The daily posting allowance reference

The daily posting allowance reference · Help

Instagram limits how many posts an account can publish through the API, and the panel's Remaining counter shows exactly that. This reference explains how the cap is counted, which content is exempt and what happens to your scheduled items when the allowance runs out.

⚠️ Note: This cap sits on Meta's side; it is not a rule {{brand.name}} invented. Every tool that uses Instagram's API is subject to the same limit, and the limit is per account.

What the cap is

An Instagram account can publish at most 100 posts within the last 24 hours. This is a rolling window, not a counter that resets at midnight. Twenty-four hours after a post goes out, the allowance it took up frees itself.

The counter appears in two places in the panel:

On the Posts screen, to the right of the list links: Remaining: 97 / 100.
On the summary step of the New post screen, as the Daily allowance row, and next to the publishing buttons.

Which posts count

Content	Counts towards the cap	Counts as
Post (photo)	yes	1
Video post	yes	1
Reels	yes	1
Carousel	yes	1
Story	no	0

Two rows surprise people most:

A carousel counts as one. Even with 10 photos inside, only 1 comes off your allowance. If you want to publish a lot of content and keep hitting the cap, carousels are the most efficient route.
Stories never count. You can publish hundreds of stories a day; stories sit outside the post cap. Stories keep going out even when the allowance is full.

Posts made from the Instagram app

Posts you publish from the Instagram app on your phone also consume this allowance — the cap belongs to the account, not to the panel.

The panel handles that as follows: it knows from its own records how many posts went out from the panel in the last 24 hours, and it also tries to read the account's own counter from Instagram. The larger of the two is used. So if you published three posts from the app this morning, the counter in the panel reflects them.

If Instagram's counter cannot be read (no permission, or a temporary connection issue), the panel shows its own record only. In that case the true remaining allowance may be lower than the number on screen.

What happens when the allowance runs out

When the remaining allowance reaches zero, three things happen:

A yellow warning appears above the Posts list: "All 100 posts allowed in the last 24 hours have been used. New posts go out when the allowance frees up."
A Publish now request is refused with the reason "All 100 posts allowed in the last 24 hours have been used." Stories do not go through this check.
Scheduled items whose hour arrives are not published but are not deleted either: their status stays Scheduled, the note under the card says the daily allowance is full, and the panel retries an hour later.

A full allowance therefore means delay, not loss. As 24 hours pass from the oldest post, allowance frees up and the waiting items go out in order.

💡 If you run an account that approaches a hundred posts, spread the schedule across the day. Ten items stacked on the same hour all slip back together by an hour when the allowance is full.

Scheduling is independent of the cap

The cap applies at publish time, not at save time. Nothing stops you from scheduling a hundred more items while a hundred are out; they enter the queue and go out as allowance frees up. The counter also only counts published items; drafts and scheduled items consume nothing.

Per account or per portfolio

The cap is per account. If a portfolio holds three Instagram accounts, each has its own allowance of 100 and one running out does not affect the others. You see the counter on each account's own Posts screen; use the account switcher in the top bar to move between them.

A concrete example

A clothing shop wants to publish a lot of content in one day for its end-of-season sale. It has 40 product photos.

Publishing each as its own post costs 40 units of allowance and risks leaving nothing for the rest of the day.
Grouping them into 10 carousels of four costs only 10 units and leaves 90 free.
Publishing short videos of the products as stories costs nothing at all.

The shop combines all three: it schedules 10 carousels in the morning, posts stories through the day and puts out one Reel in the evening. Total consumption is 11 units and the cap is never stretched.

Commonly misunderstood points

"It resets at the start of the day." No. The window is a rolling 24 hours; each post frees its own allowance once its 24 hours are up.
"Drafts consume allowance." No. Only published items count; drafts and scheduled items consume nothing.
"If the allowance runs out my schedule is deleted." No. The item waits in the queue, keeps the Scheduled status and is retried an hour later.
"Every photo in a carousel counts." No. A carousel is one post and counts as 1.
"Stories count too." No. Stories sit entirely outside this cap.
"A failed post ate my allowance." No. Only a successfully published post consumes allowance.

Using the cap efficiently

Turn related images into a single carousel: 10 pieces of content, 1 unit of allowance.
Publish moment-to-moment announcements as stories: they consume nothing.
Do not publish the same content twice; every successful attempt costs allowance.
Failed items consume nothing, but a post that published successfully and was then deleted on Instagram does: deleting it does not give the allowance back.