With more than 1.4 billion users, Instagram has opened up huge opportunities for brands to put their products in front of new customers.
Although tactics like running Instagram ads and partnering with influencers are effective, it can be tough to learn what to post on Instagram and get the results you want without the right tools.
Explore the most popular Instagram tools and apps for businesses to set your business apart, drive more customers to your online store, and understand how to sell and make money on Instagram most effectively.
Instagram tools for design
Instagram accounts are incredible platforms for communicating your brand’s identity and the value of your products.
Even if you aren’t a professional photographer, you can post great images with your smartphone and these Instagram editing tools.
VSCO (iOS, Android, web)
VSCO is a premier Instagram tool for creating beautiful photos on the go. Part photo-editing platform and part social media network, VSCO has an in-depth editing suite and high-quality default filters that can improve your smartphone photos. The Plus plan offers a library of more than 200 filters, allowing you to customize and save your editing “recipes” so each photo can have a consistent look. Plus, you can follow and share your work with other creators on the app, expanding your brand recognition.
Price: Basic presets and standard editing tools are free; the Plus plan with access to more than 200 presets is $29.99/year; and access to VSCO’s full suite of presets and image/video editing tools is $59.99/year.
Snapseed (iOS, Android)
Snapseed gives you the option to fine-tune your photos. So, instead of editing the entire image at once, you can apply effects with a brush to specific parts of the photo.
Similar to VSCO’s editing “recipes,” Snapseed’s Stacks allow you to save custom filters as templates. Once you create a Stack, you can apply it to future photos to save time and maintain a consistent look.
Price: Free.
Afterlight (iOS)
Afterlight is a photo- and video-editing app with hundreds of filters, textures, and frames. It’s known for filters that add a vintage film effect to digital photos, but Afterlight also includes typography tools and the ability to edit specific parts of the photo.
Price: Free, $2.99/month for Afterlight Photo and Video PRO, $17.99 annually with a seven-day free trial, or $35.99 for a lifetime membership.
Canva (iOS, Android, web)
With Canva, you can superimpose text, customize multi-image layouts, incorporate illustrations from a library of graphic elements, craft GIFs, make AI-generated images, and more.
It’s especially useful for creating Instagram Stories that stand out.
Price: Free for image design with pay-per-use premium graphics, $15/month for Canva Pro, $30/month minimum for Canva Teams, and custom pricing plans for enterprise businesses.
Photoshop Express (iOS, Android, Windows)
The Photoshop Express mobile app offers a robust image editing experience. You can remove blemishes, add a watermark to your photos, automatically cut out shapes, smooth skin, add makeup, remove unwanted objects, and more. Additionally, there’s an educational, community aspect where you can watch playbacks of how your favorite editors accomplished custom effects.
Price: Free.
Instagram tools for video editing
You don’t need professional video-editing software to create captivating videos for your business’s Instagram account. These Instagram video apps make it easy for anyone to capture quick videos on their phones and turn them into high-quality posts.
Vimeo Create (iOS, Android)
Vimeo Create automatically turns your existing product images and text into videos for social media. Just answer a few questions about your product and the videos are generated for you, no video experience required. You can publish your Vimeo videos directly to your Instagram account or publish the finished video on Vimeo and embed it in other places.
Price: Free, $20/month for the Starter plan, $33/month for the Standard plan, and $108/month for the Advanced plan.
Boomerang feature in Instagram (iOS, Android)
Boomerang is a feature within Instagram Stories and Instagram feed posts. It’s a feature that creates short video clips that play forward and then in reverse, creating a GIF looping effect.
Price: Free.
Life Lapse (iOS, Android)
Life Lapse is a feature-rich mobile app for creating longer, stop-motion videos to showcase your products. You can take as many photos as you want, customize the size of your video, adjust the speed between images, and even add royalty-free music.
Price: Free, with optional in-app purchases.
Hype-Type (iOS)
Hype-Type’s large library of fonts and animations makes it quick and easy to create captions for different sections of a video shot with the app or for an uploaded video you’ve already taken. When you’re finished, you can post your video on Instagram without leaving Hype-Type.
Price: Free with Hype-Type watermark; in-app purchases are available to remove the watermark or purchase additional fonts.
Instagram Reels and Stories tools
From design apps that make you look like a pro to stock photo resources that elevate your visuals, here are some must-have tools.
Adobe Express (iOS, Android)
Adobe Express has a library of Reel and Story templates you can drag and drop your own designs and branding into or incorporate with royalty-free stock video footage. Keep your content consistent with built-in brand kits and templates with locked elements that are easy to customize. You can also invite collaborators to co-design projects with you.
Price: Free with limited features and access, $9.99/month (after a 30-day free trial), or $12.99/month (after a 14-day free trial).
Mojo (iOS, Android)
Mojo is all about bringing your Instagram Stories to life through animation. Choose from hundreds of animated templates to make them come alive. Or, add text, transitions, and effects to make your Stories pop. The app also includes a real-time preview feature.
Price: Free for limited usage, $14.99/month for the Pro plan (after a seven-day free trial), or custom pricing plans for enterprise businesses.
Instagram hashtag tools
These hashtag tools can elevate your tagging strategy with data-driven insights, real-time trends, and smart algorithms:
Tagboard (web)
Tagboard is an aggregation platform that lets you collect, curate, and showcase Instagram posts (and other social media platforms) in real time. You can gather content related to specific hashtags, keywords, or accounts, and integrate them to showcase customer testimonials or product reviews visually. It’s a good tool for capturing and tracking conversations about your brand.
Price: Tagboard offers bespoke quotes upon request.
All Hashtag (web)
All Hashtag takes the guesswork out of choosing the right hashtags for your Instagram posts. The generator instantly creates a list of relevant, trending hashtags based on a single keyword and the analytics feature provides insight into hashtag performance. The tool also has a handy Top 100 list that highlights the most popular hashtags across different categories.
Price: Free.
RiteTag (iOS, Android, web)
RiteTag uses intelligent tech and real-time data to suggest hashtags for uploaded photos via a color-coded system. Green tags are hot right now, blue tags have long-term potential, and red tags are oversaturated.
Price: $49 per year after a seven-day free trial.
Auto Hashtags Maker (iOS)
Auto Hashtags Maker helps you find relevant Instagram hashtags for your images using AI to recognize the objects in your photos. It will count the hashtags for you so you don’t go over the 30-hashtag limit, and you can save your favorite hashtags in the app.
Once you’re ready to post, Auto Hashtags Maker will save your selected hashtags to your clipboard so all you have to do is paste them into your image description or comments.
Price: Free.
Instagram tools for marketing
These Instagram marketing apps will help you grow your followers on the platform.
Repost for Instagram (iOS, Android)
You don’t always need to be the person behind the lens taking the photos. If you have a community of customers who post user-generated content (UGC), you can use Repost for Instagram to curate their images and give them credit at the same time.
To share an image from someone else’s Instagram account on your own, just copy the share URL on the post you want to share and open Repost’s Instagram tool on your phone. It will add a credit icon to the image, copy the description, and have you ready to post to your account in seconds.
Price: Free.
Instagram ecommerce apps
These apps make it easy to share your Instagram photos in your Shopify store so visitors can easily find products they saw on Instagram and purchase them from your site.
Instafeed (Shopify)
Your Instagram photos aren’t just a great way to engage potential customers on social media. They can also show your website visitors how your products look in context or how they can work together.
With Instafeed, you can create a shoppable store directly in your Instagram feed. Easily add your Instagram photos to your store and tag the products featured in each image to make them shoppable.
Price: Free, $6/month for the Pro version, or $19/month for the Plus version.
Covet.pics (Shopify)
Similarly to Instafeed, Covet.pics lets you create galleries on your website from your Instagram photos. In addition to showcasing your shoppable Instagram app images, this Instagram business tool lets you invite customers to upload their own images with an interface that allows you to approve them before they’re posted to your gallery.
You can tag products in your gallery photos, show pricing, and include a direct Buy button. Additionally, Covet.pics offers detailed analytics about how your galleries are performing, with metrics like views, engagements, and orders.
Price: Prices start at $9.99/month.
Unsplash (web)
Unsplash is best known as a repository for high-quality, royalty-free images, all of which you can use without attribution. You can use the visuals to create Instagram Stories and Reels, such as landscapes for travel-themed stories or lifestyle shots for product promotions.
Unsplash integrates with many design tools, so once you’ve chosen an image, you can transfer it to your favorite design app where you can add text overlays, animations, and other engaging elements.
Price: Free or $16/month for Unsplash+.
Instagram scheduling tools
These tools allow you to schedule posts in advance and keep your profile well-stocked with content.
Sked (iOS, Android, web)
Sked is a platform with web-browser-based scheduling capabilities and extensive photo-editing features. Using its built-in image editing tool, you can tweak and fine-tune your photos. Sked also allows for mass uploading, so you can schedule batches of photos at once and shave time off your social media marketing efforts.
Price: Prices start at $59/month for the Essentials plan.
Later (iOS, Android, web)
Later is an intuitive social media scheduling platform that comes with tools to explore hashtags and share user-generated content.
Later lets you organize and schedule Instagram posts with a content calendar that gives a preview of your Instagram feed before publishing.
It also offers Saved Captions so you can save related groups of hashtags together and reuse your most effective tactics.
Price: Prices start at $25/month.
Hootsuite (web, iOS, Android)
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that lets you schedule your Instagram posts in advance. It either notifies you to post with a push notification or posts automatically for you if you have an Instagram Business account.
Price: Prices start at $99/month.
Buffer (iOS, Android, web)
Buffer helps you schedule your posts from mobile or desktop, and with an Essentials plan, you can also create and schedule Instagram Stories, embed a shoppable Instagram grid on your website, and get detailed analytics on the performance of your posts.
Price: Free for one user and three social accounts; the paid plans start with Essentials for $6/month.
Planoly (web)
Planoly has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that lets you visualize your grid layout before posting. It allows you to create content in the app, store and organize your most-used hashtags, and apply them to your posts before you hit Publish. The algorithm learns as it goes, so the more you post, the more data Planoly has to determine the best cadence for you to post on Instagram.
Price: Prices start at $16/month.
Instagram tools for analytics
These Instagram analytics tools help you measure how your Instagram marketing activities are impacting your bottom line.
Sprout Social (iOS, Android, web)
Sprout Social is a social media management platform with extensive Instagram post-scheduling and publishing tools and detailed reports about how your latest posts have been performing. Use it to track engagement and compare the success of your store’s Instagram account against the success of other accounts you manage.
Additionally, Sprout Social has tools for monitoring hashtags and comments, helping you keep your finger on the pulse of your community and find new opportunities for engagement.
Price: From $249/user/month for the Standard plan after a 30-day free trial.
Iconosquare (iOS, Android, web)
With Iconosquare, you can track regular engagement data like followers and likes as well as get specific statistics about your followers, including their location and level of social media influence. By identifying your most influential fans, you’ll be able to discover new opportunities for influencer marketing and outreach.
Iconosquare also allows you to compare your performance against your competitors, helping you understand where you fit into your industry landscape.
Price: From $59/month for the Single plan after a 14-day free trial.
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Instagram tools FAQ
How do I grow my Instagram?
Grow your Instagram by following and engaging with other accounts in your niche. Follow relevant hashtags and location tags and observe which types of content get the most engagement.
What are the best tools to use for Instagram?
Some of the best editing tools include VSCO, Snapseed, Afterlight, Canva, and Photoshop Express. The best video editing tools include Vimeo Create, Boomerang, Life Lapse, and Hype-Type. Instafeed and Covet.pics are great for making your Instagram feeds shoppable on Shopify.
How much does Instagram promo cost?
Instagram ads cost between 50¢ and $1 per click, on average. The more specific and competitive your targeting, the more expensive it is.
What is the best time to post on Instagram?
The best time to post on Instagram is when your target audience is on Instagram, which depends on the time zone of your most engaged customers.