Picture this, you schedule Facebook posts ahead of time, and suddenly, you've got all the extra time on your hands! Sounds great, isn't it? Assuming you have a business page on Facebook, there are a two different ways to schedule your posts: Natively - using the Meta...
Best Instagram Tools:
20 Best Instagram Tools for Easy Management & Growth in 2024
Choosing the right Instagram tools for a successful brand toolkit is vital to flawless and smooth Instagram management — especially in times of never-ending content creation.
Instagram marketing tools help teams streamline marketing efforts, making it easier to produce high-quality visual content and rock their presence on the Instagram app. Scheduling IG posts, asset creation, influencer collaboration — there are tools for everything.
In this article, I’ve gathered the best Instagram tools for easy content management. Check them out and find the right ones to build a toolkit that fits your brand perfectly!
What to look for in IG Tools?
Instagram management tools can significantly streamline and enhance your social media strategy. Here’s what to look for:
- User-friendly interface
We already have Meta Business Suite, and it’s no good. Instagram marketing tools should be simple and clear.
- Collaboration
The best IG tools enable your team to work together for better results.
- Analytics and reporting
Instagram business tools provide insights into performance and audience engagement.
- Instagram content planning
A content calendar helps you organize posts, Stories, and Reels in advance.
- UGC and influencer management
Some Instagram marketing tools help you find and collaborate with influencers and manage content created by your followers.
- Integrations
Pay attention to compatibility with other marketing tools and platforms you use.
Instagram tools for planning and scheduling
1. Planable: best collaborative tool to manage your Instagram account
Planable is more than just an Instagram tool — it’s a collaborative social media management platform that makes content creation easy, fast, and painless, whether it’s for Instagram or other social networks.
From ideation to final green light and analytics gathering, Planable has everything covered with a neat content calendar with multiple views and filters, image and video editing tools, previews, and more. Your team can use their collective creativity to polish your brand’s Instagram feed to perfection using real-time comments, text suggestions, annotations, and internal notes.
In Planable, you can also set up customizable approval flows to manage Instagram Reels, Stories, and posts effortlessly. This is especially helpful for remote teams and marketing agencies who need to keep their colleagues and higher-ups in the loop without sacrificing the speed of posting.
Plus, Planable allows for automatic publishing to all major social channels, so you don’t have to do it manually. Ever. And with Planable’s Universal Content features, you can seamlessly collaborate with your team on any other type of content, from blogs to newsletters and emails.
Key features:
- Scheduling and publishing
With Planable, you can plan and schedule posts, Stories, and Reels for Instagram. The platform will publish it automatically at the time you set during planning.
- First comment feature
Schedule an Instagram post to go live together with your brand’s first comment — no need to stick around for the publishing to leave it there manually.
- Instagram grid view
Check what your post will look like when it is posted. Planable offers multiple views, including Grid and Feed, to ensure your profile looks consistent and on-brand. You can also plan your Instagram grid in advance for a cohesive look.
- Add tags
Planable allows you to add location tags and tag people on pictures you post to boost discoverability and increase engagement.
- Analytics and reporting
Easily identify top-performing content and show the value of your work with Planable’s intuitive and sleek Instagram analytics.
Pricing: Planable offers 50 free posts as a trial period with no time limit. After that, upgrade for $11/month or choose a custom pricing option based on the number of workspaces and users.
2. Sprout Social: for big brands and marketing agencies
Sprout Social is a robust social media management platform for big brands and marketing agencies. With advanced analytics tools and extensive reporting, Sprout Social enables teams to manage their Instagram accounts more efficiently and build data-driven strategies.
Key features
- Instagram scheduling tools. With Social Sprout’s content calendar, you can plan, schedule, and publish Instagram marketing activities across multiple accounts.
- Detailed analytics. Gain insights into Instagram audience growth, follower demographics, and engagement metrics.
- Social inbox. Sprout AI helps you streamline your inbox flow. You can answer all tags, mentions, and DMs from within the platform, refine your answers with AI, and set up a message spike alert.
Pricing: Sprout Social offers a 30-day trial period, but the upgrade is expensive — their four paid plans start at $199/month/person.
3. Buffer: best for small businesses who want to streamline their Instagram management
Buffer is an intuitive Instagram tool for efficient social media management, perfect for small to medium-sized businesses. It helps teams schedule social media content for Instagram and other platforms and gather basic analytics on Instagram post performance.
Key features:
- Easy scheduling. Buffer is very straightforward. You can schedule Instagram posts, Reels, and Stories using recommended time slots or setting your preferred time for content to go online.
- Analytics and answers. Buffer provides analytics and audience demographics data. It also has an Answers tab, where you can find personalized tips on the best time and day to post, what type of content is performing well, and your perfect posting cadency.
- Profile management. You can easily manage multiple Instagram accounts from one dashboard. This is quite useful for brands with multiple sub-brands managed by small marketing agencies.
Pricing: Buffer bills based on the number of channels. There is a free plan where you can schedule posts for up to three accounts, and the upgrade with analytics starts at $6/month/channel.
4. Later: tool for Instagram-focused strategies
Later is an Instagram-centric scheduling tool, perfect for companies prioritizing their presence on visual social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok.
Originally designed with Instagram in mind, Later still caters to Instagram specifically, with additional tools like the AI-powered caption writer and relevant hashtag generator.
With Later, you can customize your Instagram bio link to make it more on-brand and organize it to match your business goals.
Key features:
- Visual planner. A visual content calendar allows you to bulk-schedule Instagram Stories, posts, carousels, and Reels. You can also preview your Instagram feed to ensure consistency.
- User-generated content. Later helps teams leverage UGC posted on Instagram, using @mentions, tags, and hashtags. The platform even provides proper attribution when reusing UGC in your profile.
- Personalized insights. Later recommends Instagram hashtags and optimal posting times based on your content performance and audience insights.
Pricing: Later has a free plan and three paid options starting at $25/month.
5. Hootsuite: best for social listening
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that offers many IG tools to help you manage your presence on the platform. As a comprehensive solution, it allows teams to plan and schedule Instagram posts, analyze performance, utilize social listening, and run ad campaigns.
Besides classic content planning features, Hootsuite offers an exciting report on social media ROI. It analyzes your organic performance, web traffic, and paid Instagram ads to identify which campaigns drive the most leads.
Key features:
- Social inbox. Centralize your Instagram comments and direct messages to boost engagement. You can manage saved replies, set up auto-responders, and leverage Inbox analytics.
- Social listening tools. Monitor mentions, hashtags, and keywords across social media platforms (including Instagram) to gauge brand sentiment. Set up listening streams and quickly jump into conversations.
- Best time to post. Based on your Instagram insights, Hootsuite will recommend time slots to post your content for peak engagement and visibility.
Pricing: Hootsuite has a free trial and paid plans available from $99/month.
Instagram tools for content creation and editing
6. Planable AI: best for caption generation and rewrites
Planable’s AI helps you create on-point, punchy copy for your Instagram captions. It’s the ultimate way to overcome writer’s block and craft a compelling caption that complements your visual content. Never be scared of the blank page again!
Key features
- Generate captions from scratch. Once you’ve polished your images and videos with Planable’s editing tools, use Planable AI as your writing wingman to generate punchy captions.
- Enhance your existing text. If you have a draft of your caption, you can make it punchier, expand or shorten it, and even go fully wild with the “Surprise me” option. Boring captions? No, thanks.
- Rewrite captions. If you have captions from another social media platform and you’d like to reuse them on Instagram, ask Planable’s AI to rewrite them.
- Generate captions for images or videos. If you’re in need of inspiration to describe an image or video, first upload your asset, and the AI generates a caption based on the visual content.
Pricing: Planable AI is a part of Planable’s subscription. You can try it with the 50 free posts Planable offers and upgrade after for $11/month.
7. Canva: best for easy visuals for Instagram posts
Canva is one of the best Instagram tools for easy, user-friendly graphic design. It’s a comprehensive design tool that helps teams with no designer on board rock their visual appearance on Instagram.
Canva stands out with its drag-and-drop functionality and extensive library of social media templates. With little to no design skills, you can create coherent branded Instagram stories and posts in minutes.
Key features:
- Template variety. Create posts much faster with Canva’s extensive collection of Instagram-specific templates. All elements are customizable and easily adjusted to your brand to create a cohesive visual appearance.
- Brand book. Save your branding elements, such as colors, fonts, patterns, logos, and more, for quick access.
- Collaboration tools. Work on high-quality content for Instagram with your colleagues. Utilize comments, annotations, and notes to create perfect on-brand graphics.
Pricing: Canva has quite a robust free plan. But if you need more than free tools for your tasks, you can upgrade for $11.99/month.
8. Adobe Creative Cloud Express: one of the best Canva alternative
Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is designed for quickly creating high-quality social media content. It offers various templates for Instagram Stories, posts, and Reels.
You can easily remove background, trim and merge videos, resize your Instagram photos and media files, and even edit PDFs — sometimes, social media managers have to do unexpected things.
Key features
- Video editing tool. Upload your media, select one of the many Instagram templates, edit your Reel with text, voiceover, animation, color themes, and voila!
- Templates and resizes. Besides providing an extensive template library, Adobe Express can easily resize your content to fit different formats. Repurpose your content in just a couple of clicks.
- Visual AI tools. Adobe Firefly is undoubtedly a great help in creating visual assets. Adobe Express inherits some of its features, like turning text into images, generative fill, and picture restoration.
Pricing: Adobe Express has a free plan. You can upgrade for $9.99/month.
9. CapCut: best for Instagram Stories and Reels video editing
CapCut is a popular free app for video editing. Initially created for TikTok, it works great for Instagram Reels and animated Stories. Short videos are a huge part of the social media strategy for Instagram growth, so CapCut is a must-have.
In CapCut, you can trim, merge, and edit your video clips, add subtitles, create voiceovers, apply visual effects and animations, and more.
Key features
- Video editing. Trim your clips, change speed, reverse them, add or delete audio, create voiceovers, work on pop-ups and overlays — you get the drill.
- Text-to-voice. Most Instagram Reels with AI voice narrating the video are made with CapCut. Add your text to the video, choose the voice you want to use, and get a voiceover without recording it yourself.
- Auto captions. Create captions in seconds. CapCut recognizes voices on videos in multiple languages and automatically creates the caption track. Polish it and use one of the animation templates, or create your own.
Pricing: CapCut has a mobile app with paid premium features. However, the same tools are free through CapCut’s desktop version.
10. Fliki – best for video generation
Fliki is an excellent tool for effortless, professional-quality video creation using AI. It’s perfect for content creators, marketers, educators, and social media enthusiasts who need to produce engaging videos quickly.
Fliki stands out with its realistic AI avatars and natural text-to-speech capabilities, making video production seamless. With minimal effort, you can transform text into polished videos in minutes.
Key Features:
- Instant text-to-video conversion. Fliki’s AI converts your written text into fully produced videos, eliminating the need for manual editing.
- Realistic AI avatars and text-to-speech. Present your content professionally with highly realistic avatars and natural-sounding voices.
- Comprehensive video creation tools. From script generation to adding video clips, subtitles, music, and transitions, Fliki handles the entire process, ensuring high-quality results.
Pricing: Fliki offers a robust free plan, providing 5 minutes of credits per month. For more extensive needs, upgrade to the Standard plan at $21/month, the Premium plan at $66/month, or the Team plan at $144/month for three seats.
11. Lensa: best for quick face retouching for Instagram photos
Lensa is a simple mobile photo editing app that can help you refine your Instagram photos in seconds. It’s easier than Adobe Lightroom or other tools with more broad functionality. Lensa refines pictures and videos quickly, so it’s a great app to use on the go.
Key features
- One-touch retouch. Fix bad lightning, closed eyes, or a pimple. Works both on photos and videos.
- Erase tool. Remove objects from your pictures with the smart Erase tool.
- AI avatars. Lensa offers tons of AI filters to play with. Upload your picture, choose a style — from neon demon to fantasy fairy — and get your reimagined avatar.
Pricing: Lensa is a free app with built-in purchases for some features and filters.
Instagram tools for analytics and monitoring
12. Planable Analytics: best for easy-to-read, integrated Instagram insights
Planable offers a comprehensive and user-friendly way to read your Instagram analytics. You can easily spot the best-performing content and gain in-depth insights on each piece. You can then easily crunch those numbers and refine your Instagram strategy.
The platform offers insights into Instagram followers, reach, impressions, engagement, and profile visits. Planable differentiates paid and organic results, making it easy to evaluate the efficiency of your strategies.
Key features
- Easy-to-read interface. Planable stands out through its user-friendly interfaces across the platform. You can read your Instagram analytics in a quick glance with no unnecessary complications.
- Cross-platform dashboard. Track your analytics across all major social media channels and monitor your overall performance — all from one unified dashboard.
- Content calendar pairing. Planable is an ecosystem, offering both Instagram scheduling and Instagram analytics in one content suite, so you can tweak any aspect of your Instagram presence from the same app.
Pricing: The Planable Analytics tool is a part of Planable’s subscription. Try it for free for the first 50 posts and upgrade for as little as $11/month.
13. Keyhole: best for monitoring hashtags and Instagram campaigns
Keyhole offers a range of Instagram analytics tools to monitor metrics and gain in-depth insights into performance. The platform specializes in tracking hashtags and social media campaigns. With Keyhole, you’re up for real-time monitoring to evaluate the impact of your hashtags and campaigns as they unfold.
Keyhole can also forecast the future performance of your Instagram campaigns based on real-time data, giving you a glimpse into the future.
Key features
- Social listening. Track what people say about your brand on Instagram and other social media platforms. Uncover the sentiment behind each mention and see how it evolves over time.
- Profile analytics. Gain insights into your profile’s reach, engagement, and overall effectiveness. Monitor competitors and adjust your Instagram strategy to its finest.
- Trend-spotting. Overview current trends and conduct quick market research to see what’s popping and what trend is worth riding.
Pricing: Keyhole has six paid plans starting at $89/month.
14. Display Purposes: best for the Instagram hashtag generation
Display Purposes offers Instagram analytics tools to amplify your Instagram growth. It’s an Instagram-specific tool that leverages hashtags in social media posts.
This tool optimizes your hashtag strategy with advanced hashtag search, collections, and analytics. Display Purposes can identify hashtags that perform the best and organize them in collections for quick access.
Key features
- Advanced hashtag search. Based on your niche and topic, Display Purposes can help you find the most engaging and discoverable hashtags to accompany your content. The research includes metrics such as competition score and potential reach to support your strategy with data.
- Reels metrics monitoring. Track your Instagram Reels’ performance and easily export the final data to analyze your content’s impact.
- Instagram follower analytics. Display Purposes analyzes your audience to provide you with recommendations on the best time to post for the best results.
Pricing: Display Purposes has four paid plans starting at $14/month.
15. Reputation: best for brand monitoring on Instagram
Reputation’s Social Suite is an analytics tool for social listening and sentiment analysis. It helps teams monitor the brand comprehensively on multiple platforms, including Instagram.
With Reputation, you can track mentions, reviews, and customer feedback and address all comments directly from the app.
Key features
- Social listening. Reputation’s real-time data on sentiment and mentions can help you track progress and stay updated. Choose the keywords and mentions you’d like to track and set alerts to jump into conversations quickly.
- Competitor report. Compare what people are saying about your brand and your competitors. Competitive reporting helps you benchmark your brand’s mentions, tone of voice, and spread against any Instagram business account.
- Instagram posting dashboard. Identify best-performing Instagram posts, track follower count and engagement metrics, and utilize the best time to publish feature.
Pricing: Reputation offers a free demo and custom pricing.
16. Awario: for advanced social media listening
Awario is a social listening tool designed to monitor your brand’s online presence across various platforms, including Instagram. Its core idea is to provide real-time data, collecting brand mentions, customer feedback, and industry trends.
Awario can track conversations and mentions in multiple languages, offering global brands a comprehensive view of their reputation worldwide.
Key features
- Real-time data collection. Awario allows you to track brand mentions and keywords across Instagram instantly. You can set up a boolean search, exclude irrelevant words, and fine-tune the alerts you set.
- Social selling. You can leverage selling through social media by discovering potential clients. Awario can find people looking for similar brands and help you turn them into leads.
- Competitive analysis. Compare your social media presence and performance against competitors. Track mentions, compare their sentiment and reach, and compile the data in a white-label report.
Pricing: Awario has a free trial and three paid plans, starting at $49/month.
Instagram tools for influencer and UGC campaigns
17. Modash: best for discovering Instagram influencers
Modash is an influencer marketing platform designed for brands looking for a perfect influencer match on Instagram. It offers a powerful search engine to find influencers by niche, location, engagement rate, and more, simplifying the process of identifying the right partners for your brand.
Key features
- Influencer search. You can search for influencers based on their account metrics, audience filters, or lookalikes. Modash provides detailed insights into influencer performance and audience demographics to help you make an informed decision.
- Campaign tracking. Modash automatically tracks and collects Instagram content from influencer campaigns you run. It can alert you if a hashtag, tag, or mention is missing in any post.
- Influencer relations management. Have all your influencer-related workflows in one place. You can save your findings and track the status of each creator directly in Modash.
Pricing: Modash has a 14-day trial period and four paid plans starting at $120/month.
18. TINT: best for gathering user-generated content campaigns
TINT aggregates user-generated content for brands to repurpose across their social media accounts, including Instagram. This platform allows brands to curate and display UGC, enhancing authenticity and engagement.
Key features
- UGC curation. TINT allows you to easily collect and manage UGC before it goes live on your Instagram account. TINT’s machine learning helps you automate curation and pick the best content with recommendation scores.
- Rights management. You can automate obtaining the legal rights to use UGC on your Instagram business account through TINT.
- Analytics tool. Analyze your published UGC to identify the best-performing contributors and tweak your content strategy according to what resonates with your followers.
Pricing: TINT offers custom pricing depending on your needs.
19. Phlanx: best for analyzing Instagram engagement metrics
Phlanx is a multifaceted tool for influencer marketing. It provides engagement calculators, an influencer audit, and a directory for influencer collaboration. Its focus on engagement metrics helps you see the real metrics behind the number of likes or followers to run an impactful influencer campaign.
Key features
- Engagement calculator. You can measure the engagement rate of potential influencer partners by entering their Instagram handles in the search bar.
- Influencer directory. Access a database of influencers to find suitable matches based on location, follower count, niche, engagement rate, and more filters.
- Contract generator. Using a very straightforward contract generator, you can generate a legitimate contract for your influencer campaigns.
Pricing: Phlanx has a 30-day trial period and three paid plans starting at $49/month.
20. Repost: best for simple reposts
Repost for Instagram makes sharing user-generated content on your Instagram profile easy, crediting the original creator. This is the most straightforward way to enhance your content plan with authentic, user-contributed posts.
Key features
- Easy reposting. Share UGC to your feed with credit to the original poster — copy the link to the original post and paste it into the search bar.
- Cross-platform repost. Repost tweets to your Instagram feed as neat images.
- Upcoming feature: articles and blog reposts. Repost plans to integrate the same functionality to turn blog articles into Instagram posts.
Pricing: Repost has a free version most users would find sufficient. You can upgrade for $4.99/month.