optimal posting strategy.

AI tools are handy in this area; they find details and complex relationships in graphs and provide easy-to-understand summaries.

Here is what I received from ChatGPT:

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To find the optimal posting strategy, let’s break down what each chart is telling us and normalize engagement by the number of posts made at each hour.

📊 Step 1: Engagement Overview (Image 1)

Top Bar Chart – Engagement by Posting Hour (UTC):

• This shows raw engagement (green = reactions, yellow = restacks).

• Peak hours for engagement:

  • 14:00 UTC

  • 22:00 UTC

  • 19:00–21:00 UTC

Heatmap – Reactions by Hour Over Time:

• Strong concentration of high reactions in 14:00–22:00 UTC range, especially in the most recent months.

• Green to yellow tiles = more reactions; red = high outliers.

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🧮 Step 2: Normalize Engagement (Image 3)

To normalize, we divide engagement by the number of posts per hour. The histogram in Image 3 shows post volume by the hour.

🔎 Key Takeaway:
14:00 UTC has the highest normalized engagement, despite a low posting volume — suggesting less competition + high user interaction.

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📌 Step 3: Posting Heatmap (Image 2)

• Reinforces that recent activity has shifted to 20:00–23:00 UTC, but 14:00 remains underutilized relative to its engagement return.

• Opportunity: 14:00 UTC is a high-engagement, low-competition slot.

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✅ Optimal Posting Strategy (UTC)

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✍️ Final Notes

• Consider A/B testing posts around 14:00 UTC to validate if the trend holds with your specific audience.

• If scheduling multiple posts: stagger across 14:00, 20:00, and 22:00 UTC.

• Keep monitoring the heatmaps—if more people shift to 14:00 after you do, revisit your strategy.

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📌 Additional Tips

• Test + Measure: Reintroduce occasional posts at low volume hours to confirm if those time slots regain performance.

• Use scheduling tools: Automate publication to hit these ideal UTC windows regardless of your local timezone.

• Content batching: Prep content in advance to ensure you’re not missing optimal windows due to day-to-day delays.

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Not bad, eh? AI tools are pretty good at finding patterns in the data and linking those patterns to other knowledge on which these models have been trained.

Actionable Tips and Strategic Suggestions

I asked for additional actionable tips and strategic suggestions to help to get even more out of these engagement insights and got this response:

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📌 Advanced Tips Based on the Data

1. Own the 14:00 UTC Slot

• Why: Highest engagement per post, but underused.

• Action: Treat 14:00 like your premium post window — share your most valuable, original, or viral-worthy content then.

• Enhancement: Pair posts with strong CTAs (calls to action) or questions to prompt replies and restacks.

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2. Leverage a “Follow-up” Strategy

• Why: Engagement stays high from 19:00–22:00 UTC.

• Action:

  • Post at 14:00 UTC, then return later that day (~20:00) with a related follow-up (e.g., update, quote, reply to replies).

  • Keeps your content visible while benefiting from both time zones.

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3. Schedule Around U.S. + Europe Time Zones

• 14:00 UTC = 10:00 AM US Eastern / 3:00 PM UK / 4:00 PM Central Europe — ideal overlap for both key audiences.

• Consider content types that appeal to both (e.g., cultural, business, creator-focused).

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4. Track Content Type vs. Time

• Not all content performs equally at every time.

• Experiment with:

  • Educational or deep content in the afternoon (14:00 UTC)

  • Short, punchy, or conversation starters in the evening (20:00–22:00 UTC)

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5. Test Weekday vs. Weekend Behavior

• Use the heatmaps to find out:
  Do weekends behave differently?
  Is 14:00 still a winner on Saturdays/Sundays?

If not, you could reserve weekends for lighter or experimental posts.

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🚀 Quick Wins

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This process took only a few minutes and gave deep insights into the optimal timeslots for scheduling posts. I did not provide any identifying information, just these numbers.

Interestingly, AI determined the importance of the U.S. and Europe time zones (Kristina lives in Germany).

With more data and the tools I have built for writers, you can create actionable insights to help you grow your newsletter business.

Final Thoughts

I have written about the best time to post before. I used a large dataset and science-based statistical analysis in that article to find the truth about an optimal posting schedule.

After spending a lot of effort to find a single answer, my recommendations have not changed. Here are simple, actionable steps you need to take:

1. Know Your Audience: Know where your readers are and when they engage with your content. I created a free tool for this purpose.

2. Test and Learn: Try publishing and tracking your engagement metrics at different times. Look for patterns in your data—don’t rely solely on general advice.

3. Consider Your Content: Different stories may resonate at different times. Short reads work better during commutes, while long-form pieces may get more traction in the evening.

4. Stay Flexible: What works today might not work tomorrow. Audience behavior can shift, so revisit and adjust your strategy regularly.
   

I produced this personalized Substack Posting Strategy in less than 10 minutes based on engagement metrics from users’ data. As demonstrated above, you can use the tools I have built. AI tools like ChatGPT can explain the charts and graphs; they are well-suited for that purpose.

⏰ Want to schedule your posts and notes at optimal times?

You can use the Substack built-in scheduler for Posts and my popular Substack Notes Scheduler tool.

🎯 Want your personal engagement heatmaps to run the analysis?

Try the Substack Dashboard tool here: Substack Dashboard service. The service has a 7-day free trial.