Top 10 Instagram Planning Apps You Must Have In 2024

In today’s digital age, where first Instagram impressions are more valuable than ever, your Instagram feed plays a significant role in establishing your online presence.

It serves as a visual exhibit capable of either engaging your audience or being quickly scrolled past by your viewers. A thoughtfully designed Instagram feed conveys creativity and an acute sense of detail, enhancing the perception of your business as an organization worthy of collaboration. Conversely, a disorganized or unprofessional feed can potentially damage your business image.

Fortunately, an Instagram planner can be a valuable tool in this regard. In this article, we’ll highlight 10 of the best Instagram planning apps of 2024, each equipped to enhance your IG marketing strategy and make your feed more cohesive.

What is an Instagram planning app?

An Instagram planning application is a tool that equips you with the necessary features to prepare your Instagram content. This typically involves:

1. Creating and refining posts
2. Recommending keywords and hashtags
3. Scheduling posts for optimal publication times
4. Analytics for previously published posts to provide insights for future strategies

When Instagram is a key component of your B2B marketing strategy, meticulous planning and strategic organization become imperative. Instagram planning apps emerge as indispensable tools for success in this context, frequently saving social media marketers and community managers significant time.

Why use an Instagram planning app?

Having established what Instagram planning apps are, let’s delve into why businesses should use them to unlock a myriad of benefits that can significantly elevate their social media presence:

Efficient time management

Instagram planning apps streamline the content creation and scheduling process, allowing you to plan posts in advance. This efficient time management frees you from the daily grind of real-time posting, enabling better organization and allocation of your time to other critical aspects of your business or marketing strategy.

Consistent aesthetic and branding

Maintaining a visually cohesive and on-brand Instagram feed is crucial for leaving a lasting impression on your audience. Planning apps provide visual grids and scheduling features, ensuring a consistent aesthetic. This enhances your brand identity and makes your profile more appealing to followers and potential customers.

Related Read: How To Ace Instagram Aesthetics For Businesses?

Optimized hashtag and keyword usage

Instagram planning apps often include features that suggest relevant hashtags and keywords for your posts. This optimizes your content’s discoverability on Instagram, helping you reach a broader audience and increasing the chances of attracting users interested in your niche or industry.

Optimized posting schedule

Instagram planning apps analyze optimal posting times based on your audience’s engagement patterns. By scheduling posts at peak times, you maximize visibility and engagement, increasing the likelihood of reaching a wider audience and gaining new followers.

Data-driven decision making

These apps offer analytics on the performance of your previously published posts. By analyzing Instagram statistics such as engagement, reach, and impressions, you gain valuable insights into what content resonates best with your audience. This data-driven approach empowers you to refine your strategy, creating more impactful and relevant content in the future.

Enhanced collaboration and planning

Planning apps provide collaborative features for businesses with multiple team members managing social media. Team members can coordinate and plan content seamlessly, ensuring a unified brand voice and strategy across all posts. This collaborative aspect is especially beneficial for larger organizations with diverse content contributors.

Also Read: Social Media Collaboration: How to Make It Work?

Top 10 Instagram planning apps in 2024

1. ContentStudio

ContentStudio is a powerful tool for businesses seeking efficient Instagram planning and management. With a comprehensive suite of features, users can seamlessly plan, create, and schedule captivating Instagram posts.

You can visualize and organize content effortlessly through a shared content calendar. The tool also offers smart scheduling, custom queues, and preset categories for optimized planning while streamlining content approvals with instant feedback, enhancing collaboration.

With AI-generated captions , and Canva and VistaCreate integration, you can create visually appealing posts with descriptive text.

Besides that, ​​you can refine strategies using in-depth Instagram analytics and receive recommendations for the best time to post to maximize engagement. ContentStudio ensures a cohesive and streamlined approach, elevating Instagram’s presence effectively.

Pricing

Starter Plan	Pro Plan	Agency Small Plan	Agency Medium Plan	Agency Large Plan
$25/month	$49/month	$99/month	$199/month	$299/month

2. Later

The Later app is an excellent Instagram feed planner, offering an intuitive Instagram post scheduler. It provides a user-friendly experience, ensuring your feed maintains a consistent and professional appearance. With Later, you can effortlessly plan your posts in advance, eliminating the need to create content at the last minute.

Key features of the app encompass a visual content calendar, allowing you to strategically arrange your feed by effortlessly dragging and dropping images onto a grid for a pre-posting preview. Additionally, the analytics and reporting feature empowers you to monitor and evaluate your account’s performance effectively.

Pricing

Starter	Growth	Advanced
$25/month	$45/month	$80/month

3. Buffer

Buffer functions as an Instagram planning tool, enabling the scheduling and auto-publishing of posts while also providing valuable insights through analytics. Additionally, Buffer offers the capability to create personalized landing pages for enhanced customization.

Within Buffer, the Instagram feed planner feature lets you preview your Instagram grid before posting, facilitating the creation of a visually cohesive feed. It also allows you to reschedule posts and upload photos and videos in bulk quickly.

Pricing

Free	Essentials	Team	Agency
$0/month	$6/month	$12/month	$120/month

4. Planoly

Planoly stands as an Instagram feed planning tool designed to streamline the scheduling and organization of your content. Through Planoly, you can preview the visual layout of your photos on your feed before posting, allowing for easy rearrangement to achieve a unified and visually pleasing aesthetic.

Additionally, Planoly is a valuable resource for planning ahead, whether for upcoming events or holidays and offers performance tracking capabilities over time. This versatile tool provides essential analytics reporting, the convenience of creating and saving hashtag groups, and access to a media library to efficiently organize your media assets.

Pricing

Starter	Growth	Professional
$13/month	$23/month	$43/month

5. Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers publishing features encompassing calendar scheduling, content suggestions, optimal send-time recommendations, a link-in-bio feature, and a comprehensive campaign planner. 

Additionally, Sprout Social introduces the “Message Approval Workflows” feature, facilitating streamlined collaboration within large social media teams. Users can draft posts and seek managerial approval, enhancing workflow efficiency and ensuring cohesive teamwork.

Pricing

Standard	Professional	Advanced	Enterprise
$249/month	$399/month	$499/month	Custom Pricing

6. Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers several robust features for Instagram management, spanning content creation to analytics. Hootsuite Composer’s toolkit includes a media library, Canva editing, Grammarly suggestions, and OwlyWriter AI. The tool’s scheduling feature allows posts, carousels, stories, and reels planning and management. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop visual planner supports bulk scheduling and team collaboration.

Hootbio, Hootsuite’s link-in-bio feature, is designed to divert Instagram traffic to desired destinations such as blogs, e-commerce sites, or YouTube channels.

Post-publication, Hootsuite simplifies the continuation of your strategic plans. You can track performance, gain insights into what resonates with your audience, and guide future posting decisions based on analytics and industry benchmarks.

Pricing

Professional	Team	Enterprise
$99/month	$249/month	Custom Pricing

7. Preview

The Instagram planning app Preview provides an array of features. Within its library of themes and filters, you have the flexibility to discover the one that aligns best with your brand. You can curate your feed according to your brand tone by dragging and dropping images onto your grid.

This Instagram planner app allows you to edit your images and videos, along with the option to crop them before scheduling, using the built-in editor. Utilize its analytics feature to gather insights about your posts and audience. Moreover, customizable templates are available for crafting both Instagram posts and stories.

Pricing

Free	Pro	Premium
0$/month	$6.67/month	$12.50/month

8. Plann

Plann is an Instagram planner that enables users to effortlessly arrange photos in a calendar through a drag-and-drop interface, providing a preview of their feed before posting. The app includes post statistics to gauge content performance and refine strategies.

Additionally, Plann offers a built-in image editor and a collection of customizable templates. It also features an interactive Link-in-bio Tool for creating custom links to share on your Instagram.

Pricing

Power User	Build	Grow
$15/month	$30/month	$75/month

9. Tailwind

Tailwind stands out as an excellent Instagram planning tool, offering a comprehensive suite of features for the creation, scheduling, and analysis of content. This tool also provides insights into the optimal posting times on Instagram, determined by your audience’s activity, allowing you to schedule single-image posts effortlessly in advance.

This Instagram planner app includes a hashtag suggestion feature for discovering relevant hashtags. It also provides analytics to monitor account performance. Additionally, there is a design tool referred to as Tailwind Create, which allows you to create visually appealing and customizable post and story templates easily.

tailwind-create-instagram-planner

Pricing

Free Forever	Pro	Advanced	Max
$0/month	$24.99/month	$49.99/month	$99.99/month

10. Vista Social

Vista Social stands out as one of the most advanced Instagram feed apps, boasting a diverse array of features. Its offerings include feed planner previews and visual calendar, hashtag suggestion tools, and AI writing assistance for captions and content creation. In addition to these features, users can access editing features, thumbnail selection for Reels, a labeled media library, shared calendar links for seamless content sharing, customizable reports, and features facilitating team collaboration.

Pricing

Pro	Pro+	Custom
$15/month	$25/month	Custom Pricing

Final thoughts

As we navigate the dynamic landscape of digital marketing in 2024, the importance of a compelling Instagram presence cannot be overstated. Your Instagram feed serves as a virtual storefront, leaving a lasting impression on your audience. Recognizing this, we’ve outlined the top 10 Instagram planning apps to elevate your social media strategy.

Each app brings unique strengths, whether it’s ContentStudio’s comprehensive suite, Later’s user-friendly experience, Buffer’s insights, and personalized landing pages, or Tailwind’s insights into optimal posting times. Regardless of your specific needs, these Instagram planning apps empower businesses to curate a cohesive, visually appealing, and strategically planned Instagram feed, driving engagement and success in the digital realm.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Instagram planner app?

The best Instagram planner app can vary based on individual preferences and business needs. Popular choices include ContentStudio, Later, Buffer, Planoly, and Tailwind, each offering unique features for efficient content planning and management.

How to do Instagram planning?

To do Instagram planning, start by defining your content strategy, including themes, goals, and target audience. Utilize planning apps to schedule posts, ensuring a consistent aesthetic. Research and use relevant hashtags, schedule posts during peak times, and leverage analytics to refine your strategy. Collaborate with team members using planning tools and consistently analyze performance to optimize future content.