How Often Should You Post on YouTube?

One thing about YouTube that confuses a lot of creators is how frequently they should post new content on their channel. 

Unlike other common conundrums, like how YouTube counts views or why you can’t comment on a video, this one is harder to answer. Just looking around at popular and established YouTubers, you’ll see a variety of different posting schedules, from once a day to once a week to whenever they feel like it… and they’re all successful at getting lots of views!

So, when you ask the question, “How often should you post on YouTube?” the answer is, it’s complicated. But not for long! We’re here to clear away the confusion and help you figure out the best posting schedule for your channel that will bring you the most views, likes, and comments.

Let’s get to it!

How Often Should You Post on YouTube? It Depends.

First, we need to establish up front that there is no hard and fast posting schedule that fits every channel. 

The right posting schedule for your channel may be daily, weekly, or even monthly. Sometimes a schedule can be even looser than that – you just publish whenever you’re ready. It all depends. 

What does it depend on? There are several factors to consider, which we’ll get to in a moment. But let’s start with the type of videos you post and their typical duration.

For example, if you are in the business of creating YouTube Shorts, then it makes sense to post one or two Shorts every day, or at least on as many days of the week as you can. Shorts are easier to create and edit than long-form videos, and they also tend to generate the most engagement in the first few hours after they’re published. By the time 24 hours has passed, you’ll need to push out more content, so you can rank higher in the algorithm again.

If, on the other hand, you post vlogs or documentaries, those take more time to produce, film, and edit. These types of long-form videos justify a longer, and maybe even infrequent posting schedule. Furthermore, your audience probably already expects that they’ll need to wait awhile for the next installment.

Just by those examples, you can see why, when we talk about how often to post on your YouTube channel, there is no straightforward answer. But we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve to help make settling on a consistent posting schedule easier.

6 Factors To Help You Determine How Often to Post on YouTube

Here are those tricks we referenced: six factors that will help you determine how often to post on YouTube. 

As we go through them one by one, apply them to your channel and use them as a guide to find your ideal posting schedule.

1. Your Channel Niche

Your channel niche will have a significant impact on the frequency with which you should post. 

For example, if you create videos about news in cryptocurrency, then you’re probably going to have new topics to post about several times a week, if not every single day. But if you’re a beauty blogger who reviews makeup products, there’s not as much urgency to post daily. A weekly schedule might even be sufficient.

2. The Types of Videos You Post

Different types of videos call for different posting schedules. Shorts, product reviews, product demonstrations, and other short-form videos that are only 5 or ten minutes long can be posted once a day or a few times throughout the week. Vlogs, documentaries, in-depth interviews, and other videos that are longer than 15 or 20 minutes can be spread further apart.

3. The Duration of Your Videos

For most creators, it’s more feasible to post short-form videos – under 10 minutes – daily or a few times a week then it is a long-form video that runs beyond 10 minutes. The longer the video, the more scenes to shoot, the more editing needs to be done, and the more time it takes to produce overall. 

4. Your Audience Size

You may be surprised to learn that the size of your audience is extremely important for how often you should post YouTube content. 

Consider popular, rich YouTubers like MrBeast or Logan Paul who have millions of subscribers. They can follow whatever posting schedule they wish because they know their huge fanbases will bring them hundreds of thousands or millions of views on a single video. 

Smaller creators who are just starting out don’t have nearly as many subscribers. This means they need to post more often (and more regularly) to get more engagement and earn more money.

5. Your Budget, Time, and Resources

There are practical concerns to consider when figuring out a schedule for posting YouTube videos. These are your budget, time, and resources. 

If you simply don’t have the money, the hours, or the manpower to film, edit, and publish videos on a daily, every other day, weekly, or even bi-weekly basis, then there’s no point in considering it. Instead, you should just post as often as you can during these peak times, so that you can attract the most engagement possible on that day.

As your channel gets bigger and you’re able to increase your budget, time, and resources, then you can consider posting on a more frequent and consistent timeline.

6. Your Channel Goals

Finally, you must consider your goals for your channel. 

If you want to grow as fast as possible, then posting as often as you can – daily, if that’s realistic for you considering the other five factors in this list – is key. When you increase your presence on the platform, you’ll inevitably gain more engagement. 

But if you want to take it slow and focus on becoming a channel known for quality over quantity, then consider a slower-paced bi-weekly or monthly posting schedule. This will allow you to achieve your goal, slowly but surely, over a long period.

And If You’re Still Not Sure, Post Once a Week

If, after going through our six factors for helping you choose a YouTube posting frequency, you’re still not sure how often to post, start with once a week. See how this works out for you and your audience, and then consider speeding up or slowing down from there based on the feedback you get.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Each individual YouTube creator’s posting schedule must often be as unique as their content. Use the six factors we discussed above to help you find the perfect frequency for posting videos on your channel, or start with posting a video once a week and increase or decrease from there.