16 Best Instagram Tools For Marketers & Creators (2024 Guide)

Looking for the best Instagram tools to manage your profile more effectively?

We’ve got you covered.

In this post, I’ve hand-picked my favorite tools for the job. You’ll find a detailed breakdown of each tool, organized by category.

Some tools fit into multiple categories, but I’ll go through the relevant features in full as we work our way through the post.

Instagram planning & publishing

#1 – Pallyy

Pallyy is my go-to platform for Instagram. It’s packed with features to help you plan, schedule, and publish Instagram content (and grow your audience).

With Pallyy, you can create all your Instagram posts—including images, Reels, Carousels, Stories, and videos—in advance and then schedule them to be auto-published at the date/time you choose.

Any media you add to your posts is automatically resized to Instagram’s specifications, which is neat. And the user interface couldn’t be more beginner-friendly. 

You can also do things like tag people, schedule a first comment (great for hiding hashtags), generate hashtag lists, and more. And all your scheduled posts are displayed in an interactive content calendar for easy management.

There’s also my favorite feature: the Instagram feed planner. It lets you preview how your Instagram feed will look once all your posts are published. So, you can rearrange your pictures to create cool photo mosaics.

Key features

• Instagram publishing tools. Create, schedule, and auto-publish posts to Instagram and other networks.
• Instagram planning tools. Plan and preview your Instagram feed with the Visual Feed Planner.
• Inbox. Manage and reply to Instagram DMs, comments, mentions, and replies, as well as messages on other social platforms in one inbox.
• Other tools. View analytics and reports, build a link in bio page, collaborate with your team, etc.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free plan available. Premium plan costs $18/month, get 10% off with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

Read our Pallyy review.

#2 – SocialBee

SocialBee is ideal for publishing Instagram posts. Its AI-powered toolkit allows you to create and schedule enough posts to fill out your Instagram feed for a whole year in just a few minutes.

You can create the visuals for your Instagram posts with SocialBee’s in-app design integrations. Then, use the AI writer to generate your post captions, and schedule them for auto-publishing in the content calendar.

Content batching and recycling help save you even more time, and there’s also my favorite feature—the Social Media Copilot. It can generate your entire social media strategy, complete with an optimized Instagram posting plan, content categories, and dozens of posts, in minutes.

You’ll also find support for publishing Reels and Stories, etc. And SocialBee will provide you with the best times to post on Instagram. You can filter this data by times that generate the most engagement, impressions, and several other metrics.

Key features

• Instagram content creation. Craft eye-catching Instagram posts with integrated AI and design tools.
• Instagram publishing. Schedule and publish posts to all your social profiles including Instagram.
• Automations. Save time with automated post recycling and content queues.
• AI assistant. Use AI to craft post captions and plan your entire Instagram & wider social media strategy in seconds.
• Other Instagram tools. Use other tools to manage engagements (mentions, comments, DMs), analyze your social performance, and more.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $29/month, save 16% with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

Read our Social Bee review.

#3 – Sendible

Sendible is another useful Instagram tool for planning and publishing content. It’s a good choice for marketers & agencies that manage multiple brands thanks to its white-label dashboards and rich collaboration features.

You can use Sendible to create and auto-publish all Instagram content types including photos, image Carousels, Stories, and Reels to your Instagram profiles—no push notifications required. Plus, add geotag locations and first comments with hashtags to increase your reach 

I like how its content calendar is loaded with 365+ national & international holiday suggestions—it helps provide some inspiration for things to post about when you’re short on Instagram content.

And I also really like Sendible’s optimal posting time recommendations. It tells you the best time to post on Instagram based on your engagement history so you get more likes and comments.

Key features

• Publishing tools. Plan your content and schedule/publish posts to Instagram and other networks.
• Content calendar. Manage your posting schedule in a content calendar populated with holidays.
• Best time to post. Get suggestions on the best time to post on Instagram and other socials based on your own data.
• Other tools. View analytics, build white-label client dashboards, collaborate and approve social media posts, and more.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $29/month, get 15% off with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

Read our Sendible review.

Instagram analytics & reporting

#4 – Social Status

Social Status is my favorite tool for tracking and measuring Instagram analytics. It works with most other social media platforms too, so it’s a good choice if you’re looking for an all-in-one social reporting solution.

Social Status offers four different reports: Profile, Ads, Competitors, and Influencers. Each report provides insights into different areas of Instagram, depending on what you’re looking for. 

In the Profile report, you’ll be able to see all the usual metrics like reach, impressions, engagement rate, follower growth rate, etc. plus advanced insights like organic reach rate (ORR), video view rate (VVR), and more.

Key features

• Instagram profile analytics. Track and analyze your Instagram page with key performance metrics.
• Ads analytics. Measure the performance of your Instagram ad campaigns.
• Competitor analytics. Discover and analyze your biggest competitors on Instagram and other socials.
• Influencer analytics. Analyze your Instagram influencer marketing campaigns and discover new influencers.
• Reports. Combine your data into easy-to-understand reports and automate delivery.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free plan available. Paid plans start from $9/month, get 3 months free when you pay yearly. 14-day free trial available.

#5 – Metricool

Metricool is another Instagram tool suite that stands out for its excellent analytics and reporting features.

Once you’ve connected your Instagram account to Metricool, you can open up the Analytics report to view tons of Instagram insights in easy-to-understand graphs and data visualizations

For example, you can see the growth of your Instagram followers over time, view a breakdown of your follower demographics, check how your posts performed with all the key engagement metrics, spy on and benchmark your performance against your competitors, and more.

If you want to cross-reference your Instagram analytics with other data sources, you can use the Looker Studio connector to export it.

Metricool offers analytics for most other social media platforms too, as well as a bunch of other tools like a content planner/scheduler and link in bio tool.

Key features

• Instagram analytics. Get access to deep insights for Instagram and all your other socials.
• Reports. Create custom reports with all the data you want to surface.
• Looker Studio connector. Export your data to Looker Studio to blend it with other sources.
• Other Instagram growth tools. Hashtag tracker,  social content planner, SmartLinks (link in bio), AI assistant, Instagram ads management, inbox management, and more.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free plan available. Paid plans start from $22/month, save up to 20% when you pay yearly.

Read our Metricool review.

Instagram bio link tools

#6 – Shorby

Shorby is my favorite Instagram bio link tool. It lets you build your own ‘SmartPage’, which is basically a super simple landing page that you fill with all the links you want to promote on Instagram.

The reason I like Shorby so much is because of how easy it is to use. You literally just go to the site, enter a title for your page, and upload a profile image. Then, add any links, content blocks, or messengers you want to feature, and you’re done.

After that, grab your custom shortlink and add it to your bio to start driving traffic.

Key features

• SmartPage. Create your own micro landing page to house your links and send Instagram traffic to
• Shortlink. Get a custom shor.by link to add to your Instagram bio
• Content blocks. Enrich your Shorby page with content blocks like buttons, cards, countdown timers, RSS feeds, and more

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free version available. Paid plans start from $15/month, and save up to 22% with yearly billing.

Read our Shorby review.

#7 – Woorise

Woorise is a good option if you want more control over your Instagram bio link page.

You start by choosing a template for your bio link page, then customize it in the drag-and-drop editor. Once you’re done, publish it to a subdomain or your own website and grab the link to add it to your bio.

Aside from Instagram bio link pages, you can also use Woorise to build giveaways and contests, which you can use to grow your Instagram followers.

Key features

• Bio link page templates. Create your IG bio link landing page quickly with a selection of professionally designed templates.
• Drag-and-drop builder. Customize your page in the intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
• Interactive content. Use Woorise to build other interactive content types like forms, surveys, quizzes, contests, and giveaways.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $29/month, save 20% with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

Read our Woorise review.

#8 – Tap Bio

Tap Bio is a really cool Instagram bio link tool. It enables you to build your own branded ‘mini website’ filled with all the links you want to share on Instagram.

Tap Bio utilizes a card-based system. So instead of viewing a boring static landing page (like you’d build with most other bio link tools), your visitors swipe through multiple cards, just like they’d swipe through Instagram Stories.

Each card is a separate landing page, and there are 9+ pre-built card templates for different use cases. So for example, one card could be an email capture form, another could recreate your Instagram feed with clickable posts, etc.

Key features

• Micro site builder. Create your own swipeable microsite built from multiple cards (i.e. landing pages) and link to it in your Instagram bio.
• Instagram Links card. Create a replica of your Instagram feed on your bio link site, with links added to all your Instagram posts.
• Shoppable cards. Add a Shop card to your site to sell products directly through your link-in-bio page.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free plan available. Paid plans start from $3/month.

Instagram marketing tools

#9 – SweepWidget

SweepWidget is one of my favorite Instagram tools for marketing. It allows you to create, run, and manage viral Instagram giveaways and contests that can help you get more followers, generate leads for your business, drive website visits, and more.

The idea is to create a contest and offer up a prize that your Instagram followers will want. Then, set the entry requirements based on your marketing goals.

For example, if your goal is to build an email list, the entry requirement could be to enter an email address. If your goal is to get more followers on Instagram, the entry requirement could be to follow your page and share the contest with a friend (to help increase its reach). You get the idea.

It’s easy to build your contests in SweepWidget’s drag-and-drop builder. You can choose from 90+ entry methods and there are templates for lots of different giveaway types like refer-a-friend giveaways, leaderboard competitions, etc.

Once you’ve built your contest, you can style the widget and embed it on your website, then share a link on Instagram to promote it. 

Key features

• Instagram contest builder. Create and launch giveaways on Instagram to generate traffic, leads, and followers.
• 90+ entry methods. Add multiple entry methods to your competition to help you reach your marketing goals.
• Customization options. Change the color, format, and style of your giveaway widget to match your brand.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free trial available. Plans start from $29/month, get 2 months free when you pay yearly. 

#10 – ShortStack

ShortStack is another great tool for building viral Instagram giveaways, as well as other interactive marketing content types.

You can create some really cool contests with Shortstack. 

My favorite is Instagram Hashtag contests, in which participants have to post a photo or video using your chosen hashtags to enter. It’s a great way to build a buzz around your brand and increase awareness.

Key features

• Instagram timeline contests. Launch giveaways on Instagram where participants have to follow your profile and/or tag their friends to enter.
• Instagram hashtag contests. Generate UGC and build awareness by launching contests in which users have to share a post with your branded hashtag to enter.
• Entry management. Manage entries and select winners from your ShortStack dashboard.
• Other campaigns. 80+ templates for lots of other cool types of interactive contests.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free Trial plan available. Paid plans start from $99/month, get 20% off when you pay yearly. 

Instagram content creation tools

#11 – Visme

Visme is great for Instagram content creation. It’s an all-in-one, AI-powered design & marketing platform that you can use to create the visuals for your posts.

It comes with tons of templates for different types of social media posts, including Instagram, as well as a huge catalog of high-quality stock photos and graphics. Once you’ve designed your posts in Visme, you can schedule them straight away using the built-in publishing tools.

Aside from Instagram visuals, you can also use Visme to create forms and surveys, product mockups, data charts/graphs, videos, documents, and more.

Key features

• Instagram design tools. Create visuals for your Instagram posts using Visme’s design tools and graphics library.
• Other content types. Create other types of content including social graphics, printables, forms, surveys, charts, mockups, and more.
• AI design tools. Use the AI designer and image generator to create visual content instantly.
• Scheduler. Publish the Instagram posts you design on Visme with the built-in scheduler.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free plan available. Paid plans start from $29/month, get 6 months free when you pay annually.

#12 – Canva

Canva is one of the best free Instagram tools. It’s a fantastic graphic design tool that you can use to create your visual Instagram content. I often use it when I need to quickly create some graphics for Blogging Wizard.

There are tens of thousands of ready-to-publish Instagram post templates (in the right dimensions). And all of them can be fully customized in Canva’s intuitive drag-and-drop visual editor.

You can add filters to make your designs pop, and utilize hundreds of thousands of pre-made graphics, icons, and images from Canva’s library. 

Plus, with the recent addition of Canva’s new Magic Studio, you can now use the app to generate eye-catching AI images, captions, and even videos for your posts.

Key features

• Design tool. Create Instagram content in the drag-and-drop design tool.
• Instagram templates. Save time by starting from one of the tens of thousands of post templates in Canva’s template library.
• Design assets. Access Canva’s huge catalog of graphics, backgrounds, and other assets to use in your posts.
• AI tools. Use the built-in AI tool to make quick edits and generate visuals on the fly.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Free version available. Paid plans start from $12.99/month, get money off with yearly billing. Get started with a free trial.

Other Instagram management tools

#13 – ContentStudio

ContentStudio is the best choice if you’re looking for an all-in-one Instagram management tool. It has all the features you need to manage every aspect of your Instagram campaigns, from engagement to publishing, analytics, and beyond.

You can view, manage, and reply to all your Instagram messages alongside those from your other socials in ContentStudio’s unified inbox, with automated filters to help speed up the process.

There’s also the Discover tool to help you curate content and come up with new post ideas, an AI writer to generate captions and images for your Instagram posts, analytics to help you track performance, publishing tools so you can schedule posts in advance, and a lot more.

Key features

• Engage tool. Interact with your audience and beyond through the unified social inbox
• Discover tool. Curate trending content from across the web to share on Instagram
• Analyze tool. Measure your performance and report on all the important Instagram KPIs
• Publish tool. Plan your content and schedule it in a unified content calendar

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $25/month, get 20% off when you pay yearly. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

#14 – Later

Later is another all-in-one platform that supports multiple social media platforms including Instagram. You can use it to manage your entire social presence in one place.

I love Later’s ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ scheduling tool, which makes it easy to stay active on Instagram.

Its content curation & creation tools are top-notch too. And it has all the other stuff you need, like a visual planner, AI generator, scheduling calendar, link in bio tool, and more.

Key features

• Publish & schedule. Plan, manage, and auto-publish posts to Instagram and all your other socials from one app.
• Saved Captions. Save related groups of Instagram hashtags ever so you can save time by adding them to future captions automatically.
• Content creation. Discover unique brand content to share on your socials, and use Later’s creative tools to design your media.
• Link in bio. Create a customizable link in bio page for your Instagram bio and keep it updated with new content.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $25/month, get 4 months free with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

#15 – Vista Social

Vista Social is incredibly feature-rich. It gives you all the tools you need to manage your Instagram alongside your other social profiles and campaigns.

VistaSocial can do it all. You can use it to plan and publish social content to Instagram and beyond, manage comments and messages in the unified engagement inbox, measure and report on performance from the analytics dashboard, create and manage a link in bio page, and more.

It comes with a social listening tool too, so you can ‘listen in’ on conversations about your brand or target keywords on Instagram and beyond.

Key features

• Instagram scheduling tools. Plan your Instagram posts and schedule them with the social scheduling tool.
• Instagram analytics tools. Analyze and report on your social performance automatically.
• Engagement inbox. Manage your DMs and comments on Instagram and other socials in the engagement inbox
• Social listening. Keep track of important conversations on social media about your brand, competitors, and keywords.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $39/month, save 20% with yearly billing. Get started with a 14-day free trial.

#16 – Sprout Social

Sprout Social is one of the most expensive Instagram tools on this list, but it might be worth it for large brands and agencies.

It’s a popular social media management platform with lots of useful tools for Instagram and other networks that can help you manage your campaigns and grow your following.

That includes an Engagement toolkit to streamline your social customer care and manage interactions; a Publishing toolkit to help you plan, manage, and publish Instagram and other social content at scale; a complete Analytics suite with all the data you need to make strategic decisions, and lots more.

Its social listening and influencer marketing tools are best-in-class too, and it’s one of the only platforms I’ve tried that offers an ‘Employee Advocacy’ feature to empower your employees to amplify your social reach.

Key features

• Engagement tools. Interact with your audience on social (including Instagram) at scale with SproutSocial’s engagement inbox
• Publishing tools. Plan, create, and publish Instagram and other social content.
• Listening tools. Discover trends and extract insights from social conversations about any keyword
• Other tools. Instagram analytics, influencer marketing, automation, AI, employee advocacy, and more.

Pros and cons

Pricing

Plans start from $249/month. Get started with a 30-day free trial.

Final thoughts

As you can see, there are a lot of useful Instagram tools out there. But obviously, you don’t need to use all of them. 

It’s probably best to stick with one of the all-in-one platforms that offers multiple tools for Instagram planning, content creation, inbox management, analytics, and publishing in one place. Alternatively, pick a dedicated tool that just has the features you need.

Keep in mind that most of the tools in this offer free trials too, so you can test them out risk-free.

For more Instagram tips, check out our guides to getting more Instagram followers and the best time to post on Instagram.

You can also check out our roundup of Instagram statistics for other useful insights, and find out how many followers you need to make money here.

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