Free tool
Free Instagram feed planner
Drop in your photos, drag them around a 3-column grid, and see how your profile will look before you post a thing.
Drop images here or tap to choose. They stay on your device and are never uploaded.
Happy with the grid? Lemonpost's calendar schedules it in this order, to Instagram and everywhere else. See the content calendar
How it works
How to plan an Instagram feed in 3 steps
- 1
Add your photos
Drop in the images you plan to post. Your browser reads them on your device, so nothing leaves it.
- 2
Drag them into order
The top-left tile is your next post. Move tiles around until the colors, subjects, and spacing feel right in rows of 3.
- 3
Save the plan
Download a preview to keep, then post or schedule in that order. Lemonpost's calendar can hold the whole sequence.
Why planning your grid is worth 5 minutes
Your profile grid is the first thing a new visitor sees after your bio, and it's judged as a whole, not as single posts. 9 good photos in a bad order look messy; the same 9 in a considered order look like a brand. This planner lets you see the grid before it exists, and rearrange it until it looks right.
How the planner works
Add photos and they appear as tiles in a 3-column grid, the same layout as an Instagram profile. Drag any tile to a new spot and the others shift around it. The newest post sits top left, so the tile you put there is the one you'd post next. Everything runs in your browser: the images are read from your device and drawn on the page, and nothing is uploaded to a server. Close the tab and the plan is gone, which is why there's a download button for the preview. There's no account, no watermark, and no limit on how many times you use it, and it works on your phone as well as your laptop.
Instagram grid sizes and crops
The profile grid shows 3 posts per row. Since early 2025, Instagram displays grid tiles as tall rectangles (4:5 portrait, at the time of writing) instead of squares, so portrait photos show more of themselves and landscape photos get cropped harder at the sides. You can adjust which part of a post shows in the grid from the post's menu, but it's easier to shoot or crop with the grid in mind. For in-feed posts, 1080 by 1350 pixels (4:5) uses the most screen, 1080 by 1080 is square, and 1080 by 566 is the widest landscape allowed. Reels also land in the grid unless you turn that off per reel, and they take the same tile shape. Planning with the real crops avoids the classic surprise of a great photo with the subject's head cut off in the grid.
What makes a grid look considered
The patterns that work are simple. Alternate close-ups and wide shots so no row is 3 of the same thing. Keep a consistent edit (similar brightness and color) so the grid reads as one set even when the subjects differ. Give text posts and quote graphics room; 2 side by side compete. Checkerboards, rows by theme, and a repeated color every third tile are all common, and all easy to test in the planner by dragging tiles around. The first 9 to 12 tiles matter most, because that's what shows without scrolling on most phones. And plan in rows of 3: adding a single post shifts every tile by one, so a row you liked can fall apart with the next post unless you planned for it. Zoom out and look at the grid as one image; if your eye snags on one tile, that's the one to move.
From a planned grid to scheduled posts
A planned grid only works if you post in that order, and that's where plans usually break: the next post gets delayed, something else jumps the queue, and the layout drifts. The fix is to schedule the sequence once you're happy with it. Lemonpost's content calendar does the real version of this: drag posts across a month or week view, preview them, and let it publish to Instagram (and the 8 other platforms) on schedule. Plan the grid here, then move the photos and captions into the calendar in the same order, and the feed you designed is the feed people see. No more squeezing a post in on a whim and wondering why the grid looks off.
Good to know
Instagram feed planning, answered
No. The planner runs entirely in your browser. Photos are read from your device, drawn on the page, and never sent to a server. Closing the tab clears them.
Yes. The tiles use the portrait shape Instagram switched to in early 2025, so you'll see roughly what gets cropped. Check the final crop in the app, since Instagram's cropping can change.
As many as your device handles comfortably. Most people plan 9 to 18 posts ahead, which is 3 to 6 rows. Very large photos take longer to load, so resized images are quicker.
Add the cover image for a reel or the first slide of a carousel, since that's what shows in the grid. The planner doesn't play video, but the cover is what matters for the layout.
Download a preview image of the grid to keep. The planner doesn't store anything between visits. To keep the order and actually post it, move the photos into a scheduler like Lemonpost's content calendar.
Yes. No account, no watermark, no limit. We make Lemonpost, a simple social media scheduler, and the free tools are our way of being useful before you ever need us.
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