Using Instagram with Schedulin
Schedulin publishes to Instagram through Meta's Graph API. You can plan feed posts, carousels, and Reels from the same composer you use for the rest of your channels.
Account requirements
Instagram's publishing API only works with Business or Creator accounts. If your account is set to Personal, Meta will not accept API-scheduled posts.
To switch account types, in the Instagram mobile app:
- Open your profile and tap the menu icon.
- Go to For professionals → Account type and tools.
- Tap Switch to professional account and pick Creator or Business.
Once your account is professional, connect it on the Channels page. Schedulin authenticates via Meta OAuth and stores a long-lived access token that we refresh automatically.
What you can publish
| Post type | Media | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed post (single image or video) | 1 image or 1 video | |
| Carousel | 2–10 images or videos | Items can be mixed; carousel aspect ratio is inherited from the first item |
| Reel | 1 video | Default placement in the composer |
| Story | 1 image or 1 video |
Media counts are enforced in our validation: 1 to 10 media items per post, images and videos only.
Composer settings
When you pick an Instagram account, the composer gives you:
- Placement — Feed, Reels, or Stories (defaults to Reels for videos)
- Share to feed — Toggle whether a Reel also appears on your main grid
- Location tag
- Collaborators — Add Instagram handles as co-authors
- Trial Reel type — Manual or automatic trial-reel flow
Caption and hashtag limits
- Schedulin's caption field allows up to 5,000 characters. Instagram itself truncates captions at around 2,200; anything past that will be cut off on the network.
- Hashtags and @mentions are posted as plain text and become links on Instagram when the post goes live.
Aspect ratios
Instagram rejects images outside its accepted ratio range (roughly 4:5 to 1.91:1 for feed, 9:16 for Reels and Stories). See the dedicated article on Instagram's accepted aspect ratio ranges for examples and safe dimensions.
Analytics
Post-level engagement (likes, comments, impressions, reach) is pulled after the post publishes and surfaces in the Sent tab and the analytics dashboard. We backfill recent posts on first connection; ongoing posts update on a schedule.
Known limitations
- Personal Instagram accounts cannot publish via API. Switch to Business or Creator first.
- The Instagram Graph API does not expose a polling endpoint for new media webhooks, so recently imported posts may take a short delay to appear in analytics.
- Music, story stickers, product tags, and polls are not available through the API.
- Cross-posting from Instagram to Facebook inside Meta's apps does not trigger when the post is published via API.