Post frequency benchmarks
How does posting frequency affect reach rate? This cut breaks it down by follower bracket and posts per month, based on ~50,000 posts published in January.
As a reference point: An account with 5,000–10,000 followers posting 1–3 times per month saw a typical reach rate of 15.9%. At 16+ posts per month, that dropped to 9%.
More posts, lower reach per typical post.
The pattern holds across every bracket in this cut. But it’s not the full picture — the top end tells a different story. The tradeoff isn’t as simple as ‘post more, get less.’ Frequency has a cost — but the reach ceiling doesn’t always follow the floor down.
See the full breakdown below, including the 2.5–5K and 10–25K follower brackets, all frequency tiers, and breakout rates (viral outliers).
A 10% reach rate means roughly 10 out of 100 followers see the post.
The Shield Index
@TheShieldIndex / theshieldindex.com
Full breakdown
The full post frequency breakdown for January 2026.
Three follower brackets: 2.5–5K, 5–10K, and 10–25K. All four post frequency tiers. Breakout reach rates included (top 1% of posts in the dataset).
Higher frequency consistently lowers typical reach rate.
That’s the headline pattern. But the breakout column complicates it. In the 5–10K bracket, accounts posting 16+ times had a higher breakout rate (810%) than those posting 9–15 times per month (516%). The 10–25K bracket shows something similar — 16+ posts at 564% breakout vs 430% at 4–8 posts.
Posting more costs you per-post reach. But it doesn’t necessarily cost you the chance of a breakout post - a true viral hit. The system still rewards individual posts that land — it just dilutes the baseline.
The tradeoff is real: lower reach per post, but more shots at the posts that break through.
More January data cuts soon.