6 Best Tools To Schedule Instagram Stories

Do you want your weekend back? Me too!

As a social media manager, I am always on a hunt for clever ways to schedule my social media content. Especially Instagram Stories, scheduling them has become non-negotiable for me, given the volume I post daily.

Here Are My Top Tools To Schedule Instagram Stories

I have made the effort to find the top story schedulers. Below I'm sharing my ever-expanding list. Enjoy!

List:

Storrito.com - is the only tool on this list that allows you to schedule Instagram Stories with stickers (links, mentions, hashtags, polls, etc.) - It also works for Reels and posts 100% automatically.

Meta Business Suite - allows you to schedule simple pictures and videos for free but won’t let you add stickers to your story.

Later.com - enables you to schedule pictures and videos. However, you have to do the posting manually at the scheduled time. Later.com will send you a notification with the story attached.

Hootsuite.com - can schedule all your social media content to other platforms, such as Twitter, Linkedin, etc. But again, it won’t let you post stories with stickers.

Buffer.com is similar to Hootsuite; it also focuses on all social media channels but cannot schedule stories with stickers. It’s the cheapest third-party tool on this list.

Skedsocial.com - focuses as every other tool on the planning and scheduling of social media content for all platforms, and you can schedule Instagram stories without notifications.

Agorapulse.com - lets you publish content to most platforms, and you can answer comments and messages from within the application from your desktop PC.

Storrito.com

Storrito.com allows you to schedule Instagram Stories and Reels with Stickers, including the link sticker. You can simply create your story on your desktop PC and have it posted for you. Storrito also provides a story editor to add Stickers, GIFs, Emojis, and texts to your story.

You can schedule images or videos. It also auto-cuts longer videos for you into story pieces of 15 seconds. It is by far the most advanced story scheduler on this list regarding the feature set. Plus, it posts your story 100% automatically, so there are no annoying notifications or manual work involved.

🫰Pricing

You pay $25/month per connected Instagram account on the yearly billing plan. You can schedule or post as many stories or reels as you like.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• The only tool allowing you to schedule stories with stickers
• Link-Sticker, Hashtags, Mentions, Polls, and Quiz Sticker are available
• Full Story Editor with Text, GIFs and Emojis
• 100% automated Story posting (no notifications)
• Works for Stories and Reels
• Bulk scheduling is available
• You can connect as many accounts as you like
• It integrates with Canva.com so that you can insert your creatives directly from Canva

👎Cons

• No scheduling for normal Instagram feed posts, yet
• No music sticker

🧑‍💻Learn more:

Storrito.com has tutorial pages in 24 different languages available:

How to schedule Instagram Stories

How to schedule Instagram Reels

How to post Instagram Stories from desktop PC

Or check out the YouTube Channel instead: https://youtube.com/@storrito

Meta Business Suite

Obviously, Meta's business suite originates from Instagram. But its story-scheduling features are pretty basic. For instance, you're limited to just adding emoji stickers. Forget about link stickers, hashtags, mentions, or any other add-ons.

Word on the street is that Meta prefers it this way. Their goal? To push you towards purchasing ads. Every link that takes users off their platform diverts attention, so they want you to spend money to get visitors from them. Makes sense, right?

🫰Pricing

The meta business suite is free; you can connect all your Facebook pages and accounts.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• The scheduler comes from Meta directly
• Upload images or videos
• Stories are posted automatically
• Works for Stories, Posts, and Reels

👎Cons

• There are rumors that meta throttles your organic reach because they want you to spend more on ad campaigns to push your stories
• No stickers, no option to place a link to your website or store
• No real story editor. You can only add plain text and ugly sticker emojis

🧑‍💻Learn more:

You can learn more about how to schedule stories with the meta business suite in this tutorial:

Watch the YouTube Tutorial

Later.com

Later.com has been around for quite some time now. The platform offers features like visual content calendars, analytics, and answering comments on your posts to improve engagement. It's particularly popular among brands, businesses, and influencers who want to post on all social media platforms, not just Instagram and Facebook.

However, if we take a closer look at the scheduling and editing features for Instagram Stories, we notice that you must download the Later.com app first onto your mobile phone because the posting is not 100% automated.

You will receive a notification on your smartphone from the Later.com app, and then you have to publish the story on the Instagram app manually. So, it is technically scheduled but not automatically posted. Meaning you still have to work on your weekend 😣

The editor, like the Meta Business Suite editor, is also very rudimentary. You can only crop the image and add some text and filters.

Again no sign of stickers, not even the link sticker or swipe-up link.

🫰Pricing

Later.com starts at 25 USD per month for one social media set, meaning you can schedule content to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others. Note you have to sign up for the premium plan before accessing the story “scheduling feature.”

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• Multiple Platform Integration: Schedule content on most social media platforms
• You can manage comments from your Instagram and Tiktok posts
• Analytics, you can see the performance of your posts
• Link in Bio Feature (premium plan)

👎Cons

• Limitations: No true auto posting; still requires manual posting. You will receive a notification on the Later.com mobile app, and then you have to post the Instagram story yourself manually.
• No stickers are available, so there is no option to place a link to your website
• Very basic editor. You can only add text and some filters. No gifs, no stickers, no emojis.
• The story feature is behind a paywall, and you have to upgrade first

🧑‍💻Learn more:

You can learn more about how to plan stories with Later.com on their landing page:

https://later.com/instagram-scheduler/schedule-instagram-stories/

Hootsuite.com

Hootsuite is an enterprise-level social media management platform that allows you to schedule, monitor, and analyze social media content across various channels from a single dashboard.

It's designed to help businesses and individuals streamline their online presence and engage with their audience more often.

🫰Pricing

Hootsuite is on the upper end of the pricing spectrum and focuses on enterprise-level accounts. You can start for 99 dollars monthly with 10 social accounts and one user. To start with a team of 3, you must upgrade to 249 dollars a month, billed annually.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• Fresh and clean user interface, easier to navigate than buffer.com or later.com
• Good YouTube channel with a lot of content around social media scheduling.
• Multi-account management. You can manage several social media profiles across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Integration with Third-Party Apps: Hootsuite's App Directory provides additional tools and functionalities that can be integrated with the platform.

👎Cons

• Only a basic image editor - you can cut the image, resize it, and add some filters to the image, but again you cannot add stickers to your story.
• Very pricy, it is by far the most expensive tool on this list, starting from 99 dollars, and if you want to work together, you have to pay 249 dollars per month on the yearly plan.
• Performance Issues: Some users have reported occasional bugs or slow loading times, especially when managing many accounts or posts.

🧑‍💻Learn more:

Hootsuite has a very large audience on its YouTube channel (56k subscribers). You can learn more about the platform on their channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Hootsuite

Buffer.com

Buffer.com allows you to plan, publish, and analyze your social media content across various social networks in one place. Regarding stories, it also lacks the possibility to add stickers or anything else. Meaning you must create your story in a visual editor such as Canva.com. Therefore Buffer allows auto-posting like Meta. So this is a plus compared to Later.com.

🫰Pricing

Buffer's Pricing starts at 6 dollars. However, they charge per channel and not per set like Later.com. So you have to pay for Instagram and Facebook at least to schedule stories, which makes it 12 dollars at least.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• Multiple Account Management: You can manage several social media profiles across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Analytics: Buffer provides insights into post-performance, helping you to understand your organic reach.
• Browser Extensions: Buffer's extension for browsers like Chrome makes sharing content directly from the web possible.
• Collaboration: In its premium plans, you can collaborate, making it suitable for larger agencies. However, the other tools Storrito.com, Later.com, and the Hootsuite, allow this, too.

👎Cons

• No Story Editor. You can only upload a picture and have it scheduled.
• No stickers are available, so there is no option to place a link to your website.

🧑‍💻Learn more:

Buffer has resource pages where you can learn more about the scheduling features:

https://buffer.com/resources/how-to-schedule-instagram-stories/

Skedsocial.com

Skedsocial is also an all-in-one tool with a focus on Instagram. You can plan and schedule content to Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Google My Business, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, and Threats.

The web app's user-friendly interface looks clean, and you will quickly find your way around it. Regarding Instagram Stories, it allows you to schedule your stories without any notification such as Later.com.

Plus, they are working on the link sticker. Inside the help center, it says a new “beta feature” has been developed, and you can add the link sticker to a story, but you cannot customize it at this point.

It will have a fixed size and color. That is different in Storrito.com, where you can scale the sticker, tilt it, and change even the link color. So, Storrito wins this one-on-one comparison.

🫰Pricing

The Pricing starts at 30 dollars. You can connect one Instagram Account and four others. Plus, you can add one user, yourself! If you choose to pay yearly, you will save another 5 dollars.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• Manage multiple social accounts from within Skedsocial’s dashboard
• Visually plan your content in a content calendar
• Offers a basic link sticker for Instagram Stories
• Answer DMs and comments
• Link in Bio feature

👎Cons

• No real story editor - you can only upload a picture or video and add a link to it. No question stickers, polls, mentions, locations, or hashtags
• No GIFs or text editors are available
• You have to type in your credit card information before signup to start the trial

🧑‍💻Learn more:

Find more information about Skedsocial in their help center articles: https://help.skedsocial.com/

Agorapulse.com

Agorapulse is a comprehensive social media management tool designed for businesses and agencies to schedule content, monitor social channels, get in-depth analytics, and engage with their audience across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can also handle all your messages in one spot with its social inbox.

When it comes to scheduling Instagram stories, it is no surprise at this point that you cannot schedule stories with stickers with Agorapulse. Moreover, you still have to post the story manually, as in Later.com.

The tool will simply send you a notification, and you have to do the posting manually from your phone, so there is no automation. See the red box on the screenshot below:

🫰Pricing

The pricing starts at 49 dollars if you choose to pay yearly. On this standard plan, you can add 10 social accounts. They don’t have a value metric based on the number of accounts, such as the other tools. Instead, they base their pricing on features, so you get more functionality when you upgrade to an advanced plan, which is hard to understand at the beginning which plan to choose for your needs.

👍Pros - Key Benefits

• Social Inbox: Agorapulse's unified inbox lets users manage comments, mentions, and messages across all platforms in one place
• Detailed Analytics: Provides in-depth reports for all major platforms with easy-to-understand metrics
• Competitor Analysis: Allows users to compare their performance with competitors
• Team Collaboration: Multiple team members can collaborate with different access levels on the platform

👎Cons

• No real scheduling functionality, like in Later.com. You still have to do the posting manually. Agorapulse sends you a reminder, so to speak.
• No Stickers, GIFs, or Emojis are available
• Price: Some users find Agorapulse to be on the pricier side compared to other tools
• Learning Curve: With its myriad of features, there can be a learning curve for new users
• Mobile App Limitations: Some users have reported that the mobile app lacks some functionalities in the desktop version

🧑‍💻Learn more:

Learn more about the product on their product homepage: https://www.agorapulse.com/

What Is an Instagram Scheduler?

An Instagram Scheduler is a powerful tool that allows you to create and schedule your Instagram Stories and Reels in advance, all from the comfort of your desktop PC.

Scheduling softwares are particularly useful for Social Media Agencies, Brand Managers, and Corporations who want to ensure their content is posted at optimal times without sacrificing their employees' weekends. With an Instagram Scheduler, you can free up your time and prioritize your content strategy while maximizing your engagement and growth on the platform.

How Can Scheduling Instagram Stories Benefit You:

• You get more engagements because it will auto-post your story at the best time when your followers are active on the platform
• You can schedule in bulk and in advance, so you have more time for content generation
• All tools work from a desktop PC or Mac Book, so no cumbersome story creation on your phone anymore
• After all, you win back your weekend 🍹🏖️

Conclusion: How To Choose The Right Instagram Story Scheduling Tool For You

When conducting our research, we noticed that most tools are general scheduling tools for all social media platforms, but Storrito.com is the only option on this list that comes close to a native story-creating experience, as in the Instagram App. Because it lets you add Stickers, GIFs, and Emojis to your story and does 100% auto-posting for you.

If you are like us, you need a link sticker, quizzes, and polls for your story to drive engagement. There is simply no way around it. Regardless of the costs and other feature sets, this is a must.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you schedule an Instagram post?

Yes, you can. Although most social media planners only allow you to schedule simple images and videos. Only Storrito.com allows you to schedule stories with stickers.

Can we schedule a story on Instagram and Facebook?

Yes, Storrito.com has the option to cross-post your Instagram Stories to Facebook. Once scheduled for Instagram.

Does auto-posting work for Instagram Stories?

Yes, most scheduling tools allow you to auto-post the story, such as Storrito.com or Buffer.com. However, some scheduling tools, Later.com and Agorapulse.com only work with notifications, meaning you still have to post manually on your phone.