Meta still has widest social media reach

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Meta remains the leader of the pack in terms of total social platform reach and usage, while Threads continues to gain on X and Pinterest continues to rise. The information comes from the latest snapshot of overall users, as measured by app.

This is worth noting not only in terms of reach, but also in regards to where attention is shifting. The data can help brands and marketers think about where to spend promotional budgets, and also serves as a measure of general online trends.

As shown in this chart, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have all reached 3 billion monthly active users, based on the platform’s own reporting.

While Meta no longer shares platform-specific numbers in its quarterly performance update anymore, it does share milestone achievements. Per the company, Instagram is the most recent of Meta’s owned apps to reach the 3 billion user milestone, which it hit in September 2025. Meta shared that WhatsApp reached 3 billion users in its Q1 2025 earnings call, while Facebook hit that mark in 2023.

However, Meta only reports its total family of apps usage number, which is a combined total of unique users across all of its platforms. In Q1 2026, Meta reported 3.56 billion total users, which was a slight decline on its previous quarterly report, and the first decline in its overall user count since the company began reporting numbers.

That could suggest that Meta’s apps have lost some of their allure. Even so, more than 3 billion people — nearly a third of the world’s population — are still logging into one or more Meta apps every month.

Meta’s Messenger app sees 1.3 billion monthly actives, according to official reporting from the company, and Threads reached 500 million actives just last month.

YouTube is just behind Meta, based on reporting from Business of Apps, which reported that the platform has 2.7 billion monthly active users.

YouTube is generally pretty guarded about its official user counts, though it reported significant increases in Shorts views, which rose from about 30 billion daily views in 2022 to about 200 billion daily views in 2026.  

TikTok said it reached one billion monthly actives in 2021, although Business of Apps reported that the platform reached 1.6 billion MAU in 2023. It’s worth noting, however, that TikTok itself hasn’t shared any official usage data to confirm either number.

TikTok has also been hit with restrictions in some regions, and those may have potentially limited its growth.

Meanwhile, Snapchat is closing in on its first billion, with the platform reaching 956 million in Q1 2026. The platform has seen significant growth in India, where it’s become a key connector for young users.

The ranking of Pinterest here may be a surprise to some, with the platform now up to 631 million monthly actives.

X is almost neck-and-neck with Threads, with 550 million MAU.

Reddit doesn’t report monthly active user counts, but the company reported 126.8 million daily active users for the first quarter of 2026, up from 121.4 million in Q4 2025. An estimated 500,000 weekly actives is extrapolated from that, although Reddit’s actual monthly active figure may be higher.

LinkedIn also doesn’t share active user numbers. Instead, it reports its full member count, which is currently at 1.3 billion. But LinkedIn’s EU reporting data indicates that around 32% of EU LinkedIn members are actively using the app each month. That suggests that LinkedIn currently serves around 416 million monthly active users.

Of course, total user counts are not especially meaningful in a broader context, because what really matters is where the most relevant audience is for brand campaigns and messaging. With so many niche discussions and groups, that could mean every platform will have some value for outreach and engagement.

But in terms of broader trends, it is interesting to note where the platforms are placed, and which ones are leading the way in overall growth and presence.

It’s also worth noting that while only some platforms share their daily active user counts, the average conversion rate is around 2.05 times fewer than monthly counts, based on official reports.

That means that if brands want to estimate daily active user counts for any social app, they will need to divide the monthly number by 2.05 to get an estimate of their likely audience. The only significant outlier is Reddit, which sees 3.8 times more weekly users than daily users.