Instagram posting API for Reels, carousels and Stories

Placements you can publish

Each Story frame is its own Instagram media object, so each frame counts as one post credit. A 6-slide carousel plus all 6 Story frames is 7 posts. A carousel alone is 1 post. Details are on the Instagram Story API page.

What Instagram requires

• A professional account. Meta's content publishing API only works with Instagram Business and Creator accounts. Personal accounts must switch first. It is free and takes a minute in the Instagram app.
• Public media URLs. Meta fetches the media from a URL at publish time. When you upload to POST /v1/media we host it until 3 days after the last post that uses it.
• JPEG images. Meta's publishing docs list JPEG for feed images, so export slides as JPEG.
• A daily publishing limit. Meta limits API-published posts per account in a rolling 24 hours. Its docs currently state 100 in one place and 50 in another, and a carousel counts as one. Plan your volume around the lower number.

Publish a Reel with a Story

curl https://ugcapi.dev/v1/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ugc_live_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "accounts": ["acc_ig_01", "acc_ig_02"],
    "format": "video",
    "media": ["https://cdn.example.com/hook-12.mp4"],
    "caption": "I tried this for 30 days #ugc",
    "scheduled_at": "2026-11-03T16:00:00Z",
    "options": { "instagram": { "grid": true, "story": true } }
  }'

That call uses 4 credits: a Reel and a Story on each of 2 accounts. Each result in GET /v1/posts/:id carries the permalink per placement.

Why not build it yourself

Instagram publishing is a two-step container flow. You create a media container, poll its status until it is FINISHED, then publish it. Containers expire after 24 hours. Carousels need a child container per slide. On top of that, your Meta app needs App Review for the content publish permission before it can post for accounts you don't own. Our Meta App Review guide and Reels publishing guide cover both paths.

Pricing

$10 per 1,000 posts, with 50 free posts to try. No monthly plan and no fee per connected account. See pricing.