Instagram sponsored posts are ads on the social media platform that help you reach an audience beyond your existing followers.
Instagram continues to engage users at an increasing clip. It has more than 3 billion daily users worldwide, and Social Insider found that shares are up 12% and views are up 29% year over year. If you’re posting organic content on Instagram already, you can maximize the usefulness of those posts by turning them into Instagram ads.
This guide covers what Instagram sponsored posts are, how to budget for them, and how to get the most out of your strategy, with tips from social media consultant and No Filter Substack creator Kendall Dickieson.
What are Instagram sponsored posts?
A sponsored Instagram post is content that a brand or individual pays to promote to a wide audience. Common goals for sponsored posts are awareness, engagement, or conversion. Kendall says, “If you’re a brand, maybe you’re trying to push people to a website. Or, if you’re an app, [you’re] trying to get downloads.”
Sponsored posts no longer have a “Sponsored” label on Instagram, as noted in an update from Meta across its ad help pages. Any paid post is now labeled “Ad.” This change can be seen in feeds, like this example from Tilebar.
Instagram ad formats and placements
Instagram is a visual platform that allows you to create ads and branded content across several formats and placements, including feed, Stories, Reels, and Explore:
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Feed ads. These are photo ads, videos, or carousel ads that pop up between organic posts in someone’s main feed. Common aspect ratios are 1:1 (1080 by 1080) and 4:5 (1080 by 1350). Instagram recommends 4:5 for image ads.
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Story ads. Vertical (9:16) ads that appear between organic Instagram Stories, running for up to 60 seconds as video. They can be static images or videos.
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Reels ads. Vertical video ads (9:16) that run between organic Reels.
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Carousel ads. Ad units with up to 10 swipeable cards, each with its own image or video, headline, and link.
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Collection and Shopping ads. These combine a hero image or video with a grid of shoppable products underneath.
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Explore page. Ads that appear on Instagram’s Explore tab, either as square tiles in the grid or as full ads once someone starts scrolling through Explore content.
How much do Instagram ads cost?
When creating Instagram ads, you pay to make the content and pay to run it. Here’s how it breaks down:
Content creation
Creating content in-house can cost nothing or several thousand dollars, depending on the content type and production value. For the snack brand Elavi, a low-budget style ended up benefiting the brand. As cofounder Michelle Razavi says on Shopify Masters, “People resonated more with a more casual, random video versus some very polished, perfect professional photography.”
Kendall says the costs of creating content through paid partnerships can similarly vary. “I’ve signed $15,000 deals, and then other times I pay $5,000 to $15,000 to get the deliverables done and post on the influencer’s account,” she says. “If the paid performance is strong, sometimes we pay the creator $2,000 to $3,000 a month to keep usage on that creative.”
This range typically applies to micro influencers (10,001 to 100,000 followers), mid-tier influencers (100,001 to 500,000 followers), and macro influencers (501,000 to 1 million followers). Mega influencers with millions of followers cost far more to work with.
Promotion
Instagram ad costs are bid-driven, so the ad prices can vary widely based on campaign goals, target audience, and bidding strategy. For reference, according to ad automation platform Birch, as of August 2026, the average costs across Instagram ad campaigns are:
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CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions): $14.51
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CPC (cost per click): $1.30
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CPE (cost per engagement): 7¢
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Cost per lead (CPL): $50.74
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Cost per install: $4.48
Ways to run sponsored Instagram posts
There are several ways to set up your Instagram ad campaigns:
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From Instagram directly (app or website). Using the boost button, you can put money behind feed posts, Reels, and partner content. Your audience and placement options are set automatically.
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From your Facebook page. You can link your Instagram professional account to your Facebook page to run ads, which can appear on both Facebook and Instagram. You have limited placement and audience options through this method.
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Meta Business Suite. This is a broader tool that allows you to schedule posts, create ads, and oversee permissions, in addition to running ad campaigns.
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Meta Ads Manager. This is the most comprehensive tool for setting up and managing your Instagram ads, with more options for your audience and placements.
Tips for using Instagram sponsored posts
- Experiment with content
- Invest in paid media expertise
- Run ads from Meta Ads Manager, not the boost button
- Use tools to refine your campaigns
Kendall has worked with a wide range of brands in the social space and shared some tips for how to get better results from your paid Instagram posts:
Experiment with content
Kendall says you never know what’s going to work until you test it. Sometimes an unpolished post can have more success than carefully curated ads. She gives an example of a picture she took for an Instagram Story, which became the brand’s best-performing ad for eight weeks, outperforming multiple variants of curated ads.
She also recommends taking cues from what’s already working organically. "The best organic posts should almost always be your gateway into paid media," Kendall says. She says the ideal workflow is to create a lot of organic content, see how it performs, and put spend behind what’s working the best.
Invest in paid media expertise
“I think there’s an assumption that the more you spend, the better off you are, which isn’t correct,” Kendall says. “Because you can spend a ton of money and not have anything optimized correctly and lose it all.”
A small amount of dedicated support can make a big difference, Kendall says. While her area of expertise is social media content, it isn’t paid media. With some support, she doesn’t have to guess.
She works with a part-time paid media specialist who costs roughly $1,000 a month for one weekly 15-minute check-in and Slack availability, which is a modest investment that keeps testing consistent and prevents ad spend waste.
“It’s so helpful, because otherwise you might be burning cash without realizing it, or you’re just not putting it in the right places,” she says. If hiring an agency isn’t realistic, even a freelancer for a few hours a week can prevent costly guesswork.
Run ads from Meta Ads Manager, not the boost button
While there are tons of options for how to set up campaigns and the Boost button may be tempting, Kendall says she avoids it. “I’m a big proponent of never pressing that boost button,” she says.
Instead, she sets up all campaigns through the Meta Ads Manager for better control over every aspect of your campaign. Meta Ads Manager provides far more granular targeting, including retargeting people who’ve visited your profile, versus boosting’s simpler, faster (but far less precise) approach.
Kendall says everyone’s go-to goal is conversion, but that they also should consider their sales funnel to make sure their ads match the goal. Awareness matters more in the earlier stages of the funnel, while conversion works better toward the end.
In Ads Manager, you can choose from six goals for your campaign:
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Sales
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Leads
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Engagement
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App promotion
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Traffic
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Awareness
From there, you have full control over your budget, placements, and your audience, including creating a custom audience or allowing Meta to set recommendations.
If you’re unsure of your budget, Kendall recommends starting small: she’s seen success with brands starting with $50 a day to test what’s working, and others with $300,000 monthly budgets.
Use tools to refine your campaigns
Ad campaigns pay off if you know what’s working. Kendall uses an ad analytics tool called Motion, which surfaces top and bottom performers across an account so brands know where to reallocate budget. You can analyze how well your ads are performing based on the goals you’ve set, like improving conversion or awareness.
Kendall also suggests using the Facebook Ads Library to see what’s working best to implement into your own creative.
Beyond third-party analytics tools, Shopify merchants have a few native ways to create ads and track their performance:
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Facebook and Instagram by Meta. This is a free sales channel that syncs your Shopify product catalog to a Meta catalog, so you can run sponsored posts and ads against your live inventory rather than manually uploading products. You can also create audience-focused ads to resurface products a potential customer viewed but didn’t buy.
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Instagram Shopping. Sell your products on Instagram by using the Instagram Shopping feature on Facebook and Instagram. This creates a shop on your Instagram profile where you can tag products in posts and stories. Customers can then click View Shop and make purchases by selecting “Checkout on seller’s website.”
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Shopify Collabs. Collab connects you with creators for brand partnerships. You can find, manage, and pay influencers through this affiliate marketing platform.
Instagram sponsored posts FAQ
How do you get a sponsored post on Instagram?
If you’re a brand looking to run your own sponsored post, you can boost an existing organic post from a professional Instagram account or build a full campaign in Meta Ads Manager for more control.
How much does it cost for a sponsored post on Instagram?
Costs range widely as Instagram’s ads are based on bids. On average, the cost per click is $1.30, the cost per lead is $50.74, and the cost per install is $4.48.
Do sponsored posts on Instagram work?
Yes, they can be an effective tool for specific goals you set through Meta Ads Manager, like generating sales, increasing engagement, or getting more leads. According to Meta, 79% of people they’ve surveyed have purchased a product or service after watching Reels.
