How Many Items Should Be in Your RSS Feed? (And Why It Matters for Auto-Posting)

Updated: 2026-09-27

Short answer: 15–20 items suits most blogs and news sites, and the 10 or 15 most CMS platforms default to is already close. The count decides how far back any tool can see: publish several posts at once and a short feed can push items out before an automation tool next checks it. If you publish in bursts, raise it to 30–50 — the performance cost is negligible at that size. Most CMS platforms change this in reading or feed settings, with no plugin needed.

Most CMS platforms default to showing the 10 or 15 most recent posts in an RSS feed, and for the vast majority of sites, that default is already close to right. The number matters more than it looks, though, because it directly controls how much of your history any given automation tool or reader can actually see.

Why the Item Count Matters for Auto-Posting

An automation tool detects “new” content by comparing what’s currently in your feed against what it’s already seen. If your feed only holds 10 items and you publish 15 posts in a short burst (a migration, a bulk import, a catch-up after time away), the oldest 5 of those never appear in the feed at all — and a tool that only checks the feed, rather than your full archive, will simply never see or post them.

What a Low Item Count Risks

A feed capped too low mainly bites during unusual publishing bursts, not normal day-to-day posting. If you publish once a day and your feed holds 15 items, you have roughly two weeks of buffer even if a check gets delayed — plenty of margin. If you batch-publish multiple posts at once, a low item count can silently skip the overflow with no error or warning.

What a High Item Count Risks

Going too high isn’t dangerous, but it isn’t free either — a feed with hundreds of items takes longer to generate and fetch, uses more bandwidth on every check, and gives automation tools more data to parse for no real benefit, since they only care about what’s new since last time. There’s a genuine point of diminishing returns past roughly 20–30 items for most use cases.

What to Actually Set

15–20 items is a sensible default for most blogs and news sites, comfortably covering normal publishing cadence with margin for an occasional multi-post day. If you publish in bursts — several posts at once on a regular schedule, or after planned gaps — raising it to 30–50 gives real headroom without meaningfully impacting performance. Most CMS platforms let you adjust this in reading or feed settings without any plugin required.

How Item Count Works Together with Polling Frequency

The item count and the polling interval of your automation tool form one buffer together. What matters is how many posts you publish between two checks, compared with how many items the feed holds. PostRSS checks each feed as often as every minute, so in day-to-day use the gap between checks is short and even a 10-item feed is rarely a problem.

The risk grows when the gap becomes longer than usual: a bulk import that publishes dozens of posts in one go, a caching plugin that holds an old copy of the feed for an hour, or a period when the feed was temporarily unreachable. In each of those cases, more posts can pile up than the feed can show. A higher item count is simply insurance for those moments.

Where to Change the Setting

On WordPress the number is under Settings, Reading, in the field “Syndication feeds show the most recent”. Change it, save, and open your feed URL to confirm the new count. Most other CMS platforms keep a similar option in their reading, blog or feed settings. If your feed is served through a caching plugin or a CDN, purge the cache afterwards so tools see the longer feed straight away; our guide to RSS feed caching explains how.

Recovering Items That Were Skipped

If a burst has already pushed some posts past the end of your feed, raise the item count first so those posts reappear in the feed. PostRSS can then catch up: pick the date to start from and it also posts older feed items that were never published. To avoid flooding your followers with a backlog, set the maximum number of posts per update, so the recovered items go out gradually rather than all at once.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check how many items my current feed includes?

Open your feed URL directly and count the <item> entries, or check your CMS’s reading/feed settings, where this is usually a simple numeric field.

Will increasing my feed’s item count slow down my site?

Not meaningfully for typical blog-sized increases (going from 10 to 30, for example) — the difference becomes noticeable only at very large counts (hundreds of items) or on already-slow servers.

If I batch-publish posts, is there a better fix than raising the item count?

Raising the count is the simplest fix; the alternative is spacing out publishing so fewer posts land in any single automation check window, but that’s usually more disruptive to your workflow than just adjusting one setting.

Can an auto-posting tool post items that have dropped out of my feed?

No. A tool only sees what is currently in the feed. Raise the item count so the missed posts reappear, then use PostRSS catch-up with a start date to publish the older items that were never posted.

The Bottom Line

Your feed’s item count is a buffer against timing gaps between publishing and automation checking it — too low risks silently skipping content during publishing bursts, too high adds unnecessary overhead with no real benefit. 15–20 items covers most sites; bump it higher only if you know you publish in batches.