The Insights overview
What every tile, badge and row on the Overview tab means: the follower tile, the ten metric cards, the daily chart, AI commentary and the audience sections.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
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What every tile, badge and row on the Overview tab means: the follower tile, the ten metric cards, the daily chart, AI commentary and the audience sections.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
The Instagram app will not let you go back in time, and it never puts two periods side by side. The Insights overview does exactly that: it shows the numbers for the period you chose next to the equally long period immediately before it. This guide explains every tile, every badge and every line on the screen.
⚠️ Note: This section exists only for Instagram accounts, and only roles allowed by the portfolio policy can see it. You enter it from the Insights tile under the My profile screen, not from the left menu.
In this article you will find:
Open My profile and tap the Insights tile under Account sections. A back link at the very top says My profile; it returns you there.
The heading reads Insights. Two lines sit underneath it:
Two controls sit to the right of the heading: the period picker and the Refresh button. Refreshing is its own topic; see Refreshing the numbers from Meta.
Right below are two tabs: Overview and Posts. This article covers Overview; for the post list see Post metrics.
The picker holds six pills: Today, Last 7 days, Last 28 days, Last 90 days, This month, Last month. The default is Last 28 days.
A custom range form sits below the tabs:
Both fields are capped at today; a day Meta does not have cannot be requested. The longest range is 365 days; enter a longer one and the end day is kept while the start is trimmed.
Your chosen period stays in the address bar. Bookmark the view you found or send it to a teammate; it opens with the same period.
To the right of the custom range form, in small type, sit two lines of information. They are the fastest way to interpret an empty screen:
A banner appears just above the number tiles when needed. Only one of them shows at a time:
The permission banner only shows while there is no data at all: once numbers have arrived, the screen shows them and the banner disappears.
The first tile in the grid is Followers, and it works differently from the others: a follower count cannot be summed, so the tile holds the last known value of the period rather than a total.
The small line underneath says one of two things:
Ten metric cards sit beside the follower tile. Each one carries three parts: the metric's name, the period total, and underneath a change badge plus a "Previous: {number}" line.
The metrics are:
The last case comes up often, and the reason is short: if the comparison period is not fully present in the archive, no ratio is calculated. Treating the missing days as zero would compare a "three-day week" with a "seven-day week" and invent a rise that never happened.
On this screen — means "Meta never provided this metric", while 0 means "it genuinely never happened during the period". A dash on a card is not zero, it is unknown. So never feed a dashed metric into an average or a ratio.
Underneath the cards sits a bar chart headed Daily views and reach. Two bars are drawn for each day: views and reach. The legend below tells you which colour is which.
Over long periods (90 days, custom ranges) the chart area scrolls sideways on its own; the page itself does not.
To the right of the chart, in a narrow column, sits the AI commentary panel. It does not appear on every account: if AI is switched off for that portfolio, if there is no key, or if the credits have run out, the panel is never drawn.
It is started manually — no credits are spent just because you opened the screen. For details and the prompt setting see AI commentary.
The Audience sections sit at the very bottom of the page. Two separate audiences are shown:
Each audience is drawn with up to four breakdowns: Age, City, Country and Gender. Within each breakdown the largest buckets are listed as bars, with a percentage and a headcount.
⚠️ Note: Demographics are a lifetime distribution and are not affected by the period. Select "Last 7 days" above and this section stays exactly the same; the section's own description says so.
When the section is empty it reads "Audience breakdown has not arrived yet." and gives the reason: Meta only provides it for accounts with at least 100 followers. For details see Audience demographics.
If the screen is completely empty, see The stats look empty; if only individual tiles are missing, go to I cannot see the number I expected. If the problem persists, contact our Support team.
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