The Social Publish node posts straight to Instagram through Meta's official API. Wire a video, an image, or up to 10 files into it, add a caption, pick your Instagram account, and run.

What you need

• An Instagram Business or Creator account. Personal accounts cannot publish through the API. You can switch in the Instagram app under Settings, Account type and tools.
• No Facebook Page. Wireflow uses Instagram Login, which works with the Instagram account alone.

Connect your account

Instagram is in preview. Until Meta approves Wireflow's app, only accounts added to the app as testers can connect, so the Connect Instagram button is shown only to Wireflow staff. It is not available to customer accounts yet, including your own team's admins.

1. Add a Social Publish node and open it.
2. Under Accounts, click Connect Instagram. Instagram's consent screen opens in a new tab.
3. Log in to the professional account you want to post from and approve.
4. Back in Wireflow, click Refresh. The account appears in the list.

Wireflow keeps the connection alive on its own. Instagram tokens last 60 days and are refreshed daily in the background, so an account you have not posted from in weeks still works.

What gets posted

You wire	It posts as
One video	A Reel
One image	A feed post
2 to 10 files	A carousel of images, videos, or both

Instagram only accepts JPEG images up to 8 MB, and feed images must sit between 4:5 (portrait) and 1.91:1 (landscape), 320 to 1440 pixels wide. Wireflow fits images for you: other formats become JPEG, and an image outside that range gets white bars rather than a crop, so a 9:16 still posts as 4:5 with bars left and right. Reels must be MP4 or MOV; other video formats are refused before anything is sent. A post with more than 10 files is refused rather than trimmed, and so is a caption over 2,200 characters, more than 30 hashtags, or more than 20 @ mentions.

Reel options

These appear in the node once an Instagram account is selected.

• Also show Reel in the main feed. On by default, so the Reel shows on your grid and in the Reels tab. Turn it off to keep it in the Reels tab only.
• Trial Reel. The Reel is shown to people who do not follow you first. Choose how it reaches your followers: when you decide in the Instagram app, or automatically if it performs well. Trial Reels need exactly one video and cannot have collaborators; the node refuses rather than posting to everyone.
• Cover. Either a cover image URL, or a frame of the video given in milliseconds from the start. If you set both, the frame is used.
• Collaborators. Up to 3 usernames. Each one gets an invite and has to accept it in the app before the post shows on their profile.

Limits

Instagram allows 100 API posts per account in any 24 hour window. Carousels count as one. The limit is shared with every other app connected to the same account, so Wireflow asks Instagram for the real number before each post. When the limit is used up the node fails with a message that says so, and nothing is posted.

Wireflow's own ban-safety limits (at most 2 posts a day per account, at least 4 hours apart) still apply on top. They hold across every board and login connected to the same Instagram account. The Ban-safety knobs in the node can only make them stricter; 0 means the default, not off.

How a post goes out

Instagram publishes in two steps. Wireflow uploads your media to a container, waits until Instagram reports it has finished processing (up to 4 minutes for the whole post), and only then publishes. If processing fails or times out, nothing is posted and the node shows Instagram's reason. On success the node's posts output carries the post's permalink.

Setting up the Meta app (self-hosting and development)

This part is for whoever runs the Wireflow deployment, not for people posting.

1. In the Meta app dashboard, open the app and add the Instagram product. Choose API setup with Instagram login.
2. Copy the Instagram app ID and Instagram app secret from that page into INSTAGRAM_APP_ID and INSTAGRAM_APP_SECRET. These are not the Facebook app credentials and not the Threads ones.
3. Under Business login settings, add the redirect URL https://<your-domain>/api/social/callback/instagram. It must match exactly, with no trailing slash. In the same place, set the deauthorize callback URL to https://<your-domain>/api/social/instagram/uninstall and the data deletion request URL to https://<your-domain>/api/social/instagram/data-deletion. Both are required for App Review.
4. The permissions used are instagram_business_basic and instagram_business_content_publish.

Development mode note. While the Meta app is in development mode, or has only Standard Access, any Instagram account with a role on the app can connect and publish with no App Review. To add yours: App roles, Roles, add an Instagram Tester, then accept the invite in Instagram under Settings, Apps and websites, Tester invites. Accounts without a role on the app need Advanced Access, which requires App Review and Business Verification. Until then the Connect button is shown only to users with the Wireflow site ADMIN role. Set INSTAGRAM_CONNECT_PUBLIC=true to offer it to everyone once review passes.