The Best Time to Send Cold Emails (With Data)

Does Send Time Actually Matter?

The short answer is yes, but less than you think. Timing can improve your open rates by 10-20%, but it will never save a bad email or fix a poorly targeted list. Think of timing as a multiplier — it amplifies the performance of emails that are already well-written and well-targeted.

That said, 10-20% improvement in open rates compounds across hundreds or thousands of emails. If you are doing cold outreach at any scale, optimizing your send time is worth the effort.

The Best Days to Send Cold Emails

Multiple studies across millions of cold emails consistently show the same pattern:

• Tuesday: The consensus best day. People have cleared their Monday backlog and are settled into their workweek. Open rates are typically 15-20% higher than average.
• Wednesday: A close second. Midweek focus is high, and inboxes are less cluttered than Monday.
• Thursday: Solid performance, especially for follow-up emails. People are looking to tie up loose ends before the weekend.
• Monday: Decent but competitive. Inboxes are packed from the weekend, and your email is competing with dozens of others.
• Friday: Mixed results. Some studies show decent open rates (people are relaxed), but reply rates drop because people postpone action until the following week.
• Saturday/Sunday: Avoid for B2B outreach. Open rates are low, and sending on weekends can make you look unprofessional.

The Best Time of Day

The data points to two optimal windows:

Early morning: 8:00 - 10:00 AM (recipient's local time). Your email arrives as they are starting their day and reviewing their inbox. This consistently produces the highest open rates across studies.

Early afternoon: 1:00 - 3:00 PM (recipient's local time). The post-lunch inbox check. People return from lunch or meetings and catch up on email. This window often produces strong reply rates, even if open rates are slightly lower than morning sends.

The worst times are generally before 7:00 AM (your email gets buried), 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (people are in meetings or heading to lunch), and after 5:00 PM (your email sits overnight and competes with the morning flood).

Time Zone Considerations

If you are prospecting across multiple time zones, this adds complexity. An email sent at 9:00 AM Eastern hits inboxes at 6:00 AM Pacific — too early for West Coast recipients.

The solution is to segment your list by time zone and stagger your sends accordingly. Most email sending tools (Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist) have built-in timezone-aware scheduling.

If you cannot segment by timezone, target 10:00 AM Eastern / 7:00 AM Pacific as a compromise that works reasonably well across US time zones.

Industry-Specific Timing

General data is useful, but your specific audience may behave differently:

• Restaurants and hospitality: Avoid sending during meal rush hours. Early morning (7-8 AM) or mid-afternoon (2-4 PM) work best.
• Healthcare providers: Before patient hours (7-8 AM) or during lunch (12-1 PM) when they are between appointments.
• Agencies and consultants: Standard business hours work well. Tuesday-Thursday, 9-11 AM.
• E-commerce: Tuesday-Wednesday mornings tend to perform best.
• Construction and trades: Very early morning (6-7 AM) before they head to job sites, or evening (6-8 PM) when they are doing admin work.

How to Find Your Own Best Time

Published data gives you a starting point, but every audience is different. Run your own experiments:

• Split your list into equal, similar segments
• Send the same email at different times (e.g., 8 AM vs. 1 PM)
• Track open rates and reply rates for each segment
• Run the test across at least 200 emails per time slot for statistical significance

After two to three campaigns, you will have your own data on what works for your specific audience. This is more valuable than any general study.

Timing Your Follow-Up Sequence

First email timing matters, but follow-up timing matters too. The general guidelines:

• Follow-up 1: 3-4 business days after the first email
• Follow-up 2: 4-5 business days after follow-up 1
• Follow-up 3: 5-7 business days after follow-up 2

Send follow-ups at the same time of day as your original email, or slightly earlier. If someone opened your 9 AM email but did not reply, try following up at 8:30 AM to catch them before their inbox fills up.

Putting It All Together

The optimal cold email schedule based on aggregate data: send your first email on Tuesday or Wednesday between 8:00 and 10:00 AM in the recipient's local time. Follow up on Friday or the following Monday in the early afternoon.

But remember — timing is the seasoning, not the main course. The foundation of effective cold email is a clean, verified list of the right prospects and a message that speaks directly to their needs. If you need help building that foundation, start with a tool like Easy Email Finder to source real business emails, and check out our guide on writing cold emails that actually get replies.

Test, measure, and optimize. The best send time for your business is the one your data proves works.