How do you schedule Instagram posts?

How to schedule an Instagram post in the app

Instagram schedules photos, carousels and Reels from its own app. These are the steps for a feed post, from Instagram’s Help Center, read on 15 October 2026:

1. Tap Create in the top left, or swipe right anywhere in Feed, then tap Post.
2. Select your photo and tap Next.
3. Add a caption, effects or filters.
4. Tap More options, turn on Schedule this post, and choose a date and time.
5. Tap Done, then Back, then Schedule.

Before you start: the page asks for a public account and allows up to 25 posts a day, up to 30 days ahead. A scheduled post keeps the privacy and audience settings it had when you scheduled it.

The scheduling page names carousel posts among what the app schedules and gives one set of steps for posts and Reels. Instagram’s page on multiple photos and videos allows up to 20 in one post. Product tagging, collaborative posts, sponsored posts and fundraisers aren’t compatible with scheduled content at this time, the scheduling page says.

Where the post waits, and how to change or delete it, is in where your scheduled Instagram posts are. Reels have their own steps in how to schedule Instagram Reels.

How to schedule an Instagram post from a computer

Instagram’s scheduling page has a computer edition, and it shows the same steps as the app. The Help Center’s computer steps for sharing a carousel run from Create to Share, with no scheduling step. Meta documents scheduling from a computer in Meta Business Suite, which publishes to Facebook and Instagram. These steps are from Meta’s page on posts, read on 15 October 2026:

1. Open Meta Business Suite and click Create post, from the home page or the Content tab.
2. Under Post to, select your Instagram profile, and a Facebook Page too if you want both.
3. Under Media, add your photos. The limit for posting to Instagram is 10 photos.
4. Under Post details, write the text. You can customise it for Facebook and Instagram.
5. Under Scheduling options, select the date and time. Active times suggests when followers were most active on Facebook and Instagram over the past 7 days.
6. Click Schedule.

Meta’s page on saving and scheduling posts says a scheduled post shows in Planner, and under Content, Posts & reels, Scheduled, where it can be rescheduled. Neither page names a limit on how far ahead you can schedule, or on posts a day. The Instagram account has to be a business or creator account, and you can sign in to Business Suite with its Instagram credentials, without a Facebook Page (Meta). How to post to Instagram from a computer compares photos, Stories and posting to other networks.

Which account, how far ahead, how many posts

The three routes side by side, from the pages cited here, all read on 15 October 2026:

A professional account is a business or creator account. Instagram’s page on setting one up says you can switch to it, back to personal, or between the two types at any time, and that switching a private account to a professional one makes it public. On instagram.com the path is More, Settings, then under For professionals, Account type and tools.

What changes when a tool schedules the post

A scheduling tool is an app that posts through Instagram’s API. In Meta’s publishing guide an app creates a media container, then publishes it. Neither request has a time field, and no parameter in the IG User media reference is one either. So the tool keeps your post and sends it when it is due. The guide recommends that an app that lets people schedule enforce the publishing limit itself. The points below come from those two pages and the Instagram Platform overview, all read on 15 October 2026:

• Professional accounts only. The overview says app users must have an Instagram professional account, so a personal account has no route through this API.
• The image has to be a JPEG. JPEG is the only format the API takes. The file can be up to 8 MB, in a shape from 4:5 to 1.91:1, with a width of 320 to 1,440 pixels; Meta scales a file outside the width range. Instagram’s page on image resolution says the app keeps photos from 1.91:1 to 3:4, so a 3:4 photo the app posts whole is outside the API’s range. For anything a tool schedules, 1080 × 1350 is the safe size. Instagram post size has every shape.
• A carousel follows its first image. The guide says every image in a carousel is cropped to the first one’s shape, with 1:1 as the default. It allows up to 10 items.
• No Instagram filters. The guide lists filters among what the API doesn’t support. The app’s scheduler offers them.
• 100 posts in 24 hours. The guide’s rate-limit section says so. A line in its carousel section says 50, and the guide does not say which applies.
• The file has to be reachable. Instagram fetches the image from a public server when the post is attempted. And if the Instagram account is connected to a Facebook Page that requires Page Publishing Authorization, nothing can be published until that is completed.

A post a tool is holding is not in Instagram’s Scheduled content list or in Business Suite’s Planner. Neither has a scheduled post to show, because the API has no way to schedule one. The tool sends the post when it is due, and it is published then. Where your scheduled Instagram posts are says where to look for each. Is social media automation allowed covers whether tools like this are within the networks’ rules.

Can you schedule Instagram posts for free?

Yes. Meta says Meta Business Suite is free to use on desktop and in its mobile app (Meta), and Instagram’s scheduling page for the app names no charge. A tool sets its own prices; Hub’s are below.

Scheduling Instagram posts with Mellow Hub

Hub schedules a feed post through the API, so the limits above apply to it. What Hub connects for Instagram: A professional (Business or Creator) Instagram account. A personal account cannot publish through any API. In the composer you choose Instagram and the feed placement, add up to 10 photos or videos and a caption of up to 2,200 characters, and pick a time. Hub checks the caption and the number of items before anything is sent. It does not open an image file, so Instagram judges the image itself when it fetches the file. Its API takes JPEG only, so send a JPEG: we have not verified what happens to a PNG on the way. The free image converter saves a WebP, PNG or HEIC as a JPG. The grid planner shows how your next posts sit on the profile grid before you schedule them. It draws each tile as 3:4, the shape we measured on Instagram’s own profile in a web browser on 15 October 2026; we have not measured it in the app.

A post scheduled in Hub is listed on Hub’s Schedule and Posts screens, where it can be moved, edited or cancelled before it goes out. Hub’s notes on Instagram say one video goes out as a Reel even from the feed placement; we have not confirmed that on a live post. A Story is one item. The steps are in how to schedule Instagram Reels and how to schedule an Instagram Story. The same post can go to your other networks, each with its own caption (post to multiple social media at once). Auto posting to Instagram covers Meta’s own settings that copy a post between its apps.

Hub’s Instagram options take up to three collaborators on a post, never on a Story. Instagram’s app scheduler doesn’t take collaborative posts, and we have not proved a scheduled collaborator post live, so check the first one on your own account.

1. Create a Hub account.
2. Connect your accounts in Channels. Each network’s own sign-in screen opens, so Hub never sees a password. Bluesky is the exception: Hub connects it with your handle and an app password, which you can revoke in Bluesky’s settings.
3. Write the post in Compose, choose the channels and add the media. Where one network’s limit is shorter, give that network its own caption. The composer can shorten it for you.
4. Hub checks every network’s rules before anything is sent: caption length, media count and type, a required title or board. It lists every problem at once, naming the network.
5. Publish now or pick a time. Each network succeeds or fails on its own and returns its own link.

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.