Cron Expressions for Salesforce Apex Scheduler

Salesforce Apex uses a 7-field cron format in System.schedule() that is similar to Quartz — it adds seconds as the first field, supports an optional year as the last field, and uses 1-based day-of-week numbering where Sunday = 1. Use our free cron generator to build the 5-field base, then adapt it to Salesforce format using the patterns below.

Salesforce also imposes hard limits: no more than 100 scheduled Apex jobs per org, and the minimum scheduling interval is 1 hour for most use cases.

Salesforce Apex Cron Format — 7 Fields

+------------- Seconds (0-59)
|  +----------- Minutes (0-59)
|  |  +--------- Hours (0-23)
|  |  |  +------- Day of month (1-31, ?, L, W, LW)
|  |  |  |  +----- Month (1-12 or JAN-DEC)
|  |  |  |  |  +--- Day of week (1-7, SUN=1, MON=2...SAT=7, or SUN-SAT, ?, L, #)
|  |  |  |  |  |  +-- Year (optional, 1970-2099)
|  |  |  |  |  |  |
0  0  9  ?  *  2  *

Used in Apex code as:

String cronExpr = '0 0 9 ? * 2 *';    // Every Monday at 9 AM
System.schedule('Weekly Report', cronExpr, new MySchedulableClass());

Critical difference from standard cron: Day-of-week uses 1-7 where 1=Sunday, 2=Monday, ..., 7=Saturday. Standard cron uses 0-6 where 0=Sunday, 1=Monday, ..., 6=Saturday. A Monday in standard cron is 1; in Salesforce Apex it is 2.

Common Salesforce Apex Cron Expressions

Goal	Apex Expression	Notes
Every day at 9 AM	0 0 9 * * ? *	? in day-of-week = no restriction
Every weekday at 9 AM	0 0 9 ? * 2-6 *	2-6 = Mon through Fri in Apex
Every Monday at 9 AM	0 0 9 ? * 2 *	2 = Monday in Apex (not 1)
Every hour at :30	0 30 * * * ? *	Runs at :30 past every hour
First of month midnight	0 0 0 1 * ? *	? in day-of-week, 1 in day-of-month
Last day of month	0 0 0 L * ? *	L = last day of month
Last Friday of month	0 0 0 ? * 6L *	6 = Friday, L = last occurrence
Second Monday of month	0 0 9 ? * 2#2 *	2 = Monday, #2 = second occurrence

Day-of-week name aliases work identically: MON-FRI is the same as 2-6 in Salesforce Apex. Name aliases are more readable for team code reviews.

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Converting a Standard Cron Expression to Salesforce Apex Format

Use our cron generator to build the standard 5-field expression, then convert:

1. Add seconds field (0) at the start. Standard 0 9 * * * becomes 0 0 9 * * ?.
2. Add ? to whichever day field you don't want to restrict. Salesforce requires exactly one of day-of-month or day-of-week to be ?.
3. Adjust day-of-week numbers. Add 1 to standard cron numbers: standard Monday (1) → Apex Monday (2). Sunday is standard 0 → Apex 1.
4. Optionally add year field (*) at the end.

Example: Standard 0 9 * * 1-5 (9 AM weekdays) → Apex 0 0 9 ? * MON-FRI *

Standard cron	Salesforce Apex
0 9 * * *	0 0 9 * * ? *
0 9 * * 1-5	0 0 9 ? * MON-FRI *
0 0 1 * *	0 0 0 1 * ? *
0 9 * * 1	0 0 9 ? * MON *
*/30 * * * *	0 0/30 * * * ? *

Salesforce Apex Scheduler Limits and Gotchas

• 100-job limit: Each Salesforce org can have a maximum of 100 scheduled Apex jobs running simultaneously. This includes jobs scheduled by managed packages. Query current count with: SELECT COUNT() FROM CronTrigger WHERE CronJobDetail.JobType = '7'
• Minimum 1-hour interval: While the cron format supports per-minute scheduling, Salesforce documentation recommends against scheduling jobs more frequently than once per hour. Overly frequent jobs can trigger governor limits.
• Deleting scheduled jobs: Use System.abortJob(jobId). Query the job ID with SELECT Id FROM CronTrigger WHERE CronJobDetail.Name = 'Your Job Name'.
• Test class requirement: Scheduled Apex must be tested with Test.startTest() / Test.stopTest() wrapping the System.schedule() call. The test framework executes the scheduled job synchronously within stopTest().
• Time zone: Scheduled Apex runs in the org's default timezone as configured in Setup. Unlike Quartz, there is no per-job timezone setting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cron expression format for Salesforce System.schedule()?

Salesforce uses a 7-field format: "Seconds Minutes Hours Day-of-month Month Day-of-week [Year]". Day-of-week uses 1-based numbering where 1=Sunday, 2=Monday, ..., 7=Saturday — one higher than standard cron. Either day-of-month or day-of-week must be set to ? (no specific value). Example: "0 0 9 ? * 2 *" means every Monday at 9 AM.

How do I schedule an Apex class to run every Monday at 9 AM?

Use: System.schedule("Weekly Job", "0 0 9 ? * MON *", new MySchedulableClass()); The expression "0 0 9 ? * MON *" means: second=0, minute=0, hour=9, day-of-month=? (any), month=* (every), day-of-week=MON (Monday), year=* (every year). Your class must implement the Schedulable interface with an execute(SchedulableContext sc) method.

Can Salesforce Apex run a scheduled job more than once per hour?

Technically yes — the cron format supports per-minute intervals. However, Salesforce recommends against scheduling more frequently than once per hour to avoid governor limits. For high-frequency processing, use a Queueable or Batchable Apex class triggered by platform events or a message queue rather than over-scheduling cron jobs.