How to Auto-Post AI Videos to Instagram Reels and Stories

To auto-post AI videos to Instagram Reels, you need an Instagram business or creator account linked to a Facebook Page; connect it to ReelMint through the Meta login, then press Share on any video, tick the Instagram account and publish or schedule. Stories are an extra placement: a Bot Studio destination can post the same video as a Story on top of the Reel.

We build ReelMint, an AI video studio that publishes to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and X. Instagram is the platform people most often get stuck connecting, so we start there.

Why Instagram needs a business or creator account

Instagram only allows publishing through its API for business and creator accounts that are linked to a Facebook Page. A personal account cannot be posted to by any app, ours included. Switching is free: in the Instagram app, open your account settings and switch to a professional account, then link it to a Facebook Page you manage. If the account is not linked to a Page, the connection comes back with a message saying no Instagram business account was found.

Step 1: request access, then connect

Our Meta app is still in Meta's review, so for now Meta lets only invited accounts connect. It takes one extra step:

1. Open Channels, then Connections. On the Instagram (or Facebook) card press Request access and type the Facebook ID of the account that manages your Page. It is the number in your profile link, facebook.com/profile.php?id=NUMBER; if your link shows a name instead, paste the whole link.
2. We add it to the app's tester list and email you. Meta sends no email of its own.
3. Sign in to Facebook on a computer with that account, open facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications, scroll to the ReelMint invitation and press Accept.
4. Back in ReelMint, press Connect. You sign in on Meta's own page and approve the publishing permission. Your Facebook Page and the Instagram account linked to it come through the same Meta login.

ReelMint never sees your password; it stores encrypted tokens. Connecting, and requesting access, need no subscription. A plan is needed to post. The connect-your-channels guide has every step.

Step 2: post a Reel

Open any video in your Library, press Share and tick the Instagram account. Videos publish to Instagram as Reels, and Instagram expects them vertical (9:16), so generate 9:16 when the model offers it. Very large renders, such as an 8K upscale, are swapped for a 1080p H.264 copy for publishing, because Instagram refuses raw 8K.

The Instagram caption

The Instagram tab has its own caption box, up to 2,200 characters including hashtags. The AI caption button (1 credit) writes one in Instagram's idiom:

• a first line that works as the hook, since it is all that shows before "more",
• two to four short paragraphs that tell the story,
• a call to action (save, share, follow, comment),
• 10 to 20 hashtags mixing broad, mid-size and niche community tags, with your own tags first.

Find viral hashtags (5 credits) researches which tags are working on the topic right now and adds them to the Instagram hashtags. One caveat: Instagram does not let apps edit a caption after the post is live, so read it before you publish.

Step 3: add a Story

In Bot Studio, each Instagram destination has an Also post it as a Story checkbox. The bot publishes the Reel and, besides it, the same video as a Story. A few rules come from Instagram itself:

• Stories carry no caption. Instagram ignores one, so none is sent.
• Each Story frame is at most 60 seconds. A longer video is cut into equal parts and posted in order, the same thing the Instagram app does when you pick a long video. Without this, Instagram rejects the upload with an unexplained error code.
• A still image can go to Stories as a single frame.

Step 4: publish now or schedule

Publish sends the Reel now; a date and time on the Instagram tab schedules it. Each destination has its own time, the scheduler checks every minute, and scheduled posts are listed on the dashboard, where you open the post to change or cancel it. The scheduling guide covers this.

Keeping the connection alive

Meta tokens cannot be refreshed the way Google's can. They can only be swapped for a fresh long-lived token while the current one is still valid. So ReelMint does that on a schedule in the background, well before any post needs it. If a token does expire anyway, reconnecting is the only fix: the dot in the Channels menu goes hollow and you get one notification asking you to reconnect.

Rate limits

Meta throttles accounts that post too often (its error 368). When that happens, ReelMint pauses that Instagram destination for six hours, shows the pause on the dashboard and lets it lift on its own. While paused, posts to that destination fail fast without touching Instagram, so they do not prolong the block. A bot posting hourly to both Instagram and Facebook is the usual way to meet this limit.

Instagram on autopilot

Bot Studio generates a new video on a wall-clock schedule, writes the Instagram caption alongside the TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X copy, and posts the Reel (and the Story, if ticked). The quote shows the monthly cost before you save. See autopilot and the connect and auto-post tutorial.

What it costs

Posting to Instagram costs no credits. Generating the video does, priced on the Generate button before you click. Plans start at Lite, $9.99 a month for 800 credits, and every plan runs every AI model.

Can I auto-post to a personal Instagram account?

No. Instagram only allows apps to publish to business and creator accounts linked to a Facebook Page. Switching is free in the Instagram app.

Why does Instagram say I cannot connect?

Usually the Facebook account you signed in with has not accepted the ReelMint tester invitation, or it is not the account that manages the Page. Accept the invitation at facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications, then connect again with that same account.

Do Instagram Stories get a caption?

No. Instagram Stories ignore captions, so ReelMint sends none. The Reel carries the caption.

What happens to a 90-second video posted as a Story?

Instagram allows 60 seconds per Story frame, so ReelMint cuts it into equal parts and posts them in order.