How do you schedule Instagram Reels?

In the Instagram app

Instagram schedules photos, carousels and Reels itself, from the app. From Instagram’s Help Center, read on 10 October 2026:

1. Tap Create in the top left, or swipe right anywhere in Feed, then tap Reel.
2. Select a video and tap Next.
3. Add a caption, effects or filters.
4. Tap More options.
5. Turn on Schedule this reel and choose a date and time.
6. Tap Done, then Back.
7. Tap Schedule.

The rules Instagram states:

• The account has to be public.
• You can schedule up to 25 posts a day, up to 30 days ahead.
• Scheduled content keeps the privacy and audience settings it had when you scheduled it.
• Product tagging, collaborative posts, sponsored posts and fundraisers aren’t compatible with scheduled content.

Where your scheduled Reels are

From your profile, tap Menu and, below Your insights and tools, tap Scheduled content; tap Options next to a Reel to Delete, Edit post, Reschedule or Share now. Meta Business Suite has lists of its own, in Planner and under Content, and a tool holds its posts itself. Where each one lives, and why a scheduled post may not show, is in where your scheduled Instagram posts are.

On a computer: Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite schedules Reels for an Instagram account on its own or together with a Facebook Page. From Meta’s page on reels:

1. Go to Meta Business Suite and click Create reel.
2. Under Post to, select your Instagram profile, and a Page too if you want both.
3. Under Media, add the video, then choose a thumbnail or upload one.
4. Add a caption. You can customise it for Facebook and Instagram.
5. Click Next, then choose to schedule, share now or save as a draft. To schedule, select the date and time.
6. Click Schedule.

The Meta Business Suite app does the same: tap +, choose Reel, and under Scheduling options select Schedule for later. For Instagram, Business Suite can’t make a reel from photos and can’t edit the video; those tools work only for Facebook. The Instagram account has to be a business or creator account (Meta). Meta’s pages on saving and scheduling posts and on reels name no limit on how far ahead.

Through an API: what tools can do

Scheduling tools publish through Instagram’s API. Meta states its limits on two developer pages (content publishing, IG User media), both read on 10 October 2026:

The 100 comes from the rate-limit section of Meta’s page, which says carousels count as one post and recommends that a scheduling app enforce the limit itself. A line in the carousel section of the same page still says 50. Two more things from that page decide whether a tool can post: the video has to be on a publicly reachable server at the time of the attempt, and if the Facebook Page connected to the Instagram account requires Page Publishing Authorization, the API refuses to publish until it has been completed. A Reel recorded for 20 minutes in the app (Instagram’s page on recording Reels) is over the API’s 15.

Scheduling Reels with Mellow Hub

Hub schedules Instagram Reels through the same API. A professional (Business or Creator) Instagram account. A personal account cannot publish through any API. Choose Reels as the placement, add one video and a caption of up to 2,200 characters, and pick a time. A Reel can also go as a trial reel, shown first to people who don’t follow you; Meta’s publishing guide says it then graduates to your followers either by hand in the app or automatically, if it performs well. Hub doesn’t measure the file itself: Instagram’s API judges length and size when it fetches the video. Check the file first with the free video checker, and keep text clear of the buttons with the Reels safe zone checker.

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.

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). One publication is one post on one account, so a post sent to five networks counts as five. There are no automatic overage charges.