The Best Time to Send a Press Release in 2026 (Study of 56,606 Releases)

Introduction

When is the best time to send a press release? Which words show up in nearly every announcement? And how many press releases are now being written by AI? To find out, PR Gun analyzed 56,606 press releases distributed across ten of the largest newswire services—PR Newswire, EIN Presswire, GlobeNewswire, PRWeb, Business Wire syndication partners and more—collected in 2026.

This is original data drawn from real, published press releases, not a survey of opinions. Below are the findings, the charts, and what they mean for anyone trying to get their announcement noticed. You are welcome to cite or republish any statistic on this page with a link back to this study.

Key findings at a glance

• Thursday is the most popular day to issue a press release (22.6%), narrowly beating Tuesday (22.0%). Roughly 82% of all releases go out Monday through Thursday.
• Noon is the single most common send time (13.9% of releases), and about 41% are sent between 11am and 3pm.
• The average press release runs about 870 words (median 724)—far longer than most journalists say they will read.
• Nearly 1 in 5 press releases (18.7%) calls something "innovative."
• At least 1 in 45 releases (2.2%) now shows classic AI-generated phrasing such as "delve," "tapestry," "ever-evolving" and "a testament to."

The best day to send a press release

Across the 30,000+ dated releases in our sample, distribution clusters hard in the middle of the work week. Thursday (22.6%) and Tuesday (22.0%) are the two busiest days, with Monday and Wednesday close behind. The weekend is nearly dead: Saturday and Sunday combined account for under 4% of all releases.

The takeaway is twofold. If you want to ride the natural news cycle when reporters are actively working, Tuesday through Thursday is the consensus window. If you want to stand out in a less crowded inbox, a Monday or a Friday release faces noticeably less competition—and almost nobody is competing on the weekend.

The best time of day to send a press release

Timing within the day is even more concentrated. Noon is the single most popular hour to cross the wire (13.9% of releases with a recorded send time), and the early afternoon stays busy: about 41% of all releases go out between 11am and 3pm. There is a smaller secondary bump in the early evening around 8pm.

Most PR guidance recommends sending in the morning—ideally before 10am—so your news is waiting when reporters start their day. Our data shows the industry doing the opposite, piling into the lunch hour. That makes the quieter 8–10am window a genuine opportunity to land near the top of an inbox before the midday flood.

How long is the average press release?

The average press release in our sample is about 870 words, with a median of 724 words and an average headline of 98 characters (roughly 14 words). For comparison, most editors and PR coaches recommend keeping a release to 300–500 words—meaning the typical release is nearly double the recommended length.

Longer is not better. A tighter release that leads with the news, supports it with one strong quote and a single data point, and links out for detail is far more likely to be read to the end than an 870-word block of background and boilerplate.

The most overused words in press releases

We scanned every release for the clichés that PR writers reach for most. The runaway winner: "innovative," which appears in 18.7% of all press releases. "Seamless," "robust" and the ever-present "proud to" each show up in roughly 7%.

None of these words carry information—they are the verbal equivalent of throat-clearing. When one in five releases describes itself as "innovative," the word stops meaning anything. The releases that get picked up tend to replace the adjective with the evidence: the number, the customer, the result that makes the claim for you.

The rise of AI-written press releases

2026 is the first year in which AI-generated language is measurable in the wire at scale. Searching for the tell-tale phrasing of large language models—words like delve, tapestry, ever-evolving, navigating the and a testament to—we found that at least 2.2% of press releases (about 1 in 45) now carry classic AI fingerprints. Individually, "underscores" appears in 3.6% of releases, "furthermore" in 3.0%, and "pivotal" in 2.6%.

This is a conservative floor, not a ceiling: it only counts the most obvious tells, and well-edited AI drafts leave no trace. The practical lesson is to edit the robotic phrasing out before you publish—reporters increasingly recognize these patterns, and a release that reads like a chatbot wrote it is a fast way to be ignored.

What this means for your next press release

Put the data together and a clear playbook emerges:

• Send Tuesday–Thursday to ride the news cycle, or Monday/Friday to dodge the crowd.
• Send in the morning (8–10am) to beat the noon pile-up.
• Keep it under 500 words. Lead with the news.
• Cut the clichés. Replace "innovative" and "seamless" with a number or a result.
• Edit out AI phrasing before it goes live.

A great press release still needs to reach the right outlets. PR Gun distributes your release to 500+ news sites, including Google News and AP News, starting at $49—with free professional writing included. Write it well, time it right, and put it in front of the audiences that matter.

Methodology

This study analyzes 56,606 press releases (55,523 with full body text) distributed via ten major newswire services and collected by PR Gun in 2026. Day-of-week and time-of-day analyses use the 30,036 releases carrying a 2026 publication date; the hour-of-day breakdown further restricts to the 22,167 releases with a recorded clock time. Word and phrase analysis is case-insensitive and measures the share of releases in which a term appears at least once (not total frequency). Because the sample is a 2026 snapshot rather than a multi-year panel, we report distributions within the period and make no claims about year-over-year change. Figures may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Cite or republish this study

Journalists, bloggers and researchers are free to use these statistics. Please credit PR Gun and link to this page (https://prgun.com/article/75/best-time-to-send-a-press-release). Suggested citation:

"The Best Time to Send a Press Release in 2026," PR Gun analysis of 56,606 press releases. https://prgun.com/article/75/best-time-to-send-a-press-release