Top 10 Instagram Tools to Automate Your Scheduling and Posting

If you read our guide on Instagram content creation, you might remember that planning, carefully designing, and timely posting are a one-way ticket to accelerated promotion and eventual success.  

But you are not alone with this challenge — there are loads of tools that can help you achieve your desired goal. We have gathered the top 10 tools for scheduling posts on Instagram and compared their functionality and performance. Read on and learn! 

Instagram tools described:

1. Inflact
2. Buffer
3. Later
4. SproutSocial
5. Agorapulse
6. Sendible
7. SkedSocial
8. Postcron
9. HopperHQ
10. Hootsuite

Scheduled Posting by Inflact

Brief description:

Inflact has a strong track record in providing services and tools for Instagram automation of management and growth. Scheduled Instagram Posting is one such service. 

 Visit Website: https://inflact.com/scheduled-posting/

Main features:

• Schedule posts for Feed and Stories.
• Create posts of a photo, video or carousel.
• Resize and crop functionality.
• Instant AI hashtag selection with one click.

• Full emoji set.
• Location tagging.
• Time zone adjustment.
• Immediate publishing, scheduling or saving as draft options.
• Auto-update Caption feature (for improved post reach).
• Preview of the whole Feed for planning visual concept:

• Possibility to edit both new and old posts.

Drawbacks:

• No filters and other creative tools are available.

Price: $18 per month.

Buffer Instagram Manager

Brief description:

Buffer provides a service for planning Instagram content for individuals and teams.

Visit Website: https://buffer.com/publish

Main features:

• Schedule posts for Feed.
• Photo, video, and carousel posts are available for scheduling:

• Full emoji set.
• Post analytics:

• Drag-and-drop post scheduling:

• Possibility to edit both new and old publications.

Drawbacks:

• Stories scheduling not available.
• No hashtag search tool.
• Time zone adjustment not possible.
• No photo editor. 

Price: $15-99 per month, depending on the plan you choose:

Later Free Instagram Scheduler

Brief description:

Later is a platform for planning Instagram content. For automatic publishing, you are offered to download the mobile app. Unfortunately, the Instagram Chrome extension isn’t developed yet.

Visit Website: https://later.com/schedule/

Main features:

For the web version:

• Drag-and-drop media uploading.
• Set the Notifications to publish on time.
• Add labels and notes:

For mobile app:

• Schedule photos and videos.
• Feed preview.

Drawbacks:

• Only owners of Business plan can set up auto-publishing:

• No Stories scheduling.
• Built-in hashtags search is unavailable.
• No editing tools.

Price: $0-41 per month, depending on the number of scheduled posts.

#4 Sprout Social

Brief description:

Sprout Social is a big service for improving engagement, efficient publishing, analytics and listening on Social Media.

Main features:

• Scheduling photos and videos.
• Getting instant post preview:

• Setting push notification reminder to post;
• Calendar, timeline and notes:

Drawbacks:

• You can’t purchase Instagram Scheduler separately — only the whole service. This makes it convenient only for big enterprises to use. 
• Automatic posting is available only for Sprout Social App users.
• No photo editor.

Price: $99-249 per month.

#5 Agorapulse

Brief description:

Agorapulse is very similar to Sprout Social service in terms of functionality. It offers solutions for engagement, listening, collaborating and publishing for multiple platforms, including Instagram. 

Main features:

• Schedule photos, videos, carousels and Stories.
• Preview a post instantly:

• Drag and drop image/video uploading.
• Edit images:

• Save hashtags group for fast pickup.
• Add labels for posts and use filters to sort posts by categories.
• Choose the time zone.
• Schedule, Add to Queue and Publish Now options.
• Publish a single post or bulk publishing options.

Drawbacks:

• You can purchase scheduling service only together with other services, and that will come at a price.

Price: $99-499, depending on the plan you choose

#6 Sendible

Brief description:

Sendible offers social media management tools for agencies. It’s convenient for teams to work on a project with it. The interface resembles that of Agorapulse.

Main features:

• Schedule and automate posts (images and videos).

Edit images:

• See a preview of the post.
• Save, Send for Approval and Schedule options.

Drawbacks:

• Due to connecting Instagram accounts via Facebook, errors during publishing may occur because of incorrect settings. 

Price: $19 -299, depending on the plan you choose.

#7 SkedSocial

Brief description:

This service stands apart from the others as it allows you to schedule and automatically post only Stories. However, it’s worth considering as a possible tool for Instagram publishing.

Main features:

• Schedule and publish Stories and carousels of Stories automatically.
• Choose timezone.
• Use collaboration tools for teams.
• Stories editor with filters, stickers and crop tool.
• Planning visual grid. 

Drawbacks:

• You need to enter your credit card to proceed to the trial period.

Price: $25-260, depending on the plan you choose.

#8 Postcron

Brief description:

This service for posting on Instagram is an amazing combination of Scheduler, Poster and Design Platform. It will remind you of Canva and standard Instagram Scheduler. 

Main features:

• Schedule and publish posts and Stories.

Use the ArtStudio editor for designing images and Stories.

• Upload bulk posts.
• Add your brand logo to all photos published within the service as a watermark.
• Post now or Schedule options.

Drawbacks:

• The service is a bit slow.
• Minor bugs during the saving of images created with ArtStudio.

Price: $8-169, depending on a plan you choose

#9 HopperHQ

Brief description:

HopperHQ specializes only in scheduling and posting. For that reason, it offers an extensive features set which a lot of users will find worthy. 

Main features:

• Schedule Instagram posts and publish them.
• Options of scheduling and instant publishing.
• Full image editing.
• Adding the first comment.
• Full emoji set.
• Repost and reschedule old posts.

Drawbacks:

• No convenient hashtags search tool.
• You need to enter your credit card to proceed to the trial period.

Price: from $19 per month — the more accounts you manage, the higher the price. 

#10 Hootsuite

Brief description:

Hootsuite is a famous platform for Social Media Management. With it, you can create and schedule content and Instagram will auto post when possible.

Main features:

• Auto-scheduling and publishing.
• Bulk scheduling.
• Content curation possible for teams.

 Drawbacks:

• You need to enter your credit card to proceed to the trial period. 
• Purchase of scheduled posting separately from other features is impossible.

 Price: from $19 to $599 per month, depending on the plan you choose. 

We hope the article about helper tools for Instagram will be useful for you! If you have any questions, please leave your comment below or contact us via support@bigbangram.com or Live Chat.

Love,

Bigbangram

P.S. Don’t miss the future selections of  paid and free Instagram automation tools: top Instagram auto liker bots, top automated Instagram DM tools, hashtag generators and Instagram search tools (if you have ever asked yourself, “Can I search Instagram without an account?”). Stay tuned!