5 must-have apps that you can use to create Instagram story. Pin this for later!
Instagram story is one of the best ways for you to engage with your audience. You can post photos, videos, text, or even a combination of all of them to your Instagram story, and they will be available for 24 hours. You always have the option to save any of your Instagram stories to your Instagram profile highlights, so it can stay accessible after the 24-hour period. Instagram story gives us the opportunity to share more to our community on top of our Instagram post. It helps us to share more about us, behind the scenes, and daily activities! Instagram has been improving and adding new features for Instagram story, but there are many ways to make your Instagram story more fun and interesting.
There are many different apps you can use to create a unique Instagram story based on your style. It can get overwhelming to choose which apps to use to create Instagram story, so we would like to share with you the 5 must-have apps that we love to use to create our Instagram stories! ⤵
Unfold
One of the very first apps that we downloaded to help us elevate our Instagram story game was Unfold. What we like best about Unfold is its simplicity. Unfold is very easy to use and pretty self explanatory. The app comes with free template series, but there are more template series that you can purchase on the app.
Each template series comes with 6-18 different templates. Each series costs 0.99-$1.99, and some of them are only accessible if you pay the subscription for Unfold+ ($2.99/month or $19.99/year) for DW2 series or by following their Instagram for ART series. Unfold comes with 11 complimentary fonts and if you pay for the subscription for Unfold+, you will get 5 extra font options.
Another thing we like about Unfold is that we have the option whether we want to upload a photo/video or a mix of both to the available template. You can create different story series on Unfold. That feature is so useful if you are more of a planner i.e. if you want to create an Instagram story series from your trip to Seattle, you can create a “Seattle story” on Unfold to help you create a cohesive look on your Instagram story. Another example is if you want to similar look for your NEW POST announcement, you can create a second story series for that on the app.
You can also put filters on each photo that you upload to Unfold (each photo can have different filters even when they are being put on the same template) and background colors. Unfold also have a stickers feature. Some of them are free, but most of them are only accessible if you are an Unfold+ subscriber.
I put the “Detroit” filter on one of the photos + tape stickers
You can get really creative with all of the different features that are available on the app. For example, I added the tape stickers to the photo above from the free stickers selection on Unfold.
StoryArt
StoryArt is a subscription based app. A 1-month trial costs $2.99 and the StoryArt Pro 1-year subscription costs $9.99. We have the 1-year subscription which gives us unlimited access to all features on the app. What we like the most from StoryArt is the animated template options. We can also add short music (all of them are without lyrics) to any animated template.
Add a short music to your IG story
Adding music to your Instagram story can make your viewer enjoy your stories even more. Instagram has this feature already, but sometimes they are changing things based on region, so it’s nice to know that you have the option to do that on StoryArt. The only downside is that you can only choose the music that are available on their library, and they have a pretty limited option.
StoryArt offers several many different themed templates (Film, Minimalist, Watercolor, Paper, and more) and there are many more template options within each theme. It offers different fonts including Arabic, Japanese, Russian, and Thai alphabets. One of the features that StoryArt has and the other 4 apps don’t have is highlight cover templates. You can choose from 11 different styles of highlight covers.
Highlight Cover Templates
Mojo
Mojo offers many different animated templates for photos/videos. What differentiate it from StoryArt is the animated text styles option. You can choose between Title, Caption, Dynamic, Swipe Up, Logo, and more! There are different background colors that you can choose as well.
One of the template
To get a full access to all templates, you need to pay a subscription for Mojo Pro. It costs $9.99/month or $39.99 for 12 months. They currently offer a 3-day FREE trial. The free templates are pretty limited, but we think that it’s good enough if we combine it with the other apps that we use. Recently they introduced “Free this Week” where they let all users to use a couple of templates for free that are usually only available to their paid users.
What’s nice about this app is if you pay for the subscription, you can access specific templates to support your need within your niche. Some of the categories are: News, Marketing, Food, Pop, Digital, and more.
Marketing template
StoryLuxe
What we like from StoryLuxe their polaroid/frame style templates. They have 15 template categories and each categories have several different series.
StoryLuxe templates
One of my favorite templates to use from StoryLuxe is the collage template options. There are many free templates available, but you can also get a full access for $2.99/month. The subscription doesn’t only give you a full access to all of the templates, but it also gives you access to all of the fonts and background colors that are available. What differentiate StoryLuxe from the other apps is the luxurious/sophisticated look of the templates available on the app. We think that StoryLuxe works best for people who are in the couple/romantic/relationship, luxury travel, and fashion/lifestyle niche.
Canva
Canva is a pretty awesome platform because you can design so many different things on Canva. You can design a Facebook post, name card, Pinterest thumbnail, Instagram story, and more! Canva offers many free templates, or you can also design your own template. Canva is available both as a phone app and also on desktop.
One of favorite things from Canva is their interactive templates. Interactive templates are text templates that let your audience to answer questions and give their opinion.
Interactive template from Canva
It’s free to download Canva, but there are some restrictions if you are not a subscriber. Canva Pro costs $12.95/month for monthly plan and $9.95/month if you pay for the annual plan. Canva Pro lets you to upload your own font (this is good for branding), use all of the available templates, fonts, and elements.
These apps can help you to make your Instagram Stories stand out and aligned with your style! Let us know what you think about them once you try them.
