Most dispensary SMS programs send Friday at 4pm because every other dispensary sends Friday at 4pm. That window is usually the worst time to send — saturation drives down opens, drives up opt-outs, and trains carriers that your traffic spikes when filtering tightens.
Windows that consistently outperform
Late-morning weekday (10:00am–11:30am local)
Pre-lunch attention, low SMS competition, and a long redemption tail through the rest of the day. Strong for promo and restock alerts to mid-frequency segments.
Early evening weekday (5:30pm–7:00pm local)
Post-commute attention with same-day intent. Strong for restock and evening-pickup-friendly offers. Avoid pushing into 8pm+ to stay clear of carrier-sensitive late-evening sends.
Mid-afternoon Saturday (1:30pm–3:00pm local)
Weekend leisure intent without the Friday-4pm saturation effect. Strong for loyalty reminders and informational sends.
Windows to avoid
- Friday 3:30pm–5:00pm (the saturated default)
- Before 9:00am local (carrier-sensitive; quiet-hour risk)
- After 9:00pm local (quiet-hour risk; opt-out spike)
- Sunday morning (low engagement; high opt-out across the category)
Frequency caps
Across our data, the inflection point is consistent: subscribers who receive more than 5 promotional messages in a 30-day window opt out at roughly 2.4x the rate of subscribers held to 2-3 messages in the same window. Frequency caps protect the channel more than they limit it.
Behavior over template
Static "best time" recommendations age out fast. Per-segment open windows learned from your own data consistently beat any static playbook by 15-25% on engagement. Treat the windows above as starting points, then let the platform learn the segment-specific patterns that actually exist in your customer base.
How to test
- Hold a 20% control group on each campaign for 4 weeks
- Test a single variable at a time (timing OR pacing OR content)
- Measure both revenue per send AND opt-out rate — don't optimize one and burn the other
- Let the per-segment learning system take over once you have 8-10 sends of pattern data