An Instagram carousel template: what goes on each slide, and the limits it has to fit

Short answer

Use a ten-slide frame: a cover that makes sense alone, a slide that says why it matters, six slides with one idea each, a recap and a single next step. The frame is ours; the limits are Instagram’s. The app takes up to 20 photos and videos in one carousel (Instagram’s API, which schedulers use, takes 10), in one shape for every slide, and 1080 × 1350 at 4:5 fits both routes. Limits read on 11 October 2026.

Written by the Mellow team · Updated October 22, 2026, sources read October 11, 2026

The template (ours)

Copy this table into a document and fill the last column. Ten slides is a starting point of ours, not a number Instagram recommends. The app’s limit is 20, and nothing we read says how many a carousel should have.

Slide	Its job	What goes on it
1	Cover	The one thing this carousel gives, in a single line. It has to make sense alone, because the feed and the profile show only this slide until someone swipes
2	Why it matters	The situation or the problem, in one or two lines
3	Idea one	One point, step or example: a headline and at most one short line
4	Idea two	Same shape as slide 3
5	Idea three	Same shape
6	Idea four	Same shape
7	Idea five	Same shape
8	Idea six	Same shape, or an example that ties the points together
9	Recap	The points as a list, in the order they came
10	Next step	One thing to do: save it, send it to someone, answer a question in the comments, or look at the next post. Choose one

Under the table, write the caption on its own. Instagram’s app lets you choose Single caption for the whole post or Multiple captions, one for each photo or video (Instagram Help Center).

Rules for every slide (ours, with one from Canva)

Rule	Why
One idea per slide	Canva’s guide says each slide should focus on one clear idea, and that a clear opening, a middle that builds and a last slide that lands the point separate a strong carousel from a forgettable one (Canva Design School)
The same margins, type and colours on every slide	Canva’s guide says typography, colour, layout and imagery should feel like they belong to the same idea from the first slide to the last
One shape for every slide	Instagram applies one orientation to every item, so a slide in another shape is cropped to match the others
Words away from the outer edge	Our habit: a slide that gets cropped loses its edges first
Check slide 1 as it will sit in the feed and on your profile	Canva advises previewing in both the feed and the profile grid, because small shifts in aspect ratio can change the crop. The Instagram pages we read give no current shape for the grid, so look at your own profile

What Instagram’s own pages fix

	In the Instagram app	Through Instagram’s API (what schedulers use)
Slides	Up to 20 photos and videos	Up to 10 images and videos
Shape	One orientation, square, portrait or landscape, for every item	Images from 4:5 to 1.91:1
Photo file	Width up to 1,080 pixels; a photo whose shape is between 1.91:1 and 3:4 keeps its resolution, any other shape is cropped	JPEG, 8 MB at most, 320 to 1,440 pixels wide
Video	Allowed, but a video in a carousel is not a reel and doesn’t show in the Reels tab	A reel can’t be a carousel item
Caption	Single or multiple captions	Up to 2,200 characters

Sources: Instagram Help Center, multiple photos or videos, Instagram Help Center, image resolution and Meta for Developers, IG User media, all read on 11 October 2026.

Sizes to design at

The Help Center keeps a photo as it is when its shape is between 1.91:1 and 3:4, at a width of 1,080 pixels with a height from 566 to 1440. The pixel sizes below follow from those ratios.

Shape	Pixels	Through the API
3:4	1080 × 1440	Not accepted: the API stops at 4:5
4:5	1080 × 1350	Accepted
1:1	1080 × 1080	Accepted
1.91:1	1080 × 566	Accepted

If a scheduling tool will post it, design at 4:5. Canva’s guide gives 1080 × 1350 for an Instagram feed post too.

Making and posting it

Write the ten lines first, text only, in the table above.
Choose one shape and make every slide that size.
Build the slides. In Canva, search “Carousel” for templates, then export a PNG for an image-only carousel or an MP4 if the design has video (Canva Design School). Mellow Hub’s free carousel maker turns one idea per slide into designed slides in your browser. For one picture that runs across several slides, use the carousel splitter.
Post or schedule. Instagram’s Help Center says a public account can schedule up to 25 posts a day, up to 30 days ahead, carousels included; product tags, collaborative posts, sponsored posts and fundraisers aren’t compatible with scheduling. Instagram’s page for creators says up to 75 days, and recommends drafts for making content in batches (Instagram for Creators). The two pages differ, so look at your own schedule screen.

After sharing you can reorder or remove slides and edit the caption, location and tags, but you can’t add a slide: delete the post and post again. The step-by-step is in how to make a carousel on Instagram.

Where Mellow Hub fits

Hub’s publishing side doesn’t design slides; the free tools above do. Once the slides exist, Hub publishes a carousel of up to 10 items to a professional Instagram account, checks the item count and caption before anything is sent, and can send the same slides to LinkedIn or Threads in one post. Instagram’s API takes fewer items than the app, which is why the cap is 10 and not 20.

The first 3 posts are free, however many networks each one goes to, and need no card. After that Hub is paid: plans start at $19 a month (Solo), after a 7-day trial with a card on file that costs nothing if you cancel before it ends, and a monthly plan's first month is 20% off. Publishing is unlimited on every plan, under a fair-use ceiling that stops automated floods (900 publications a month on Solo), where one publication is one post on one account, so a post sent to five networks counts as five toward it. There are no automatic overage charges.

Questions people also ask

How many slides should an Instagram carousel have?

Instagram sets only the ceiling: up to 20 photos and videos in the app, 10 through the API. No page we read gives a number a carousel should have. The template above uses ten, which is our default; use as many as you have ideas for.

Can I mix photos and videos in one Instagram carousel?

Yes. Instagram’s Help Center says a post can hold up to 20 photos and videos. A video in a carousel is not a reel, so it doesn’t appear in the Reels tab or get reels features.

Can slides in one carousel have different shapes?

No. The orientation you choose, square, portrait or landscape, applies to every photo and video in the post, and a slide in another shape is cropped to match.

Is there a free Instagram carousel template?

The table on this page is free to copy. For the slides themselves, Canva has carousel templates, and Mellow Hub’s carousel maker is a free tool that runs in the browser.

Can I add another slide after I post?

No. After sharing you can reorder or remove slides and edit the caption, location and tags. To add a new photo or video you delete the post and post it again.

Sources

Other companies’ features change. Every statement about them rests on these pages, as they read on the date above.