Schedule Instagram Trial Reels from Planable and test a Reel with non-followers before your audience sees it.
→ Before you start
→ Turn on Trial for a Reel
→ Trial settings explained
→ After a trial reel is published
→ Limitations
→ Troubleshooting
A trial reel is shown to people who don't follow the account first. You see how the Reel lands with a fresh audience before it reaches your followers, without finishing the Reel in the Instagram app.
Before you start
To schedule a trial reel from Planable:
- The post must be an Instagram Reel. The Trial button doesn't appear on other Instagram formats.
- The Reel must publish directly from Planable. Trial reels can't be published via the mobile app. See Instagram Publishing to check how your page publishes Reels.
- The account must meet Instagram's follower minimum: 200 followers for Business and Creator accounts, and 1,000 followers for personal accounts.
Planable reads the follower count from Instagram when the account is connected and keeps it updated as the account syncs.
Good to know: Meeting the follower minimum doesn't guarantee Trial Reels will work. Instagram is still rolling the feature out, and not every account has it yet. Planable can't see this in advance. Before scheduling a trial reel, open the Instagram app, start a new reel and check that the Trial toggle appears before sharing. If it's missing, Instagram hasn't enabled Trial Reels for that account yet, so publish the Reel as a regular Reel for now.
Turn on Trial for a Reel
- Create or open an Instagram Reel in Planable.
- In the footer of the Reel editor, click the Trial OFF button. Hover over it to see "Test content with non-followers first".
- In the settings panel that opens, switch on Trial reel. The button changes to Trial ON.
- Optionally, switch on Auto-share after 72h and/or Show on profile feed. See Trial settings explained below.
- Schedule or publish the Reel as usual.
Trial is a setting on each post, not on the page or workspace. Every Reel starts with Trial off, so turn it on for each Reel you want to test.
Trial settings explained
The settings panel has three switches. They're all off by default, and the two extra switches stay greyed out until Trial reel is on.
- Trial reel: turns the trial on or off. The info icon next to it shows the follower minimum for that account.
- Auto-share after 72h: hands the decision to Instagram. If the Reel performs well with non-followers during the trial, Instagram shares it with your followers.
- Show on profile feed: the Reel appears on your profile grid after the 72-hour trial, no matter how it performed.
When Show on profile feed is off
Instagram decides what happens to the Reel. If the trial doesn't perform well enough, Instagram may keep the Reel as a trial indefinitely. It then only reaches your followers if you share it manually in the Instagram app.
💡 Pro tip: Want the Reel on your grid whatever the results? Switch on Show on profile feed. Prefer to only show your followers Reels that proved themselves? Use Auto-share after 72h on its own.
After a trial reel is published
Once the Reel is published, the Trial ON button is replaced by a Trial reel label, so anyone looking at the post can tell it went out as a trial.
Planable sends your trial settings to Instagram at publishing. From then on, the trial is managed in the Instagram app: that's where you check how it performed and share it with your followers later.
Limitations
- No collaborators on trial reels. Turning Trial on removes any Instagram collaborators from the post, and they can't be added while Trial is on. Turn Trial off to add them back.
- Direct publishing only. If you publish Reels via the mobile app to add native Instagram features, you'll need to choose between that workflow and Trial for each post.
- Page switched to mobile publishing. If a page is set to publish via mobile after Trial was turned on, the Trial button stays visible but the extra switches are disabled. The panel shows: "Follower sharing and the profile grid need direct publishing. Turn Trial off to publish via mobile."
- Below the follower minimum. The Trial button is greyed out. Hover over it (or tap it on a touch device) to see how many followers are needed. If an account's follower count drops below the minimum, Trial becomes unavailable until the count recovers.
[Screenshot needed: greyed out Trial button with the follower minimum message]
Troubleshooting
I don't see the Trial button
The button only appears on Instagram Reels for pages that publish Reels directly. If the page is set to publish Reels via mobile, the button isn't shown on new Reels. Switch Reels to direct publishing in your page settings.
The Trial button is grey and I can't open it
The account is below Instagram's follower minimum. Hover over the button to see the exact number needed.
"Instagram hasn't enabled Trial Reels for this account, or you've reached Instagram's Trial Reels limit."
Instagram decides which accounts get Trial Reels and how many trials can run at once, even when the follower count is high enough. Open the Instagram app, start a new reel and check whether the Trial toggle appears. If it's missing, Instagram hasn't enabled the feature for that account yet. Turn Trial off and publish the post as a regular Reel for now.
"Trial Reels can only be published directly from Planable. Turn Trial off to publish via the Instagram app."
The post or the page is set to publish via mobile. Switch it to direct publishing to keep the trial, or turn Trial off to publish through the Instagram app.
My collaborators disappeared from the post
Turning Trial on removes Instagram collaborators. Turn Trial off to add them back.