Recommended posting cadence per platform across 13 destination surfaces — with the algorithm reasoning behind each cadence and the failure modes for over- and under-posting.
Recommended posting cadence by platform: TikTok 1–4/day, Instagram Reels 1–2/day, Instagram Feed 3–5/week, Instagram Stories 3–10/day, YouTube long-form 1–3/week, YouTube Shorts 1–3/day, X 3–10/day, LinkedIn 1/weekday (above 1/day actively suppressed), Threads 3–8/day, Facebook Page 1–2/day, Facebook Reels 1–3/day, Pinterest 5–15/day, Bluesky 3–10/day, Newsletter 1–2/week. Each cadence is bounded by the platform algorithm's tolerance for high-frequency posting and the audience-attention budget per creator.
"Post more" is the wrong frame. Every platform algorithm has a different tolerance for high-frequency posting and a different failure mode when you cross it. LinkedIn actively suppresses second-post-of-day distribution; X has no such limit. Pinterest expects 5–15 pins/day for any meaningful discovery; Instagram Feed crashes at that volume. The cadence below is the operating range — not the maximum.
Source-density math (how many outputs your source can produce — see the Repurpose Math Index) interacts with cadence: a 60-minute podcast can produce 4–8 shorts, but you should NOT post all 8 on the same day to TikTok. Stagger across 5–7 days to keep each post in its own audience-cohort re-test window.
Each entry below is the recommended operating range. Bounded below by "the account exits active cohorts" and above by "algorithmic suppression kicks in." Numbers are cross-checked against the per-platform spec entries at kompozy.io/specs.
| Platform | Recommended cadence | Content type |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok | 1–4 posts / day | Native vertical video (9:16, 21–34s sweet spot) |
| Instagram Reels | 1–2 posts / day | Native vertical video (9:16, max 3 min) |
| Instagram Feed | 3–5 posts / week | Photo, carousel, or short video (max 60s before auto-converting to Reel) |
| Instagram Stories | 3–10 frames / day | 15s frames (auto-splits longer videos into 60s chained segments) |
| YouTube (long-form) | 1–3 videos / week | Long-form 16:9 (8–20 min sweet spot for watch-time signals) |
| YouTube Shorts | 1–3 Shorts / day | Vertical 9:16 video (max 3 min, 15–60s sweet spot) |
| X (Twitter) | 3–10 posts / day | Text (280 chars free, 25k Premium), images, threads, short video |
| 1 post / weekday | Text posts, carousels (PDF), native video | |
| Threads | 3–8 posts / day | Text (500 chars), images, video (max 5 min) |
| Facebook Page | 1–2 posts / day | Text, photo, video, link previews |
| Facebook Reels | 1–3 Reels / day | Vertical 9:16 video (max 90s) |
| 5–15 pins / day | Pins (2:3 dominant), Video Pins (max 15 min) | |
| Bluesky | 3–10 posts / day | Text (300 chars), images, short video (max 60s) |
| Email Newsletter | 1–2 sends / week | HTML email (typical: 600–1500 words + 1–2 CTAs) |
Content type: Native vertical video (9:16, 21–34s sweet spot)
Why this cadence: TikTok rewards consistent posting because the For You Page algorithm re-tests each new post against a fresh audience cohort. Multiple daily posts compound impressions across non-overlapping audience slices.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 5/day, average completion-rate per video declines because audience attention budget is finite per creator. The algorithm reads completion-rate drop as content-quality drop and throttles future-post reach.
Under-posting failure mode: Posting less than 3x/week breaks the cold-start signal. The algorithm needs a recent posting history to confidently re-test the account on new audiences.
Content type: Native vertical video (9:16, max 3 min)
Why this cadence: Reels share creator-overall watch-time pool with Stories and Feed. Posting 1–2 Reels/day reserves the algorithmic boost without diluting Stories or Feed performance.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 3 Reels/day, Meta cross-attributes Reels watch-time as cannibalizing your Feed posts. Both surfaces see decay.
Under-posting failure mode: Below 3 Reels/week, the account exits the "active creator" pool and Reels distribution flattens to follower-only reach.
Content type: Photo, carousel, or short video (max 60s before auto-converting to Reel)
Why this cadence: Feed posts compete with Reels in the home tab. Posting daily Feed crowds out your own Reels distribution; weekly cadence keeps both surfaces saturated.
Over-posting failure mode: Daily Feed posts reduce per-post saves and shares because frequent posting trains the audience that any single post isn't high-priority.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 2/week, the algorithm reduces follower-graph distribution because the account looks inactive.
Content type: 15s frames (auto-splits longer videos into 60s chained segments)
Why this cadence: Stories live in a separate algorithmic surface from Feed and Reels — high frame count signals an active account and lifts the account's Feed and Reels rank.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 15 frames/day, completion-rate per frame drops sharply. The Stories ring is also visually de-prioritized when story-count appears spammy.
Under-posting failure mode: Posting fewer than 2 frames/week removes the Stories ring from many followers' home tabs, killing the lightest-friction creator-to-audience surface.
Content type: Long-form 16:9 (8–20 min sweet spot for watch-time signals)
Why this cadence: YouTube's recommendation engine rewards channel-level session-length. Posting 2–3 long-form per week maximizes session continuation without saturating the recommendation slot.
Over-posting failure mode: Daily long-form posting splits watch-time across too many uploads — none accrue enough cumulative watch-time to break out.
Under-posting failure mode: Below 1/week, the channel exits the "active" recommendation cohort and impressions drop hard.
Content type: Vertical 9:16 video (max 3 min, 15–60s sweet spot)
Why this cadence: Shorts run on a TikTok-style recommendation graph separate from long-form. Daily posting maximizes the new-audience-cohort re-test rate.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 4 Shorts/day, the algorithm starts re-using audience cohorts you've already shown — impressions go up but unique-viewer growth flattens.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 3 Shorts/week breaks the daily-active-channel signal.
Content type: Text (280 chars free, 25k Premium), images, threads, short video
Why this cadence: X's feed is chronological-weighted with engagement multipliers. High-frequency posting is the only way to maintain feed presence across an audience's scroll sessions.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 15/day, follower-graph dilution kicks in — your last 10 posts crowd out earlier posts from the same followers.
Under-posting failure mode: Below 3/day, the account drops out of "frequently posting" cohorts that the algorithm uses for content distribution.
Content type: Text posts, carousels (PDF), native video
Why this cadence: LinkedIn's feed algorithm penalizes high-frequency posting by individual accounts because the platform is designed for professional-context consumption, not entertainment feed scrolling.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 1/day, reach drops 40–60% per additional post — LinkedIn explicitly suppresses second-post-of-day distribution to keep feeds from being dominated by a single creator.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 2/week, the account ages out of the "engaged creator" pool. Recovery requires 3–4 weeks of daily posting to re-prime.
Content type: Text (500 chars), images, video (max 5 min)
Why this cadence: Threads runs an X-like high-frequency algorithm but with Meta's recommender feeding non-follower discovery aggressively. Multiple daily posts compound discovery.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 12/day, Threads applies a soft-reach-cap that reduces non-follower distribution. Follower-graph reach is unaffected.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 3/week and the account leaves the active-discovery cohort.
Content type: Text, photo, video, link previews
Why this cadence: Facebook Page reach has been algorithmically suppressed since 2018. 1–2 posts/day is the maximum cadence before per-post organic reach starts visibly halving.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 3/day, organic reach per post drops to ~30–50% of single-daily-post reach. Reels are the only Facebook surface where cadence above 2/day still grows reach.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 3/week, Page algorithmic distribution flattens to ~5% of follower count regardless of content quality.
Content type: Vertical 9:16 video (max 90s)
Why this cadence: Facebook Reels runs on the same Meta cross-product recommendation graph as Instagram Reels — cross-posting the same Reel to both increases total Meta watch-time signal.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 4 Reels/day, audience-overlap with cross-posted Instagram Reels degrades both surfaces.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 3 Reels/week, Facebook surface decays in parallel with the Instagram Reels signal.
Content type: Pins (2:3 dominant), Video Pins (max 15 min)
Why this cadence: Pinterest distribution is search-and-board-graph based, not feed-recency based. High daily pin volume compounds search-index entries.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 25/day, Pinterest may classify the account as auto-pinning and demote the entire pinner. Stay under 25.
Under-posting failure mode: Less than 5/day, the account never reaches the volume threshold where the discovery algorithm starts surfacing its pins in fresh search queries.
Content type: Text (300 chars), images, short video (max 60s)
Why this cadence: Bluesky's feed is reverse-chronological by default (no algorithmic suppression), so cadence directly translates to feed real-estate per follower.
Over-posting failure mode: Above 15/day, follower mutes and unfollows tick up — Bluesky's audience expects lower volume than X.
Under-posting failure mode: Below 3/week, the account loses follower attention because the chronological feed pushes inactive accounts out of view.
Cadences are pulled from the canonical platform-spec catalog at kompozy.io/specs (live-verified against official platform documentation where available; flagged "verify on platform docs" otherwise). Algorithm reasoning and failure-mode notes are derived from observed operating workflows in the Kompozy publishing pipeline and the public technical posts from each platform\'s engineering / creator-economy teams.
Numbers are honest operating ranges, not aspirational marketing figures. They will shift over time as platforms tune their algorithms — this index is versioned for 2026 and re-audited quarterly.
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