16 Best FREE Instagram Scheduler Tools in 2025 (Posts & Stories)
Posts by Colin TanApril 11, 2023
If you’re someone who is really busy trying to build up their brand’s reputation online, then you probably don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to uploading and thinking about uploading content in the future.
If you create a lot of content for your brand at the same time and then want to stagger it over the next few months, you will need a way to upload it not only at the right time when the right people are online, but automatically so that you can put it out of your mind.
Enter a free Instagram scheduler tool.
A free Instagram scheduler tool is can save you a ton of time, and it can also make it easier to publish your content in general.
This is because a tool like this can offer tips and tricks around editing and curating the right content for your brand, too.
However, it’s not all sunshine and daisies in this industry.
There’s a dark side to it, and it’s in the form of illegitimate companies that want to try and steal your personal information. They also want to try and sell you something that’s not worth your time – or your money.
The best way to get around this and to stay away from companies that are fraudulent is to read through articles like the one below, where we talk about what we believe to be the best free Instagram scheduler tools on the market right now.
The best part?
What you see is what you get with these tools, and they are going to cultivate a long-term, sustainable content uploading strategy for your profiles that will only add to your existing reputation. Let’s take a look.
First Look
1. Best Overall: Flick
“The thing that I like the most about Flick is that they are pretty technical to use, but once you get the hang of them, you won’t want to use them for anything else. I came across this free scheduler, and spent the time needed to learn how their features worked. I’m so glad that I did.”
2. Second Best Overall: Circleboom
“Circleboom is a great option if you’re like me and likes to try new things out for a bit to see if they’re worth my time or not. I love that they offer people like me a free trial for 30 days, which is definitely more than enough time to determine whether they are worth it – and they are.”
3. Third Best: SocialPilot
“When I was in the market for an Instagram scheduler tool, I wanted to find something as simple as possible. Thank goodness I came across SocialPilot. They’ve got everything I need, but they don’t bog me down with the technicalities of uploading my posts.”
4. Fourth Best: Combin
“The thing that I like the most about Combin is that it’s simple to use. It’s also free, so that I don’t have to break the bank to get help with my Instagram scheduling. I love that they have so many features for me to choose from as well.”
5. Fifth Best: Semrush
“I appreciate this free scheduler tool for Instagram so much because I have a super small budget right now to work with, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. This company gets me, and they will take my growth a long way before charging me for anything.”
6. Best for Being Reliable: Tailwind
“As someone who owns a small business, I appreciate companies like Tailwind who knows how competitive the landscape is. Another thing that I really like is that despite the fact that they’re free, one of their priced packages is $9.99 – a steal if you ask me.”
Best Free Instagram Scheduler Tools in 2025
1. Best Overall: Flick
Flick is the best in the business, because they can help you not only schedule your posts for a later date, but they can help you tweak your hashtag strategy as well.
There is no point in putting up content that is high quality, if you aren’t going to make sure that your hashtags are up to par as well.
This is what flick can help you with.
They can help you manage and analyze your hashtag strategy, so that once you have landed on the right ones, you can also save a few for later, and ensure that you are always switching up your hashtag strategy, which is going to optimize your content for success.
You can try these guys out for free if you want to from the beginning, through a free trial for seven days, and the best part is that when it comes to a subscription with them, you can cancel it at any point.
2. Second Best: Circleboom
Circleboom has a lot going for it because they can help you not just with Instagram, but they can help you with Twitter as well.
They have management tools for Twitter, so if you’re somebody who spends a lot of time on the social media app, and you would like to scale it back a little bit, so that you can focus more on your tweet curation, these guys can make it really easy for you to do this.
All you need to do to get started with these guys is share your email address, and they promise that everything about what they do is simple and straightforward so if you’re somebody who has no prior tech experience, you are still going to be able to use their features to your advantage.
3. Third Best: SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a great option if you want to be able to create and Instagram posts that people are going to want to come back to time and again.
They say they have every feature you can imagine that you would need to hit your social media marketing goals, and one thing that is so great about their features is that they come at a really reasonable price.
They offer insightful analytics, powerful publishing tools, and seamless collaboration, so there’s virtually nothing that you aren’t going to be able to achieve with these guys when it comes to your Instagram account.
You can begin your free trial straight away and get to know them on a more intimate level.
4. Fourth Best: Combin
Combin is a great option if you are in the market for a high-quality IG scheduler.
These guys offer their clients completely automated publishing from their desktops, and they can help you edit the image size of your content. They are also compatible with most platforms out there, including Mac and Windows.
Their main features include users and location tagging, accounts and hashtags mentioning, management of hashtags, bulk stories uploading and link in bio.
They have a free plan on offer that limits their features to one Instagram profile, three Instagram posts, and 15 Instagram stories every week.
With their free plan, you can upload more than one image at the same time and tag your location. With their premium plan, you can get help with an unlimited number of posts, stories, location tags and users.
5. Fifth Best: Semrush
Semrush is a great option if you are a startup, freelancer, small business or large business.
They are a tool that lets you try their features for free. Beyond this, they have three price points: $99.95, $199.95 and $399.95 a month.
These guys will make it easy for you to discover what your competitors are doing, and they can help you schedule and post to up to five social platforms.
It comes with a link shortener and an image editor and can help you find content that’s performing really well for mirroring. They can help you with save posts for later as well, in case you want to schedule them in the future.
6. Best for Being Reliable: Tailwind
Tailwind is an ideal tool for small businesses, large businesses, and freelancers. You get a free trial with their features, and then it’s going to cost $9.99 per profile per month, which we think is reasonable.
You will be able to see what your feed might look like with their nine-grid preview. You can use their features either through your phone or computer.
With Tailwind, you can monitor current trends, and drag and drop your Instagram stores and posts automatically.
They also offer their clients a smart schedule, so that you can decide when to post based on when your audience is online.
You can also make the most of their hashtag finder that’s going to help you figure out the right hashtags for your posts too. They are an all-in-one option.
7. Best for Being Knowledgeable: Sked Social
Sked Social can be used for both large and small companies, and they offer four different pricing options, as well as a free option if you don’t have a large budget right now. Their pricing ranges from $25 a month to $260 a month.
They can help you plan your feeds, analyze your results, and repost stories. Their mobile app can be used on both iOS and Android, and their features make it super easy for you to team up with colleagues.
You can get help with your scheduling not just on Instagram but on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well. Additionally, they come with a drag and drop visual planner for your grid, as well as a really strong photo editor.
8. Best for Variety: Onlypult
Onlypult has four price points available, ranging from $10.50 a month and going up to $55.30 a month. They also offer new clients the option of a free trial that will run for seven days.
It comes with features including hashtags, analytics, calendar, editor for video and image, and a schedule planner.
It also offers clients the opportunity to publish content across the board without sharing their password, and they can help you figure out the best times to publish, as well as what content is performing best.
You can also work out which hashtags are doing really well too. You can go beyond Instagram and apply their features to YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as well.
9. Best for Features: Later
Later is a great tool that can either be used by an individual, or in a business setting. One of the best things about Later is that their free option is free forever, as opposed to a free trial that runs out.
Their pricing plans start from $9 a month and go up to $49 a month. They provide their clients with Instagram analytics as well as the features needed for visual scheduling and planning, as well as analyzing of posts to determine what’s working and what’ not.
You can see your feed and what it’s going to look like before you commit to anything, and they can help you figure out the right tags too. You can go beyond Instagram and use these guys for Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook as well.
10. Best for Simplicity: Buffer
Buffer is a flexible Instagram free scheduler tool that can be used either by a business, or the individual.
They have a free trial that you can check out that is going to last for a certain amount of time depending on the package you are considering.
Their pricing starts from $15 a month and goes up to $99 a month. They can help you with advanced reporting, social analytics, automation rules, tags, coordination with team members, and previewing posts before they are published.
This is a great scheduling tool for Instagram if you work in a team setting. You can use their features for more than Instagram, which means that you can use it on LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.
11. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a one-stop shop for everything you need for Instagram, including of course being a free scheduler tool.
They might be considered a bit complicated by some, but once you get over the initial learning curve, they might just prove to be the best tool you’ve ever used.
They have four different pricing plans; $29 a month, $129 a month, $599 a month and Enterprise, where you contact them directly for a quote.
Their free trial lasts for 30 days. With Hootsuite, you can stay online 24/7 and automatically schedule your posts ahead of time.
They have a bulk scheduling feature so that you can edit, schedule and upload with ease.
They also have a media-rich planner allowing you to collaborate with team members, and they have a content library so that you can archive important images or videos.
12. Sendible
Sendible is a free scheduler tool for Instagram that offers new users a free trial for 30 days and comes with four pricing plans.
These include their Starter plan at $29 a month, then their Traction plan at $99 a month, Growth for $199 and Large for $299 a month.
They can help manage brands that have a lot of scope on social media, and provide custom reporting, insights, optimal posting times, report sending, and work management and organization.
You also get to see your posts saved as drafts, and you can preview them before you approve their publishing. Their dashboard is easy to use and makes it easier to simplify the social media marketing process.
13. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a great option for medium-sized businesses as well as freelancers.
It has a free trial for 30 days, and has three pricing plans: $99, $149, and $249 a month. It is ideal for a variety of different things, including drafting, scheduling, publishing, and queuing posts.
You will be able to deliver, organize and plan your social content, and come up with campaigns to suit your channels. They can help you not only on Instagram, but on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well.
Lastly, they can help you track the performance of your content and respond to incoming messages efficiently.
14. ViralTag
ViralTag is great for brands, individuals, and companies. They offer a free trial that will last for two weeks, and they have a pricing range of $24 to $79, and even $249 for businesses.
They can help you schedule your social media posts at the right time, and they can help you with all major networks out there, including of course Instagram and spanning Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest as well.
They come with features like Google Analytics, customization of messages, image dimensions, as well as unique tools that allow you to curate your visual content.
They can help you upload an unlimited number of posts and even recycle content.
15. Iconosquare
Iconosquare is great for large businesses, small brands and freelancers.
It offers new clients a free trial for 14 days, and it has three price points for you to choose from should you decide to go beyond the free trial: $29, $59 and Agency, where you get in touch with them for a quote.
They provide management tools and insights to help you with your Facebook and Instagram presence.
One of the things that we like a lot about this free scheduler tool for Instagram is that they can help you manage more than one profile at the same time, from one dashboard.
They will also automatically publish your posts, and they can apply things like user tagging, geo-location, and figuring out the best time to post. If you want to reach the right people at the right time, this is the right company for you.
16. CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a scheduler tool that can help out both large and small businesses.
They have a few price points to choose from, starting at just $20 and going all the way up to $150. They also offer a free trial for two weeks.
They can help you automate, publish, schedule, measure, engage and plan not just for Instagram, but for the rest of your networks.
They can tell you when to post based on traffic times, and the best part is that you can set their features to autopilot.
They will help you customize your messages, so that you can build up a solid relationship with your audience.
FAQs
Why Use a Free Instagram Scheduler Tool?
We think that one of the most compelling reasons why you might want to use a free tool is to save yourself some time.
The thing about Instagram is that once you get started with it, it is hard to stop, and if you’ve got an audience waiting for content to be published every day, or every second day, you are going to have a full schedule on your hands.
The good news is that there are third party companies that can help take the pressure off you a little bit, so that you can instead spend that time focusing on creating more content for, trusting that your content that you have already created is being published at the right time.
Is a Paid Tool Better than A Free One?
If you are somebody who is skeptical of free things, then you might be wondering what the catch is with a free Instagram scheduler tool.
Yes, there are plenty of free Instagram scheduler tools out there in the industry that you shouldn’t trust, and who are most likely going to pass your information on to a third party.
However, the ones that we’ve discussed in this article aren’t going to do this, so in this case, a free Instagram scheduler tool is going to be better than a paid one.
However, if you come across any others out there, it is going to be better to pay.
What’s the Most Important Thing to Look for In a Tool?
Personally, we think that one of the most important things to look for is their ability to listen to you when it comes to when you want your Instagram content posted.
You need to be able to get the timing right, and you need to be able to give them insights and analytics around when your target audience is online the most, so that they can connect with them as soon as they upload their content for you.
The last thing that you want is an Instagram scheduler tool that isn’t going to get this right, because this could make or break the future of your Instagram account.
Our Review Process
When we review the tools that you see above, we make sure to do our homework.
This is one of the reasons why we are careful to look through at least 115 free Instagram post scheduler tools and read through upwards of 2400 client reviews.
These reviews look at both good and bad things about the schedulers so that we can come to an informed conclusion about which tools to review and recommend to you on the list above.
As you can see, there are plenty of free trials to check out, so get busy and find a company that you can incorporate into your Instagram marketing strategy. Good luck!