To grow your audience and give your current fans a reason to stick around, you need to be updating your Instagram with fresh content regularly. But let’s face it, constantly updating your profile with new photos takes a lot of time—something most entrepreneurs are already short on.
Thankfully, there are a bunch of great platforms out there that give you the resources you need to schedule posts in advance and keep your profile well-stocked with great content. Many of these tools also let you post to Instagram from your computer so you don’t need to rely solely on Instagram’s mobile app.
1. Sked (web, iOS, Android)
Sked is a scheduling platform with a wide variety of features—including web-browser-based scheduling—for running more effective Instagram campaigns.
Sked also comes with extensive photo-editing features. Using its built-in image editing, you can tweak and fine-tune your photos well beyond Instagram’s default filters. Sked also allows for mass uploading, so you can schedule batches of photos at once and shave time off your social media marketing efforts.
Price: From $25/month for the Freelancer plan after a seven-day free trial.
2. Later (web, iOS, Android)
Later is an intuitive social media scheduling platform that comes with a diverse set of features for planning out your campaigns, including the ability to explore hashtags and share user-generated content.
Later lets you organize and schedule Instagram posts with a handy content calendar and get a preview of your Instagram feed before publishing, making it simple to visualize exactly how your strategy will unfold.
It also offers Saved Captions, which is handy when planning and implementing your hashtag strategy for Instagram. Save related groups of hashtags together so you never need to type them out again, or reuse your most effective tactics to increase engagement on posts or drive clicks to your website via your Instagram bio.
Price: Free for one user and up to 30 Instagram posts per month; from $9/month for the Plus plan for one user and up to 100 Instagram posts per month.
3. Hootsuite (web, iOS, Android)
Hootsuite is a powerful social media management platform that can schedule and publish Instagram posts.
While Hootsuite has made a name for itself by streamlining marketing for platforms like Facebook and Twitter, its Instagram tools take social media management one step further. Hootsuite lets you schedule your Instagram posts in advance, and either notifies you to post with a push notification or posts automatically for you if you have an Instagram Business account.
Price: From $29/month for the Professional plan after a 30-day free trial.
4. Buffer (web, iOS, Android)
You probably know Buffer as a great tool to schedule your social media posts for Twitter and Facebook, but you can also use it to schedule Instagram posts.
Prepare your posts from mobile or desktop and Buffer will post directly to Instagram for you. And with a Premium plan, you can also create and schedule Instagram Stories, embed a shoppable Instagram grid on your website, and get detailed analytics on the performance of your Instagram posts.
Price: Free for one user, three social accounts, and 10 scheduled posts; from $15/month for the Pro plan or $65/month for the Premium plan after a seven-day free trial.