How to plan your Instagram feed
- 01
Add your pictures
Pick them, drop them on the grid or paste them. New ones go to the top left, where your next post will appear. No pictures yet? Try the sample feed.
- 02
Drag them into order and mark them
Move a picture and the phone updates at once. Mark each one as a post, a carousel or a reel, pin up to three, and add a carousel’s slides (up to 20) and its caption with “Edit post”.
- 03
Choose what the grid shows
If a picture isn’t 3:4, the grid shows the middle of it: move it so the face or the headline stays in view. “Empty spot” keeps a place for a post you still have to make.
- 04
Switch the phone
Profile, Feed, Reels or Story: see the posts the way your followers will meet them, and add your highlights under the grid.
Your plan stays in this browser, so it’s still here when you come back. Nothing is uploaded: the pictures are read on your device.
See it in the feed, Reels and stories
The grid is only one of the places a post shows up. The phone has four screens:
Profile
Your grid, your bio and your highlights, each with a cover and a name. The film tab shows only your reels, in 9:16.
Feed
Your posts in the home feed, with the caption cut where Instagram cuts it. Carousels swipe, with the “1/5” counter and the dots.
Reels
Each reel full screen, with the buttons and the caption over it, so nothing important sits under them.
Story
A carousel slide by slide, or as the post shared to your story. Slides that aren’t 9:16 sit on a blurred background, as on Instagram.
Instagram’s grid is 3:4 now
Since January 2025, your profile shows every post as a 3:4 rectangle (portrait), not a square. A 1:1 or 4:5 post is shown cropped in the grid, while the post itself stays whole in the feed. That’s why a grid planned with squares can look wrong once it’s live.
The phone in this planner draws the profile the way Instagram does today, in light or dark mode, with your name, picture and bio (click your @handle to change them). If a picture would be cut, “Ready to post?” tells you.
Instagram post sizes (2026)
| What | Size | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Profile grid tile | Shown as 3:4 | Portrait |
| Tallest post | 1080 × 1440 px | 3:4 |
| Portrait post | 1080 × 1350 px | 4:5 |
| Square post | 1080 × 1080 px | 1:1 |
| Reel and story | 1080 × 1920 px | 9:16 |
| Carousel | Up to 20 slides | All the same shape |
| Pinned posts | Up to 3 | Always first in the grid |
Pictures narrower than 1080 px look soft on today’s phones; the planner warns you about those too.
Ideas for a feed that hangs together
- Think in rows of three. Each new post pushes everything one place along, so a row only stays a row if you post in threes.
- Alternate busy and calm. A text-heavy carousel next to a photo with room to breathe reads better than three busy tiles in a row.
- Repeat two or three colours. Not a filter on everything, just a palette that comes back.
- Make the covers readable at thumbnail size. Five words, big type, in the middle of the 3:4 area.
- Mix the formats. Carousels for saves, reels for reach, single pictures for the moments in between.
Pinned posts
You can pin up to three posts or reels to the top of your profile. They stay first, whatever you post next, so they’re the first impression for anyone who visits. Good ones to pin: what you do and for whom, your most saved carousel, and a post that sends people to your link. Pin a picture in the planner and it jumps to the top, as it will on Instagram.
What’s free, and what the app adds
The planner is free, with no account and no limit. The empty spots are where aiCarousels comes in: write an idea and it designs a carousel in your brand, in 3:4 or 4:5, ready to post. With an account, you can download it as pictures or a PDF.
