7+ Best Instagram Planning Apps to Use in 2023

Are you using Instagram for your business?

If not, no worries.. there’s still time to jump on the bandwagon.

Check out this article, I’m going to show you exactly how, step by step!
Article: How to Use Instagram for Business – My 7 Best Tools

For those who have been using Instagram for a while now, you’re probably aware that getting followers, engagement for your Instagram posts and Stories, as well as generating traffic to your blog or website is not as easy as it used to be.

In an increasingly competitive Instagram landscape, it’s becoming more and more of a challenge to stand out from the crowd on Instagram.

So, STOP randomly posting on Instagram, thinking it’s marketing. Instead, intentionally plan, curate and schedule the perfect Instagram grid.

Now I know adding Instagram to your already busy life can be a bit scary, but trust me, you can implement this Instagram Strategy in a very short amount of time and have it run automatically for you, for weeks on end!

Yes, you can fully automate and legitimately “set it and forget it!”

To do that, you’re going to need some handy tools to help you out!

Here are my favorite Instagram planning apps to help you plan out and schedule your Instagram content in a whole new way, attention-grabbing way.

Instagram Planning & Scheduling

1. Circleboom Publish – Organize, plan, and schedule your Instagram feed

Circleboom is the perfect choice for those looking for top-notch features at an unbeatable price. With a wide range of features and a price point that can’t be beaten, it’s no wonder why so many people are choosing Circleboom as their go-to solution. Circleboom has everything you need to get the job done right, from easy-to-use interfaces to advanced capabilities. Plus, our dedicated customer support team is always available to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

Planning is essential for social media. You should be a shining example among many others on Instagram to attract the attention of screen scrollers on Instagram.

Better planning brings more likes, comments, and other kinds of engagement to your Instagram accounts.

Circleboom Publish’s Instagram Planner helps you create eye-catching Instagram visuals that turn viewers into your followers.

Managing multiple Instagram accounts and your other social media accounts would be great, and you will save time and energy in creating unique Instagram designs.

What is Circleboom Publish?

Circleboom is the best and most intuitive Instagram scheduler and planner.

Users can create, curate, design, share, schedule, and automate their Instagram posts in one dashboard for their multiple Instagram accounts.

Circleboom’s built-in extensions: Canva and Unsplash, provide ready-made templates, pictures, filters, effects, graphics, fonts, animations, etc., to embellish your Instagram content.

You can enrich your Instagram posts with popular, relevant hashtags. Circleboom’s Instagram Hashtag Generator helps you find trending hashtags for your posts.

Or, you can plan amazing Instagram grid layouts with Circleboom’s Instagram Grid Maker tool.

Key Circleboom features:

Why You’ll Love Circleboom Publish

Circleboom Publish enables you to schedule, plan, and design your Instagram feed with amazing tools and features. You’ll be saving great time and effort for your other businesses.

You can create and schedule carousels, reels, collages, grids, panoramas, and other kinds of Instagram posts with Circleboom Publish.

Plan your Instagram feed with Circleboom Publish. Take a 14-day free trial. If you want to use advanced features, it starts at $15.83/month.

Feed Planning

2. Sked Social -Visually plan with Drag And Drop

Here’s the thing… whenever a user lands on your Instagram profile, they’d just quickly scroll through it while mindlessly evaluate your bio, number of followers and how the grid looks. It happens very quickly.

In fact, you have 5 seconds or less to make a first visual impression with your Instagram users.

Interestingly, planning and executing a visually differentiated Instagram grid is most often overlooked. So, it’s your opportunity to plan top-notch visual content for your Instagram feed. It’s an effective way to turn a large percentage of visitors into new followers.

Wouldn’t it be great if you can see all your posts together and arrange them to your liking, all in one dashboard?

What is Sked Social:

That’s where Sked Social, the best Instagram grid planner, comes in.

Sked Social is a super user-friendly app that lets you preview, plan and design your Instagram feed perfectly ahead of time and automate the process of posting the content in the right order.

To craft your own unique feed, simply upload photos you’ll be posting to Sked Social.

Drag and drop to rearrange images of your upcoming post. You easily see how your feed looks to your followers in Calendar view and give it a creative design before you publish. This differentiates you from the amateurs.

Why You’ll Love Sked Social:

What’s particularly great about Sked Social is that it’s not only available on mobile (iOS and Android), there’s a desktop version to help you work faster and more efficiently. Bulk upload images, design your grid layout on a laptop and use the mobile version to engage with followers on the go.

Build your own Instagram Aesthetic that stands out. Take Sked Social for a Test Drive for free here.

If you want to have advanced features, it starts at $25/month.

Hashtag Planning

3. Hashtags For Likes -Find the Perfect Hashtags for Your Instagram

Creating an eye-catching Instagram grid won’t get more people to discover your account. But it’ll definitely increase the chance of converting visitors into followers.

The secret to instantly boost your Instagram Posts and Stories exposure- use the right hashtags.

Each hashtag create new opportunities for people to see your post, find your profile and discover relevant content that they’re actually interested in.

Since you already put some effort into making great content, don’t forget to use the right hashtags on your Instagram Posts and Stories for more eyes and maximum exposure.

When used correctly, hashtags can dramatically increase your discoverability, engagement and reach – It’s a powerful opportunity for viral content.

But first a warning: Don’t repeatedly use the same old hashtags for every post and Story!

You are taking a short cut and saving a lot of effort, but that can get your account shadowbanned by Instagram.

Also, don’t chase after popular hashtags like #love, #followback or #followme. It’s better to use hashtags that are relevant to what you’re posting, your niche and topic. This way, you can be assured to attract and engage with target audience who’s truly interested in what you offer.

What is Hashtags For Likes:

Hashtags For Likes is my favorite Instagram tools for finding the right hashtags.

Why You’ll Love Hashtags For Likes:

It’s an incredibly powerful hashtag tool that instantly gives a list of relevant, up to date hashtags for your image and text based on real-time hashtag engagement. As such, it will automatically give you access to an audience that you wouldn’t usually have the access.

It’s super easy to use. Simply enter any Instagram #hashtag in the search bar, instantly get analytics and insights and use the suggested hashtags to boost your following organically.

You can use up to 10 hashtags per Story and a maximum of 30 hashtags per post.

Measure your results. As you publishing more posts with a variety of hashtags, analyse the growth of your follower, keep track of which tags generate the most likes. Which get the most comments? the most engagement?

Slowly but surely, you will create different lists of hashtags that work for you.

If you’re doing everything you could but still struggling on growing your Instagram, I’d suggest taking a test drive with Hashtags for Likes.

See how a small change with your hashtags can make a whole lot different.

The good news is it’s free to use. If you want to have premium features, paid plans start as low as $38/month.

Photo Editing

4. Stencil – Create Beautiful Quotes Pictures, Fast

To build and grow a successful Instagram account, it’s important that you create highly engaging content on a regular basis.

Other than publishing promotional posts, behind the scene photos, shoppable posts, giveaways, actionable ideas, try including quotes in your Instagram content calendar.

Quote or saying images are a great way to inspire and connect with your audience for lasting influence, regardless of your niche.

People like to share and engage with quotes that they can relate to, they may even follow your page if they like your content.

Using quotes that are relevant to your target market can be a great way to boost engagement on your page, get more followers and build a clear brand identity.

What is Stencil:

Stencil is a simple image creation tool built specifically for making attractive quote graphic, fast!

Similar to Canva, but you’re able to create beautiful quotes even faster with Stencil.

Why You’ll Love Stencil:

Look:

You can search for quotes by topic or author, right inside the app! For example, I’m searching for Success quotes.

The app grants you access to more than 100,000 quotes (new quotes are added weekly) and over 2,200,000 royalty-free photos that you can use to create great picture quotes.

Select the Quotes tab, search for a quote, pick a background, change the fonts, enhance your picture with filter and effects, and don’t forget to add your brand logo.

And the best part?

You can sign up a free Stencil account, which allows you to save up to 10 images/month, access to free photos and icons and 10 Instagram SMS per month.

If you’re looking to save more picture quotes and brand the images with your own logo, you might want to upgrade to their Pro plan, start at $9/month.

5. Easil – Create beautiful Instagram Posts and Stories

If you’re serious about growing your Instagram, you should aim to post content at least once a day, whether it’s a post, story, video, or live.

By posting engaging content with the right hashtags, you will get more people to see your business, like your posts, follow your profile.

What is Easil:

Easil is a free graphic editor that allows you to create all types of high-quality visual content, including Instagram Posts, single and multi-page Instagram Stories.

Why You’ll Love Easil:

What’s particularly great about is that Easil offers a wide range of on-trend templates. You can easily plan a look and feel that’s sure to impress your followers with just a few click. Its main features include:

1000’s of Easil’s fully customizable templates
A Brand Kit – you can easily upload default brand fonts, color palettes, logos and imagery.
Complete designing tool – text styling, resizing tool.
Easil’s Color Palette Generator which automatically help you get the right colors and tones

Whether you’re looking to showcase your products, drive traffic to a popular blog post, share behind-the-scenes, promote a giveaway, or run an Instagram flash sale, you’ll find the right Instagram template to suit your every need.

And most importantly, Easil has a Free Plan allows you to upload your own logo to create your own custom, consistent branding. (If you use Canva, you’ll need to purchase the pro feature.)

Sign up a free Easil account and start editing your Instagram post on your desktop. If you like using Easil, upgrade to their Plus plan for more premium images, animated GIFs templates and advanced features, starting as low as $7.50 per month.

Animated Post Editing

6. Story Swag – Magically Transform Photos into a Video Story/ Post

Adding animation to your Instagram Posts and Stories is a great way to grab your audience attention and keep them coming back for more.

What is Story Swag:

Story Swag is by far the fastest and easiest way to create stylish animated posts for Instagram and Stories with just a few taps, all from your phone.

Why You’ll Love Story Swag:

You don’t need to have any design skills or hire a pro designer to create your own video Story and Post.

It’s very simple and easy to use.

You can plan and make an animated post in 3 simple steps:

Select photo – upload your own photos or choose from over 1 million free stock photos from the app.
Edit text, add music, and filter to your photos.
Select design – choose from over 28 different types of animations. From attention-grabbing to cool, geometric patterns, understated femininity, you can toy with what style and effect that works best.

That’s it. Preview and download your design or directly post it to Instagram from the app.

If you’re looking for a quick, fun and easy way to transform your images into eye-catching videos on the fly, check out my quick tutorial on how to use Story Swag to elevate your content to a new level.

Story Swag is available on the App Store and Google Play. It’s free forever, if you don’t mind having a small watermark on your IG stories.

If you want to get advanced features and remove the watermark, upgrade to their Pro plan which costs less than $5 a month

Take advantage of their 7-day free trial to test out all of Story Swag’s features.

Bio Link Planning

7. Sked Link

While you craft a unique and visually striking grid for your Instagram, don’t forget to plan your link in bio.

When someone discovers your profile, there’s only ONE link that they can click on your page.

Don’t waste your traffic.

Add multiple links to your Instagram bio, so you can direct followers to specific content, boost your site traffic, generate more leads and sales.

What is Sked Link:

Sked Link is the most easy and powerful tool in optimizing your Instagram bio link.

Use Sked Link as your Instagram bio link so you can direct visitors to more than one destination such as your blog posts, products, website, email opt-in, free course, other social media accounts and ANY link you want!

Why You’ll Love Sked Link:

It’s a rather simple tool but it has everything you need to design an impressive landing page.

Upload your profile picture
Include a welcome message on your page
Choose the button text, font and color
Add as many links as you like
and more

Four great things about Sked Link:

Built-in live preview. This handy feature allow you to preview changing instantly on the right as you’re adding elements to your page.
create a personalized page: Add a mini-bio, welcome message or introductory text to capture your audience’s attention, show them who you are and how you can help them.
Monitor, measure and track traffic from Instagram by adding your Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics ID.
Instagram gallery display: Add your Instagram feed in your customized link. When someone clicks any of your Instagram images, you can direct them to a specific page.

Sked Link is 100% free.

If you’re an existing user of their Instagram scheduling tool, Sked Social, you can remove Sked Link branding, for no extra cost.

Get started with Sked Link for free here. If you want to test out all Sked’s features (IG auto-posting + remove Sked Link’s logo), you can sign-up for a 7-day trial.

Instagram Scheduling and Auto-Publishing

8. Sked Social

The other six tools on the list help you to plan your grids, edit your photos, create amazing animated videos, find the right hashtags, and even optimize your Instagram link in bio.

Here comes the most important part: Automation.

You want to 100% fully automate your Instagram posting so you can keep your eyes on the bigger prize. So you can focus your energy on more essential parts of your business without worrying about missing a post. Again Sked Social is my app of choice for scheduling and auto-publishing.

What is Sked Social:

Sked Social is an all-in-one time-saving tool with powerful features that you’ll need to execute this Instagram strategy effectively- from planning your content ahead of time, publishing it automatically on Instagram, tracking post-performance and measuring ROI.

Why You’ll Love Sked Social:

It’s a REAL time-saver.

I use Sked Social’s saved caption and first comment to save my most used captions and hashtags, Sked Social can auto apply captions and make sure I won’t have the same caption used in a row.

Remember? You don’t want to use the same captions and hashtags to avoid getting your account banned by Instagram.

Bulk Schedule anything on your phone or computer.

Visually plan your grid to curate a stylish and cohesive Instagram profile.

Each post you publish earns you a little more time. Your captions and hashtags are conveniently saved so you can access them without repeating yourself over and over again.

Don’t want to enter your tags in the description? Press “Add First Comment” and voila!

You can search and repost your best photos. Repeat that like clockwork every 12 hours, once a week or any custom schedule you like. It makes your workflow a whole lot easier. That’s the key.

Schedule your stories, videos and IGTVs. Your punctuality sets your content apart. This gives your brand a kind of immersive experience people often take for granted.

Learn how your followers consume. You can rewire them to be more attentive whenever you push out content. All brains work that way.

That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good Instagramming. You’re welcome.

Although there’s no free version of Sked Social, you can take advantage of their 7-day free trial (no credit card required) to check out what Sked can do.

Conclusion

There you’ve it, 7+ best apps to plan, design, schedule and analyze your Instagram.

Take advantage of this Instagram tools for absolutely free -Some of them offer a 100% free forever plan, while some offer a free trial right now.

Circlebloom Publish: Organize, plan, and schedule your Instagram feed
Sked Social: Visually plan your Instagram feed, Bulk scheduling, Automatically publishing content in the right order, Analyze your post performance
Hashtags For Likes: Find the perfect hashtags
Stencil: Create beautiful quotes images fast
Easil: Create custom, on-brand posts
Story Swag: Turn photos into animated videos
Sked Link: Add multiple links to your Instagram link in bio