# How many Instagram posts can you schedule per day? > Instagram's publishing API caps each account at 100 posts per rolling 24 hours, & carousels count once. Some pages say 50, so plan for the lower figure. - Published: 2026-10-15 - Last updated: 2026-10-15 - Author: Sanju (Founder & CEO @ DunSocial) - Topics: instagram, scheduling --- Through Instagram's publishing API, an account can publish up to 100 posts in any rolling 24 hours, & a carousel counts as one post. Other pages in Meta's documentation & many scheduling tools quote 50, so plan around 50 if you publish in volume. For a normal posting schedule this never matters. It only comes up when you queue a big backlog, a bulk import, or an AI agent scheduling for several brands at once. ## What Meta's documentation says Meta's publishing guide for the Instagram Platform states the limit plainly: ["Instagram accounts are limited to 100 API-published posts within a 24-hour moving period. Carousels count as a single post."](https://www.postman.com/meta/instagram/folder/23987686-bc459e67-42aa-4ea0-ad25-e5a6e42c3a83) The same guide tells developers to enforce the cap themselves, "especially if your app allows app users to schedule posts to be published in the future." A scheduler is exactly that kind of app. You will also see 50 quoted from other Meta pages & from scheduling tools. Meta has not reconciled the two figures in one place, so treat 50 as the safe working number. ## It is a rolling window, not a calendar day The cap is a 24-hour moving period, so it does not reset at midnight. A post you publish at 13:00 on Tuesday stops counting at 13:00 on Wednesday. That changes how you plan a backlog. Fifty posts published in one hour use up that window until the first one ages out the next day, even if your calendar says it is a new day. ## What counts as one post - **A carousel counts once.** A 10-slide carousel uses the same single slot as a photo. See [how to schedule an Instagram carousel](/blog/how-to-schedule-an-instagram-carousel). - **The cap applies to API publishing.** It is the limit for tools like DunSocial that publish through Instagram's official API. - **Meta enforces it when the post publishes.** What matters is how many posts go out in any 24 hours, not how many you queue for next month. ## Stay under it in DunSocial DunSocial publishes to Instagram through the official API, so Meta's cap applies to every scheduled post. Spreading the posts is the whole fix. Spacing a full window evenly looks like this: | Plan around | Posts per 24 hours | Gap between posts | |---|---|---| | 100 (Meta's guide) | 100 | about 14 minutes | | 50 (the safe figure) | 50 | about 29 minutes | If you schedule from the [CLI, MCP, or API](/blog/schedule-posts-with-the-dunsocial-api), give each post its own `scheduledAt` instead of stacking dozens on the same minute. A human confirms every AI-assisted draft before it publishes, so you can check the spacing first. If Instagram refuses a publish because the cap is reached, that post fails. Reschedule it to a later slot rather than retrying straight away, since the window frees up slot by slot over the next 24 hours. ## Try it DunSocial is $20/mo or $192/yr, flat, with a 14-day trial & every feature unlocked. One seat is included, extra seats are $8/mo. [Start the trial](https://app.dunsocial.com/login), connect Instagram, & spread your queue across the calendar. ## FAQ ### How many Instagram posts can I schedule per day? Through the publishing API, up to 100 per account in a rolling 24 hours per Meta's guide, with 50 quoted elsewhere. A carousel counts as one post. Most accounts never get near either number. ### Does the limit reset at midnight? No. It is a 24-hour moving window. A post stops counting 24 hours after it published, so capacity returns gradually instead of all at once. ### Does a carousel count as one post? Yes. Meta's guide says carousels count as a single post, however many images or videos are in them. ### Why do some sources say 50 & others 100? Meta's documentation gives both figures in different places. Plan around the lower one if you publish in volume, so a backlog never runs into the cap. ### What happens if I go over the limit? Instagram rejects the publish, so that post fails. Move it to a later time slot & it publishes once the 24-hour window has room again. ## Sources - [Meta: Instagram Platform, Publish content (Meta's Postman collection)](https://www.postman.com/meta/instagram/folder/23987686-bc459e67-42aa-4ea0-ad25-e5a6e42c3a83) --- ## About this document This is the Markdown representation of https://www.dunsocial.com/blog/how-many-instagram-posts-can-you-schedule-per-day. The HTML version of the same page is at the same URL. You can also request Markdown from any page by sending `Accept: text/markdown`. Machine-readable summary of the whole site: https://www.dunsocial.com/llms.txt ## Company - Product: DunSocial, https://www.dunsocial.com - Legal entity: THISUX PRIVATE LIMITED, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India - Support: support@dunsocial.com - Open the app: https://app.dunsocial.com/login