How To Schedule Instagram Posts: The Beginner’s Guide

Want to learn how to schedule Instagram posts? You’re in the right place.

In this post, I’ll show you three easy ways to schedule all your Instagram posts, including Instagram feed posts, Carousels, Reels, and Stories.

We’ll start by looking at the pros and cons of each scheduling method and when/why you might want to use them. Then, I’ll walk you through each one, step by step.

If you stick around until the end, I’ll also share some advanced scheduling techniques that the Instagram pros use, as well as some bonus tips to help you optimize your posting schedule.

Why schedule Instagram posts in advance?

Whether you’re an influencer, social media manager, or business owner, scheduling Instagram posts in advance is almost always a smarter strategy than posting manually.

Here are some of the key benefits:

• Improved organization. Scheduling posts allows you to plan your campaigns with clarity. Instead of scrambling to create and post content on the same day, you can map out an entire month’s (or more) worth of posts ahead of time, ensuring a cohesive Instagram feed.
• Increased efficiency. Instagram scheduling tools streamline your workflow. Advanced features like bulk uploads, cross-platform scheduling, and AI generation all save you hours of work. You can then redirect that extra time you save towards other efforts, like engaging with your audience or refining your overall strategy.
• Better performance. Many Instagram schedulers can analyze your audience’s activity to suggest the best times to post, maximizing your reach and engagement. Manual posting doesn’t offer these kinds of insights, so you’re left guessing.
• Consistent posting (without the stress). Scheduling eliminates the risk of human error. You don’t have to worry about forgetting to post something on critical days or missing peak times. Your posts are queued up in advance so you can set it and forget it. No more setting your alarm for 2 AM so you can share something when your international audience is active.
• Content creation support. Many Instagram schedulers come with extra features to help you generate or curate content, such as hashtag recommendations, stock image libraries, design tools, AI caption writers, etc. This makes it easier to create high-quality posts at scale and fill out your content calendar.

The three ways to schedule Instagram posts

To make sure I’ve covered all bases, I’ll be sharing three different methods you can use to schedule Instagram content in this post: 

1. The Instagram App (the easiest method)
2. Meta Business Suite
3. SocialBee (the best method)

Each has its pros and cons, which I’ve outlined in the table below.

But in most cases, I’d recommend scheduling with SocialBee. It’s much more powerful than Instagram/Meta’s native scheduling tools and, unlike the other two options, it doesn’t only let you schedule posts over the next 29 days—you can plan as far ahead as you want and recycle evergreen content.

Plus, you can use SocialBee to schedule to all your social media profiles from one place (not just Instagram). And it comes with many other powerful social media management tools to boot.

Click here to get a free trial of SocialBee.

	The Instagram App (the easy method)	Meta Business Suite (more control but more complicated)	SocialBee (the best method)
When to use it	You only need to schedule a few posts at a timeYou only need to schedule posts to get published within the next month	You need to schedule many posts at a timeYou only need to schedule posts to get published within the next month	You want to schedule posts over 30 days in advance.You want to schedule posts to multiple networks from one placeYou want to create a category-based posting schedule
Pros	Very easy to useSchedule natively inside the Instagram appCompletely free	More features than the Instagram appBulk scheduling supportedManage posts in a content calendarSupports all Instagram post types (including Stories)Completely free	No limit on how far in advance you can scheduleSchedule posts individually or by categoryPowerful AI tools to automate your strategy & scheduling effortsSupports all social networks
Cons	Can only schedule up to 29 days in advanceCan only schedule to your Instagram & Facebook pageCan’t schedule StoriesNo bulk scheduling tools or content calendar	Can only schedule up to 29 days in advanceCan only schedule to your Instagram & Facebook pageNot as easy to use as the appFew bells and whistles	Not free (requires a small monthly subscription fee)Takes longer to set up than the app (you have to connect your Instagram account)

How to schedule Instagram posts using the app

The simplest, easiest way to schedule Instagram posts is using the Instagram mobile app. However, you can only schedule up to 29 days in advance and you won’t be able to schedule Stories using this method.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Open the Instagram app and click the + icon to create a new post like you normally would.

2. Take/upload your photo or video like you normally would and edit it to add any text or effects as needed, then click Next.

3. Write your caption and add any tags as needed, then click Advanced settings.

4. Tap the toggle button next to Schedule this post.

5. Choose the date and time you want the post to be published.

6. Go back and click Schedule.

And you’re done! Instagram will automatically publish the post at the time and date you chose. 

You can view and manage your scheduled posts through your Instagram profile. Just tap the menu icon in the top right, then click Scheduled content. 

You’ll see a list of all your upcoming posts, and you can tap any of them to amend, publish, or delete them.

How to schedule Instagram posts using Meta Business Suite

If you want a little more control than you get with the app, you can use Meta Business Suite instead—a free tool for Facebook & Instagram creators.

It still only lets you schedule up to 29 days ahead of time, but unlike the IG app, it supports Stories and bulk scheduling. And it has some advanced features to help with planning and organization, like a visual content calendar.

Here’s how to schedule posts on Instagram using Meta Business Suite in 6 easy steps.

1. Open the Meta Business Suite website (desktop) or download the app (mobile) and connect your Instagram account.

2. In the left-hand sidebar, click the Content tab. From here, you can schedule, publish, and manage all your posts for connected Instagram and Facebook accounts.

3. In the top right, click Create Reel, Create Post, or Create Story depending on the type of content you want to schedule. 

Tip: You can also choose one of the Bulk upload options to schedule multiple posts at once.

4. In the post composer, choose the account you want to publish the post to from the drop-down menu at the top.

5. Add your photo or video in the Media section, and write a caption in the Post details section. You can add things like emojis, hashtags, and links to your post using the buttons at the bottom.

Tip: If you’re scheduling one post to both Instagram and Facebook, you can click the toggle button to customize your caption for each platform.

6. Lastly, under Scheduling options, click on the Set date and time toggle button to turn it on. Then, choose the time and date you want the post to get published and hit Schedule.

Tip: Click the Active times button to get a list of suggested times to post based on when your audience is most active.

After scheduling a post, you should be able to see it in your Meta Business Suite Planner, which serves as a content calendar. You can click on any scheduled post in the calendar to amend it, delete it, or publish it.

How to schedule Instagram posts using SocialBee (recommended)

SocialBee is the best way to schedule social media posts.

Click here to sign up for a free trial so you can follow along with the tutorial below. 

Unlike the other two methods, it doesn’t limit you to a month—you can schedule posts to Instagram as far in advance as you want.

And it has a bunch of powerful time-saving features to help you create and schedule posts more efficiently, including category-based scheduling and AI automation.

You can also recycle your evergreen content for as long as you like. You can reshare content indefinitely or expire after a specific number of posts or after a specific date.

We’ll look at some of those features later. But first, here’s the most straightforward way to schedule a post on SocialBee.

1. Connect your Instagram account 

Sign up for SocialBee, then login to your account.

The setup wizard will prompt you to connect your social media profiles. 

Follow the instructions to connect your Instagram account, as well as any other socials you might want to schedule posts to.

The screenshot above is from their onboarding process. I’ve had my paid SocialBee subscription for years so I signed up for a free trial so you can see what it would look like.

But you can easily add new accounts from their dashboard at any time.

2. Add a new post

From your dashboard, click the Add Post button.

At the top of the post composer, click the icons next to all the accounts that you want to share the post on. If you only want to schedule the post to Instagram, just select the Instagram account icon.

Underneath, create your post caption and add your photo or video.

You can use the built-in AI assistant to generate captions, images, and hashtags to save time. Plus, use the Canva, Giphy, and Unsplash integration to create or source visuals for your posts.

If you’re scheduling the post to multiple social media platforms or Instagram profiles, you also have the option of customizing your caption/image for each profile. 

3. Add a posting time

Underneath your post, click + Add a posting time.

Then, choose the date and time in the calendar that you want SocialBee to publish. You can add multiple posting times if you want to share it more than once. 

You can also add a category and re-queue after posting, but ignore those options for now—we’ll come back to them later.

If you want to automatically delete your post on a certain date/time, you can change the Expire post settings as needed.

4. Schedule the post

Once you’re done, click + Save post in the bottom corner to schedule it.

SocialBee will now auto-publish it for you at the time and date you selected.

You can view a list of (and manage) all your upcoming scheduled posts in the Next Posts tab of your SocialBee account. 

Advanced scheduling techniques

Now that we’ve covered the basics, I’m going to share a few advanced Instagram scheduling techniques that can save you even more time and streamline your workflow, using powerful features that you only get with SocialBee. 

Here we go…

Category-based scheduling

So far, I’ve only shown you how to schedule posts individually on SocialBee. But it’s much faster and more efficient to schedule whole categories of posts. 

First, go to the Content tab from the sidebar and click + Create Category. Then, add a bunch of different categories to organize your posts into.

For example, you might have a ‘Meme’ category which you fill with all your funny Instagram memes, a ‘Reels’ category full of videos, a ‘Promotional’ category full of posts that advertise your products/services, etc. 

Once you’ve created your categories, you can start creating and adding posts to them. 

Next, go to Schedule Setup in the sidebar. From here, you can create posting slots to decide when you want to share posts from each category.

For example, you might have SocialBee share your memes every Wednesday at 11 AM and your promotional posts every Friday at 3 PM, etc.

Each week, SocialBee will automatically publish the post at the top of the queue in each category you’ve scheduled at the time/day you chose. By default, the last post to be added is the first to go out, but you can change this under your category settings.

Social media copilot

With SocialBee’s social media copilot, you can let AI do all the legwork for you and devise your entire posting schedule from scratch.

Just click Social media copilot in the sidebar. Then, answer the questions in the AI chat space to tell it about your brand/business, goals, audience, etc.

Based on your answers, it’ll devise some logical content categories to organize your posts into and generate an optimal posting schedule based on your best times to post. 

Then, it’ll generate a ton of posts from scratch (including images and captions) to fill out each of those categories with content, ready to get shared.

It’s all done for you. Copilot can handle your entire strategy and plan, create, and schedule a month (or more) of content in minutes. Pretty neat, right?

Content recycling

SocialBee offers powerful recycling features that allow you to squeeze more value out of your ‘evergreen’ Instagram posts (i.e. content that isn’t time-sensitive and can be shared again and again).

Just open up any category you’ve created and click Default Settings.

Then, turn the Re-queue after posting toggle on to have SocialBee automatically re-add all posts in the category to the back of the posting queue after it shares them, so that they continue to be re-shared in an evergreen cycle until they expire or get deleted.

Alternatively, you can also re-queue posts individually when you create them by turning on the same toggle in the post composer. And you can add variations to tweak the caption/visual each time it’s shared to keep things fresh.

Bonus Instagram scheduling tips

Before we wrap up, here are a few extra tips to help you optimize your Instagram posting schedule.

Post at the optimal time

The day and time you share posts on Instagram has a huge impact on their performance.

Ideally, you want to make sure you publish posts when the bulk of your followers are online and at their most likely to engage as this will help with the algorithm.

The problem is that time is different for every creator as everyone’s audience is unique. There’s no universal ‘best time to post’.

Fortunately, SocialBee has figured this one out for us. They look at your historical post-performance analytics to calculate your personal best time to post. 

Then, they highlight ‘suggested times’ in yellow on the content calendar, so you can see them at a glance as you schedule.

Utilize approval workflows

Mistakes happen all the time when you’re scheduling posts.

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve forgotten to add an image or hashtags to something I’ve shared on Instagram, then had to go back in and delete it.

The best way to avoid this is to set up an approval process, which you can do easily on SocialBee.

When you create posts, you can choose whether to set them as approved or drafts. Drafts can be scheduled but they won’t be published until someone has approved them.

If you’re working with a team, you can have all new posts set to drafts by default. Then, you can go into your Content Approval tab to see a list of all drafted posts, cast your eye over them to check for any mistakes, and set them to approved once you’re happy with them.

Don’t plan too far ahead

You can schedule as far in advance as you want with SocialBee.

However, I wouldn’t recommend planning too far ahead as it makes it tricky to stay on top of trends.

A meme that was popular when you first scheduled it could be ‘dank’ a few months later.

Likewise, audio that’s trending now is unlikely to still be trending a month or two down the line.

The only content that it’s safe to schedule months in advance is evergreen content—posts that never lose their value and are always relevant. For everything else, stick to a week or two ahead of time at most.

Pay attention to your analytics

Keep a close eye on your Instagram analytics to see how your scheduled posts are performing.

That way, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what isn’t and adjust your strategy as needed.

For example, in SocialBee’s Analytics tab, you can view insights into your best posts, categories, and scheduled time slots.

If you notice a particular category is underperforming, change it. 

Final thoughts

That concludes our comprehensive beginner’s guide to how to schedule Instagram posts.

To recap, you can schedule posts up to 29 days in advance natively using the Instagram app or on Meta Business Suite. However, both of these tools are limited.

The best way to schedule is with SocialBee. It lets you schedule posts individually or by category to all your socials from one place and has a ton of powerful time-saving tools to optimize your workflow.

While you’re here, you might want to check out these awesome Instagram video ideas to help you grow your following. And if you plan to run giveaways on Instagram, take a look at our roundup of the best social media contest apps.

Plus, read our step-by-step guide to learn how to build your social media strategy, and find out what the leading social media platforms are this year.

Related reading:

• How To Schedule Facebook Posts: 2 Easy Methods
• 10 Most Popular Messaging Apps (Data + Trends)
• Facebook Live Statistics (Latest Data)

Disclosure: If you buy through links on our site, we may make a commission.