25 Best Apps for Instagram Content Creation

There are endless opportunities for creating great visual content for Instagram. From videos to carousels, boomerangs to Stories, you can truly get creative with content creation for every part of the platform. I’ve compiled a list of the 25 best Instagram content creation apps that I have either tested myself, use on a daily basis, or have heard good things about. Enjoy!

Jump to a section:
My Favorites
Photo Editing Apps
Content Layout Apps
Video Editing Apps
Design Apps

My Top 5 Favorites

1. Snapseed

Snapseed is a complete and professional photo editor app developed by Google. I use it to edit almost all my photos. Tune and edit colors, effects, white balance, and more with granular control over almost everything.

Pro tip: I’m a big fan of the “Brush” tool for bumping up saturation on specific spots on my photos because I (obviously) love color! Also, the Ambience setting under “Tune Image” adds a nice depth and warmth to image.

Price: 100% free in the App Store or Google Play.

2. A Color Story

A Color Story is a fun app with hundreds of filters and effects, and a great community too. Create photos and videos with colors that pop, save your own edits to use as custom presets, and toggle between 20+ tools to help you get that perfect edit.

Pro Tip: Follow #acolorstory on Instagram for a major dose of inspiration and a fun community vibe!

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra filters and effect “Packs” that are mostly under $3. New all-access yearly “ACS+” membership is $24.99 a year. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

3. Unfold

Transform your Instagram Stories with Unfold. Create streamlined stories that look like they took hours to craft, but took mere minutes. Turn plain Instagram Stories into storyboards with stylized videos, photos, and text.

Pro Tip: Explore the different packs you can buy because there may be a perfect style that matches your branding…and voila! You have easy-to-use story templates. I personally love “RP1” and the limited-edition rainbow “Pride” collection.

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra layout packs around $0.99. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

4. Clipomatic

Clipomatic is an app that turns everything you say in a video into live captions on the screen. This has recently become popular for Instagram stories, allowing those who have their volume turned off (more than you’d think!) and those who may be hearing-impaired to know your story is about.

Pro Tip: Make sure you compose your video layout so there is room for the captions to be easily read, kind of like I did here with placing them above my head with enough room and contrast. Try out different caption styles to find one that works for you and use it consistently.

Price: Available for iPhones only at the moment. $4.99 from the App Store.

5. Splice

Put together simple, but professional videos right from your iPhone. The power of a desktop editing app has been harnessed for the mobile phone, and it’s awesome!! Trim clips, add transitions, slow motion effects, sound or narration, and overlay text with the touch of your finger.

Pro Tip: This is a great tool for putting together video compilations that are fun, interesting, and won’t take you 10 hours to do. I did this for my solo biz retreat in Tucson, and turned it into a fun IGTV video.

Price: Available for iPhones only at the moment. Free from the App Store.

Photo Editing Apps

6. Touch Retouch

Easily remove unwanted objects such as telephone wires, trash cans, photobombers and more with this simple and easy to use retouching app. No need for expert skills, clean up your images with the app’s one-touch fix feature to erase small blemishes or use the more advanced features for erasing larger objects, like street lights.

Price: $1.99 in App Store or Google Play.

7. VSCO

VSCO has been one of the top editing apps since editing a photo was as simple as just applying the filter and posting it. The in-depth editing tools and built-in social platform make it simple to create quality, stunning photos on the go, and share them with the rest of the VSCO creative community.

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra filters and effect packs. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

8. Afterlight

Afterlight is sleek, straightforward, and easy-to-use. Apply filters, create light overlays, textures, or frames. Create your own filters and save them to reuse on your photos or even add typography to your images.

Price: Free in App Store (Afterlight 2) or Google Play (Afterlight).

9. Lightroom

This is a free version of the powerful photo editing program loved and used by photographers. The app is easy-to-use and precise. It comes with some free presets, but has gained popularity with the influx of influencers selling their own presets.

Pro Tip: You can find presets on Etsy for relatively low prices that can be downloaded and installed right from your phone!

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play. Unlock more features with Premium, starting at $9.99 a month or sign in with your active Adobe account.

10. Photoshop Express

Another great Adobe product with tons of free photo effects and editing features. Add text and borders, make quick fixes, enhance colors and more. No prior Photoshop experience necessary with this easy-to-use app.

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play. Unlock more features with Premium, starting at $9.99 a month or sign in with your active Adobe account.

Content Layout Apps

11. Boomerang

You’ve probably used the built in Boomerang feature in the Instagram app for Stories so you probably understand that the app takes 10 photos and stitches them together for a mini video that loops continuously. But the separate app (from Instagram) allows you to create and share videos for different forms of sharing, such as for your feed or stories or Facebook.

Pro Tip: Want to change settings for how your boom gets created? Unlock some hidden settings by tapping four times on your screen with four fingers (weird, I know!) and you’ll be able to tweak resolution, frame count, and more.

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play.

12. Layout

Create and share one-of-a-kind layouts in Layout from Instagram. Remix, flip, resize, and swap your photos. Get creative and tell a story, show off an outfit, or collage together pics of you and your friends to add something a little different to your feed.

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play.

13. Hyperlapse

This streamlined, easy-to-use app from Instagram gets rid of the need for bulky camera equipment and allows you to capture and create amazing time lapse videos. The app automatically stabilizes and smooths out bumpy videos to give them a cinematic feeling.

Price: Available for iPhones only at the moment. Free in App Store.

Video Editing Apps

14. Pixaloop

Add animations to your photos and bring them to life with Pixaloop, like my desert sunset. It has easy-to-use, precise editing tools that allow you to add elements and overlays, change the speed, and draw attention to certain parts of your photos that you want to come alive.

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra features. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

15. Inshot

Inshot is another simple video editor that allows you to edit and add text, emojis, filters, and more to your videos. No need for expensive editing software!

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra features. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

16. Burstio

Take your burst photos taken with your iPhone camera, and turn them into fun videos or gifs to share with your audience. Check out mine!

Price: Available for iPhones only for $0.99 from the App Store.

17. Life Lapse

The creation of stop motion videos just got easier with Life Lapse. The app’s ghosted image feature helps you line up your subject from clip to clip, creating seamless transitions without the stress, and when you’re done, Life Lapse will stitch all your clips together for you. Check out their Instagram profile for tons of inspiration.

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play. Life Lapse Pro is a paid offer that gives you more features and removes the LL watermark.

18. Continual

Although Instagram now natively cuts up video in 15-second clips in Stories, sometimes you may still need to do it off the platform. Continual cuts up clips for you from an existing video on your camera roll, or you can film a video right in the app.

Pro Tip: Instagram only lets you record up to 4 continuous 15-sec clips on Stories, so Continual can come in handy when you have a longer video you want to record and NOT get cut off.

Price: Available for iPhones only for $7.99 from the App Store.

19. Filmm

From the creators of A Color Story and influencer Zoella comes Filmm, a video effects and color editor that goes beyond the capabilities of its parent app. Layer and stack professional color-grading filters with authentic film textures, light effects, and subtle distortions for the perfect aesthetically pleasing story or post.

Price: Available for iPhones only at the moment, with an Android version in development. Free from the App Store with in app purchases for more features.

20. 8mm

Keep up with the vintage and VHS film trend that has been going around. 8mm captures the beauty and magic of old school vintage movies. Add dust and scratches, retro colors, flickering, light leaks, and frame shakes with a tap of your finger.

Price: $2.99 in the App Store and Google Play.

Design Apps

21. Canva

Canva allows you to create multi-image layouts, Instagram highlight covers, Instagram stories, and more. Make your images pop with added text and wide-range of graphics, creating a unique style that your audience will instantly recognize as yours.

Price: Free in App Store or Google Play.

22. Font Candy

Choose from a curated collection of fonts or add your own to produce custom typographic designs without the need for Photoshop. Add quotes, colors, art, filters, and even layer images, creating your own artwork in minutes.

Price: Available for iPhones only. Free in the App Store.

23. Over

Build your brand with beautiful, hand-curated and easy-to-edit photo and video templates from Over. Create content to help your brand stand out, add text and graphics to your photos and videos, and have fun while you’re at it!

Price: Free with in-app purchases for extra features. Download from the App Store or Google Play.

24. A Design Kit

Another app from the creators of A Color Story. Add beautiful and modern designs to any of your images. Free-hand with the realistic brushes, draw in metallics and textures, add fonts and fun designs, and finish it off with stickers!

Price: Available for iPhones only. Free in the App Store with in app purchases for extra features.

25. Hype-Type

Add styled and designed motion typography to your stories. With tons of text styles to fit your vibe, you can overlay a moving quote or song lyrics on your video to get your point across.

Price: Available for iPhones only as far as I can tell. Free in the App Store.

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That’s it folks! I hope you discovered a new tool that you’re going to try out for your Instagram content creation. Did I miss one of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below!