Instagram story templates
Make a 9:16 story from a ready layout with room for text away from Instagram’s buttons.
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Full-screen story designs, ready in minutes
Stories disappear after 24 hours, so they need to be quick to make, yet they are often the first thing followers see. These 31 story templates give you finished 1080 × 1920 layouts for the most common jobs: announcing a new post, asking a question, counting down to an event, showing a product, sharing a tip or a quote. Change the text and photos, switch the colors, and export a vertical image to post.
All templates are original designs and are edited in your browser. Nothing has to be downloaded or installed, and your photos are not uploaded to our server.
How to make a story from a template
Pick a design
Tap a story template to open it in the editor.
Write your text
Tap the headline and other text slots and type over them.
Add photos
Replace the sample pictures with your own and position them inside their frames.
Choose a palette and save
Switch between the 6 color palettes and 14 font pairings, then export PNG or JPG to your phone and add it to your story.
Keep text away from the story buttons
In a story, Instagram draws your profile picture and name at the top and the reply field at the bottom. Anything placed there is partly hidden. Our story templates keep their important text between 250 and 1,600 pixels from the top of the 1920-pixel frame, and you should do the same when you write longer texts.
Meta publishes exact margins only for ads: keep about 14% at the top, 35% at the bottom and 6% on each side of a 9:16 frame free of key text and logos (Meta Ads Guide (opens in a new tab), checked November 2026). On a 1080 × 1920 story that means roughly the top 270 pixels and the bottom 670 pixels. Organic stories have less on screen than ads, so these margins are generous, which is the safe direction to be wrong in.
You can post images of other shapes as a story too, but Instagram then shows them smaller on a background; only 9:16 fills the whole screen.
Ideas for a week of stories
New post alert
A teaser of your latest post with a bold "new" headline; add Instagram's link or mention sticker on top in the app.
Question and poll backgrounds
Calm designs with free space for Instagram's question or poll stickers.
Countdown and event
Date, place and a clear title, with room for the countdown sticker.
Tips and quotes
Short text-led designs you can post on days without photos.
Instagram's interactive stickers are added in the app after you upload the image, so leave a little empty space where they will go.
Story template questions
What size is an Instagram story?
1080 × 1920 pixels in the 9:16 shape, which fills a phone screen. Every template on this page exports at that size.
Can I make animated story templates?
The templates export still images. Instagram's own text animations, music and GIF stickers can be added on top in the app.
Can I save a template design for highlights?
Stories you post can be added to a highlight. For the round cover of the highlight itself, use the highlight cover maker.
Do I need an Instagram login to use the templates?
No. You design and save the image here, then post it from your own Instagram app as usual.
Related design tools
For square and portrait feed designs, see post templates. A story collage of several photos is made with the collage maker in 9:16. Find every design tool on the Instagram design page.