How to make a big grid on Instagram: a planning guide for brands

When you build a big grid for a brand launch, a rebrand, or a client campaign, the split images only land if they publish at the right size and in the right order. This guide covers how to make and post a big grid on Instagram, and how social teams plan one so it goes out as designed.

It's written for social media managers, agency teams, and marketers at multi-location businesses. The how-to is the same for one account or 20. The planning is where teams win or lose.

What is a big photo grid on Instagram?

A big grid takes one large image and splits it into tiles. You post the tiles in order, and together they form one design on your profile. In the home feed, each tile shows up as a single post. On the profile, they read as one picture.

Why use a big grid on Instagram?

Instagram leans hard into video and Reels, but the profile grid is still the first thing a new visitor sees. For a brand, that makes the grid a planned asset, not a mood board.

Here's when a big grid earns the effort for a brand account:

• A launch or milestone. A product launch, a store opening, or an anniversary gets the whole top of the profile for as long as the grid stays there.
• A tease, then the reveal. Each tile can work as its own teaser in the feed, and the full picture lands when the last tile goes up.
• A clear line between old and new branding. A big grid draws a line under the old look without archiving years of posts.

How do you create a big grid on Instagram?

There are three steps: size the tiles, split the image, and post the tiles in order. You can design the image in any editor and split it with a grid maker app, or draw your own guides. Our Instagram grid safe zone PNG overlays help you check where each tile will cut.

Size your tiles for today's grid

Since January 2025, the profile grid shows posts as vertical rectangles, not squares. That changes how you build a big grid. A square split from an older template will look cropped on today's profile.

Work out the tile size first. It depends on how the tiles will be published:

• If you'll schedule the tiles: make each tile 4:5 (1080 x 1350 px), the tallest ratio Meta's publishing API accepts. A 3 x 3 grid then starts from one 3240 x 4050 px master.
• If someone will post from the Instagram app: 3:4 (1080 x 1440 px) also works. A 3 x 3 grid starts from a 3240 x 4320 px master.

Either way, the grid shows a vertical crop of each post, so the edges of each tile may not show on the profile. Keep faces, text, and logos away from tile edges and seams. Our Instagram post size guide has the full set of feed, carousel, Story, and Reel sizes.

Here are three tools for designing and splitting the image.

1. Canva

Canva works in the browser and on mobile, so a designer and an account manager can work on the same file. Build the whole image across one canvas, with text that runs across tiles, and your guides show where each cut will fall.

1. Create a design at your master size, for example 3240 x 4050 px for a 3 x 3 grid you'll schedule.
2. Turn on rulers (Shift + R) and drag guides to mark each 1080 px column and each tile row.
3. Upload your image or build the design across the whole canvas.
4. Move text, faces, and logos away from the guides.
5. Download the design at full size as a PNG or JPG.
6. Split it into tiles with a grid maker app (below), or export each tile separately.
7. Number the tiles in posting order before anything goes to approval.

2. Grid Post

The Grid Post app splits one photo into grids from 3 x 1 up to 3 x 5 and more, plus panoramas and carousels. It's free to download on iPhone and iPad, with a paid PRO subscription for premium templates and fonts.

Here's how to split a big grid with Grid Post:

1. Choose to create a photo grid.
2. Upload your image and pick the grid size, for example 3 x 3 or 3 x 4.
3. Make any edits you need, then continue.
4. Save the tiles. The app shows the order to post them in.

3. Grids

Grids (now listed as "GRIDS Post maker for Instagram") splits images into grid tiles and into carousels that scroll as one image, and also has templates for posts, Stories, and Reels. It's free to download, with a Pro subscription for extra templates and tools.

Here's how:

1. Download the Grids app.
2. Pick a grid template or start a blank grid with your own image or design.
3. Export the tiles to your camera roll, ready to schedule or post in order.

Tip: each tile is a close-up of the bigger image, so start from a high-resolution master. If you'll schedule the tiles, export each one as a JPEG under 8 MB.

Post the tiles in the right order

The profile grid shows your newest post first, top left. So a big grid goes up in reverse: the bottom-right tile first, the top-left tile last.

1. Post the tiles in rows of three, so the grid lines up.
2. Post nothing else to that account until the last tile is up.
3. Unpin pinned posts first, or plan around them. Pinned posts sit at the start of the grid and push everything else along.
4. Check the profile on a phone once the last tile is live.

If a tile does go up out of order, Instagram now lets you tap and hold a post on your grid and choose "Reorder grid". It's a fix, not a plan, so get the order right before anything publishes.

When should you use the Instagram grid layout?

Not all the time. In the home feed, each tile is a fragment, and a run of fragments is hard to read. Use a big grid when the moment deserves the top of the profile:

• A new account or a new brand look. Open the profile with a grid that says who the brand is.
• A product launch. Split the hero shot of a new product, or use a puzzle layout with shapes and colors from the brand palette.
• A rebrand. Lines, shapes, and colors that run across tiles show off a new logo, palette, and fonts in one go.
• A seasonal campaign across locations. A multi-location business can run the same grid on every location's account, so the campaign looks the same wherever people find it.

If the reveal only needs to work in the feed, a panoramic carousel keeps it inside one post. For other ways to structure a feed, see our Instagram grid layout ideas and Instagram feed ideas for businesses.

Planning a big grid for a brand or for clients

A big grid for one personal account is a weekend project. For a brand or a client, it's a small campaign with a deadline, an approver, and no room for a tile out of place. A few habits keep it on track:

• Approve the grid, not the tiles. Show the client or stakeholder the full grid in place on their profile, next to their existing posts. Sign-off on single tiles misses how they read together.
• Write a caption for every tile. Each tile shows up alone in the home feed. Give each one a caption that makes sense without the others.
• Freeze the account for the posting window. Pause other scheduled posts on that account until the last tile is live, or the grid shifts out of line.
• Book the whole sequence at once. Schedule every tile in one sitting, in order, with a gap between each, rather than posting by hand across a day.
• Name an owner for launch day. One person checks the profile when the last tile publishes and fixes anything that went up out of order.
• Keep the master files. Store the master and the numbered tiles together, so the next location, market, or client can reuse the layout.

For example, a restaurant group with eight venues might approve one 3 x 3 grid for a new menu, schedule it on all eight accounts for the same morning, and pause each account's regular posts until 11 am.

Schedule your big Instagram grid layout with Sked Social

A big grid is a sequence, so it's easier to get right when every tile is scheduled in one place. Sked Social schedules and auto-publishes Instagram feed posts, including carousels.

Sked Social's Grid Preview shows an Instagram account's current grid with your queued posts in the positions they'll take. Drag the tiles into the order they should publish, check each carousel's first image, and spot a tile out of place before anything goes live. Choose any connected Instagram account to preview, so an agency can check each client's grid in turn. You can also open the grid view from the Content Calendar, though drag-and-drop ordering lives on the Grid Preview page itself.

If you're weighing up dedicated grid-planning tools, see how Sked Social compares with Planoly and our roundup of the best Instagram schedulers.

Rolling out big grids for more than one brand? See how agencies work in Sked Social.

Planning a launch grid for a brand or a client? Start your 14-day free trial of Sked Social and preview the whole grid before the first tile goes out. Every feature, no card needed.