Template 02 - Calendars & Planning
Free Instagram Content Calendar Template
RecurPost’s Instagram content calendar template is a Google Sheet that plans one Instagram account a month at a time. It carries twelve columns, and it is free: you give a business email address on the form further down this page and RecurPost sends you the file. This page shows every column, one filled week across a Reel, a carousel, a Story and a feed image, and how the planned rows become scheduled posts.
1. THE ARTIFACT
What the Sheet Plans, and Why Instagram Gets Its Own Calendar
RecurPost’s Instagram content calendar template plans one Instagram account, one month at a time. It carries four things a network-neutral calendar does not: the post format, the hashtag set, the media link and the order the posts will appear in.
The sheet carries twelve columns, and each one holds a decision that has to be made before a post can go out. Two of them, timezone and account, stay the same down the whole tab. The other ten change row by row.
Use the network-neutral option in RecurPost’s social media templates library instead when the same month covers several networks at once, because a multi-network month needs the account column doing real work rather than a grid.
THE GRID IS THE REASON
An Instagram profile renders as a grid, three posts to a row, so the order of the rows is a design decision as well as a scheduling one. A calendar that only holds dates and captions cannot tell you that three dark photographs are about to land side by side.
BUILT FOR
Instagram is the account being planned, and the profile page is part of the pitch.
SKIP IF
The same month covers several networks at once and the account column has to do real work.
COLUMN
WHAT IT DECIDES
WHAT GOES IN IT
01 Publish date and time
When the post goes out
A date and a clock time
02 Timezone
Whose clock that time is on
One timezone for the whole tab
03 Account
Which Instagram account the tab plans
One handle or account name
04 Campaign or content pillar
Which theme the post belongs to
A pillar name, or a campaign label when the post is part of a push
05 Format
What kind of post it is
Reel, carousel, Story or feed image
06 Caption
What the post says
The caption text, or a link to where it is being written
07 Media link
Where the asset lives
A link to the file, not the file itself
08 Hashtags
Which tag set the post carries
The tags for this post, or blank where the format takes none
09 Owner
Who is responsible for the row
One named person
10 Approval status
Whether it is cleared to go
Draft, in review, or approved
11 Publish status
What actually happened
Scheduled, published, or skipped, filled in after the fact
12 Performance notes
What the post did
A short note, added after publishing
The timezone column earns its place more than it looks. Instagram shows a scheduled time in the viewer’s zone, and a studio planning from one country for an account in another will otherwise book a 9am post that lands at 4am. One cell at the top of the tab settles it for every row underneath.
2. WORKED EXAMPLE
A Filled Instagram Week for One Account
A filled week for a specialty coffee roaster runs five posts across four Instagram formats. Every row below sits on one account with Europe/London in the timezone cell, so those two columns are stated once here rather than repeated five times.
NOT EVERY COLUMN, EVERY ROW
The Saturday Story carries no hashtags and will carry no performance note. Not every column applies to every format, and a calendar that pretends otherwise is the calendar people stop filling in by week three.
ONE SHEET, ONE ACCOUNT
One sheet plans one account. The account column exists so a studio can copy the tab per client, not so two feeds can share a grid. Account and timezone sit at the top of the tab rather than in every row.
DATE AND TIME
FORMAT
PILLAR
CAPTION
HASHTAGS
OWNER
APPROVAL
Mon 08:00
Reel
Origin stories
Where this month’s single origin comes from
4
Writer
Approved
Tue 12:30
Feed image
Menu
This week’s guest espresso
3
Writer
Approved
Thu 17:00
Carousel
How to brew
Five slides on a better pour-over
4
Designer
In review
Sat 10:00
Story
Behind the counter
Saturday morning on bar
None
Writer
Approved
Sun 09:00
Reel
Origin stories
Inside the roastery on a Sunday
4
Writer
Draft
3. THE ARITHMETIC
Planning the Grid, and Turning a Week Into a Month
The sheet’s row order becomes the feed’s grid order, three posts to a row. Sort the tab by publish date, read it in threes, and check that no group of three repeats the same format or the same dominant colour. Reels and feed images take a grid cell; Stories do not, so they drop out of the count.
Five posts a week is twenty posts a month on one account. Sixteen of the twenty take a grid cell, because the four Stories do not, so a planned month fills a little over five rows of three across the profile and a whole quarter of one account is sixty rows in the sheet.
THREE ACROSS
The roaster’s week shows the problem the check exists to catch. Monday’s Reel, Tuesday’s feed image and Thursday’s carousel form one grid row, and all three carry a dark roast photograph, which reads as one flat band across the profile. Moving the carousel to Friday and pulling the menu image forward fixes it in the sheet, before anything is made.
WHEN IT MATTERS LESS
Grid planning matters for an account whose profile page is part of the pitch. It matters much less for an account that is found almost entirely through Reels in the feed, where most viewers never open the profile at all.
FORMAT
POSTS / WEEK
Reel
2
Feed image
1
Carousel
1
Story
1
Every week
5
× 4 WEEKS
→
ONE MONTH
20
posts on one Instagram account
Twenty is the number you plan against. You give each of the twenty a date, a format and a pillar, and the month is built.
4. THE WORKFLOW
How a Row Moves From Draft to Published
Three columns move a row from an idea to a published post: owner, approval status and publish status. The owner is one named person, approval status runs draft, in review, approved, and publish status runs scheduled, published, skipped.
These three columns are cells in a spreadsheet. They fit any account where more than one person touches a post, and a solo account owner can leave the owner column blank and use approval status alone.
A SKIPPED ROW IS DATA
A skipped row with a note in performance notes is worth more at the end of the month than a tidy tab that quietly disagrees with the account.
OWNER
1
One named person per row, agency side or client side. A solo account owner leaves the column blank and uses approval status alone.
APPROVAL STATUS
3
Draft, in review, approved. Nothing gets made for a row until this column says approved, which is what keeps a half-written caption out of the batch.
PUBLISH STATUS
3
Scheduled, published, skipped. You fill it in after the fact, never in advance, which turns the sheet into a record of what actually went out rather than a list of what was meant to.
5. THE FILE
File Format, Access and What Happens When You Submit the Form
RecurPost gives the Instagram content calendar template away free. The file is a Google Sheet, and you take your own copy of it and edit that copy, so nothing you type reaches anyone else.
The form below asks for six details and requires one. Business email address is the only required field, and full name, organization, employee count, country and company URL are optional.
RecurPost sends the sheet to the business email address you supply, and the confirmation on this page tells you it is on the way.
FORMAT
One Google Sheet, twelve columns, one filled week inside it.
ACCESS
You take your own copy, so your client’s month stays in your Drive.
PRICE
Free, one required field, no card.
FREE TEMPLATE
Get Your Free Template
Business email address is the only required field. RecurPost sends the sheet to that address.
6. THE HANDOFF
From Planned Rows to Scheduled Posts
RecurPost’s social media calendar holds the dated posts this sheet plans. Each row lines up with one calendar entry: the date and time, the account, the caption, the media and the format all have somewhere to go. The calendar shows the month in Month, Week, List or Instagram Grid view, so the grid you planned in the sheet is visible again once the posts are dated.
The sheet plans and RecurPost schedules, and you move the rows across yourself. Nothing in the sheet uploads itself, so treat the columns as a mapping rather than an import: export the approved rows as a CSV or Excel file, then load them with bulk scheduling.
A MAPPING, NOT AN IMPORT
The columns line up with the fields RecurPost asks for, which is what makes the export quick. What the sheet does not have is a connection to your accounts, so moving the month across is a step you perform.
BATCH SIZE
~100
RecurPost sets no hard cap on how many posts one upload can carry and recommends keeping a batch to around 100 posts so it processes quickly. Five posts a week is twenty posts a month on one account, so a whole quarter of one Instagram account fits inside a single upload.
WHAT IT FITS
20 / 20
Bulk scheduling fits a month that is already written and approved, and it does not fit a Story you decide to post that morning, because that row does not exist when the batch is built.
Fill the twelve columns once, read the tab in threes, and set the whole month live from one screen.
7. FIT
What the Sheet Does Not Do, and Which Template to Use Instead
The sheet plans posts. It does not connect an Instagram account, check a caption against Instagram’s rules, or publish anything, and it will not tell you that a hashtag has been restricted.
THE LIBRARY
All three sit in RecurPost’s social media templates library alongside the audit, analytics and proposal documents.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
USE
WHY
Plan a month for one Instagram account, including how the feed will look
This Instagram content calendar template
It carries format, hashtags, media link and grid order
Plan a month across several networks at once
The social media content calendar template
It is network-neutral and maps to a bulk import file
Plan one time-boxed push with its own objective, assets and result
The social media campaign template
A campaign runs inside the month rather than instead of it
TRY RECURPOST
RecurPost’s Agency plan covers 20 social accounts and includes 3 team members. RecurPost prices an extra teammate at a flat $20 per month on any plan instead of multiplying the plan price by every seat. A studio running Instagram for eight clients keeps eight sheets and one calendar, and the account count is the number that decides the plan.
RecurPost is the social media management software agencies run their client publishing on.
No credit card required
Frequently Asked Questions
What the sheet holds, how it reaches you, and why Instagram gets a calendar of its own.
What columns are in an Instagram content calendar?
An Instagram content calendar carries twelve columns: publish date and time, timezone, account, campaign or content pillar, format, caption, media link, hashtags, owner, approval status, publish status and performance notes. Timezone and account stay the same down the tab. The other ten change row by row, and not every one applies to every format.
How do I get the template, and what do I receive?
RecurPost sends the Instagram content calendar template to the business email address you supply on this page. The file is a Google Sheet, it is free, and you take your own copy and edit that. Business email address is the only required field on the form.
Why does Instagram need its own content calendar?
An Instagram content calendar carries format, hashtags, media link and feed order, and the feed renders three posts to a row, so the order of the sheet changes how the profile looks. A network-neutral calendar holds dates and captions and has no reason to care which post sits next to which. On Instagram that adjacency is visible to everyone who opens the profile.
Can I import the sheet straight into RecurPost?
The sheet plans posts and RecurPost schedules them, and you move the rows across yourself. Export the approved rows as a CSV or Excel file and load them with bulk scheduling, which sets no hard cap on posts per upload and works best at around 100 posts a batch. A twenty-post month is one upload, and so is a whole quarter of one account.
Discover your must-have Social Media Templates
The sheet plans one Instagram account’s month. These are the documents that sit beside it and above it.
01
PLANNING
Social Media Strategy
Map a client’s goals, audience, and posting plan.
02
PLANNING
Strategy Presentation
Pitch the strategy to a client in slides.
03
PLANNING
Social Media Marketing Plan
Set a client’s channels, cadence and KPIs for a quarter.
04
PLANNING
Social Media Audit
Assess a client’s current accounts before you start.
01
CALENDAR
Social Media Content Calendar
Plan a month of posts across networks.
03
CALENDAR
Google Posts Calendar
Plan Google Business Profile posts ahead.
01
CAMPAIGN
Social Media Campaign
Build out a time-boxed campaign’s posts.
02
CAMPAIGN
Campaign Proposal
Pitch a campaign to a client for sign-off.
03
CAMPAIGN
Paid Social Media Ads
Plan paid ad sets, audiences, and budgets.
01
REPORTING
Social Media Analytics
Track post and account metrics in one sheet.
02
REPORTING
Social Media Reporting
Package monthly results for a client.