How to Use Later: A Setup-to-Routine Tutorial for Later Social

What a working Later setup looks like

Later Social is a planner and scheduler built around a visual calendar, with Link in Bio pages, analytics and, on the bigger plans, a shared inbox and approvals. It posts to eight networks: Instagram, Facebook Pages, TikTok, Threads, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat ^[1]. X is no longer one of them, since support ended on August 28, 2025. This guide walks through the order we would follow on a new account: the trial decision, connecting profiles, loading media, scheduling, Link in Bio, the team features and the reports. Most setup problems trace back to the first two steps. Get the profiles right and the rest is routine.

One limit shapes everything else. Later has no public API and no Zapier connection, so the tool does not plug into the rest of your stack. Content goes in through uploads, Dropbox or Canva, and results come out through the dashboards and CSV exports. If you were planning to wire Later into a CRM or an automation tool, stop here and check that the manual route works for you. For most small teams it does, because the daily work happens on the calendar anyway.

Sign-up and the trial: decide before you enter a card

Every paid plan comes with a 14-day trial, and the checkout asks for card details, a billing interval and, optionally, extra Social Sets and users ^[2]. The trial converts to a paid plan automatically unless you cancel before it ends, and plans are non-refundable, with exceptions handled case by case. You get one trial per account. An account that already had a trial or a paid plan cannot start another. Changing plans during the trial does not extend it either, so pick the plan you would really buy.

The prices to weigh are Starter at $25 a month billed monthly ($18.75 a month billed yearly), Growth at $50 a month billed monthly ($37.50 billed yearly) and Scale at $110 a month billed monthly ($82.50 billed yearly) ^[3]. Starter suits one person with one brand: one Social Set, one user and 30 posts per profile a month (YouTube Shorts are not capped on paid plans). Growth is the first plan with approvals, the Social Inbox and add-on users. Extra Sets and users added during the trial are free until it ends, then charged. The help center also describes a Free plan with 12 posts per profile a month and no Best Time to Post. Before you click through:

1. Put a reminder in your calendar a couple of days before day 14.
2. Cancel on the platform where you signed up: on desktop for a web signup, through Apple for an iOS one.
3. Know that cancelling keeps the plan until the trial ends, but it uses up your trial for good.
4. Pay with a major credit card; Google Pay and Apple Pay work for new trials only, and PayPal and bank transfers are not accepted.

Connecting profiles without the usual errors

How Social Sets and Access Groups organize your profiles

A Social Set holds one profile of each network, so two Instagram accounts always need two Sets. Starter includes one Set, Growth two and Scale six. Above the Sets sit Access Groups, which separate brands or clients, each with its own media library, profiles and users. Free and Starter get one Access Group; Growth and higher get unlimited groups. Only the account owner creates them. Plan the groups before you connect anything, because moving a profile between Access Groups later permanently deletes its Link in Bio page design, and media and labels do not travel with it. New users land in the earliest group by default.

The requirements per network

Instagram is where most connections fail. Later no longer supports personal Instagram profiles, because Meta retired the API they relied on, so you need a business or creator profile. Switching inside Instagram is free. You can connect and publish without a Facebook Page, but linking the profile to a Page unlocks the Social Inbox, hashtag search, Best Time to Post, user and location tagging and Story analytics. A Facebook Page links to only one Instagram profile at a time. The other networks have their own rules:

• Facebook: Pages only, and you need the Page Admin role. Personal profiles, even in professional mode, and Groups are not supported.
• LinkedIn: Pages need super admin rights.
• TikTok and Pinterest: basic login access is enough. TikTok auto publish needs at least one public video and must be switched on from desktop.
• Threads: connect from desktop only.
• YouTube: Shorts only, and only the channel owner can connect the channel.
• Snapchat: Spotlight and Public Story only, scheduled from desktop only. The profile must be public with at least one public post, Story or Spotlight.

When the permission screens appear, accept all of them. Skipping one is the usual cause of failed posts, disconnects and missing analytics. Connections also expire by design about every two months, and accounts with more than five Social Sets may need to refresh them more often, so a quick check of connection status belongs in your weekly routine. An expired connection stops publishing. Nothing goes out.

Loading the media library

Everything you schedule starts in the media library. You can upload from your device, link Dropbox, or send designs from Canva. The Canva integration works on every current plan, including Free, but it is set up from inside Canva and exports one item at a time. Google Drive can no longer be connected because of changes to Google's API, which surprises teams that keep their assets there. Media storage is unlimited from Growth up; for Free and Starter, Later's pages disagree on storage limits. Uploads do not use up your post count. A Media Note on an image copies into the caption when you schedule it, a tidy way to draft captions early.

File-size caps depend on the plan. Photos can be up to 5 MB on Free, 20 MB on Starter and 100 MB on Growth and above; videos up to 25 MB, 512 MB and 1.5 GB on the same plans. Later does not accept HEIC, Apple ProRes or transparent PNG files, so export iPhone photos as JPG first. It also suggests keeping videos under 100 MB and photos under 8 MB to avoid compression by the networks.

Building posts and filling the calendar

Calendar, Visual Planner and multi-profile posts

The web calendar switches between weekly and monthly views; drag media onto a slot and the post builder opens. For Instagram, the Visual Instagram Planner previews your grid with up to 60 upcoming scheduled posts, so you can rearrange the feed before it goes live. Drafts appear in the planner only on desktop. To reuse one post across networks, select several profiles in the builder: you can schedule one post to up to 10 profiles at once, within the same Access Group. There is no bulk editing afterwards. Each copy is edited on its own.

Watch the counter. Drafts count toward the monthly post cap the moment you save them, and turning a draft into a scheduled post does not use another. Deleting a draft returns it to your count. A draft saved for several profiles must still be scheduled profile by profile. Stories count toward the Instagram total too, each Story board as one post.

Auto publish or notification publishing

Facebook, Pinterest, Threads, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat always auto publish. Instagram and TikTok need a setup step, and they also offer notification publishing: Later sends a push to your phone at the scheduled time and you finish the post in the app. The calendar marks auto publish posts with a lightning bolt and notification posts with a bell. Use notification publishing when you need stickers, polls or other native extras, since Later cannot add those to auto published posts; the same goes for trending music, except that eligible Instagram audio can be added in Later to auto published Reels on business or creator profiles linked to a Facebook Page. The reverse also holds: some Instagram options exist only on auto published posts from business or creator profiles, and the first comment and user and location tags also need a paid plan:

1. A first comment of up to 2,200 characters, posted with the caption.
2. User and location tags, and up to 3 collaborators.
3. A Link in Bio link attached to the post.

Carousels are capped at 10 items with a single caption, although Instagram itself allows 20. Hashtags follow Instagram's own rule: since December 18, 2025 a post or Reel can carry only 5. For a fast routine, Quick Schedule lets you set up to 7 weekly time slots and drop posts into them. Our Later for Instagram guide covers Reels, Stories and the other formats in detail.

Let Best Time to Post choose the slots

Best Time to Post reads your own engagement and suggests posting times. It is included on Starter, Growth and Scale, not on Free. On the web it covers Instagram, Facebook and TikTok; LinkedIn is not supported. Each network has a condition. Instagram needs a business or creator profile linked to a Facebook Page and draws on the last six months of engagement. Facebook uses your last 50 posts. TikTok needs a Business account and gives one best time per day.

Turn it on from desktop first. After that you can save the suggested times as Quick Schedule slots and use them from the mobile app, which on mobile covers Instagram only, one profile at a time. Multi-profile best times are a Growth and Scale feature; Starter accounts get a 24-hour trial of it by selecting several profiles. Treat the suggestions as a starting point. A new account with little history gives the tool little to read.

Setting up Link in Bio

Link in Bio gives each Social Set a landing page at linkin.bio/ followed by your profile name, and it is included on every plan, Free too. Free pages carry a Later banner and always add default UTM tags; Starter removes the banner and allows custom UTM values. You can change the username only once every 30 days, so choose it with care. Links on posts stay editable after publishing, and the analytics show page views, clicks and click-through rate. Our guide to Later's Link in Bio goes deeper. Setup takes a few minutes:

1. Open Link in Bio for the profile and set the profile name (up to 30 characters) and a bio (up to 115 characters, no line breaks).
2. Add buttons; there is no limit on how many.
3. Attach links to your Instagram posts, up to 5 per post, from desktop.
4. Paste the linkin.bio address into your Instagram or TikTok bio, without a link shortener such as bit.ly, which can break the setup.

Bringing in a team, and answering messages

Roles and approvals on Growth

Collaboration and approvals start at Growth; Free and Starter have none. On Growth an extra user costs $5 a month billed monthly. Only the account owner can invite users, and only from desktop, and each email address can belong to one Later account. Later has four roles: Account Owner, Reviewer, Member and Member (Restricted). New users start as Members, who can request approval but not give it.

Here is the trap. Approval does not block publishing. A scheduled post goes live at its time whether or not anyone approved it, so posts waiting for review should be saved as drafts. External reviewers can comment without a Later account, through links that expire after 7 days and carry no password. There are no email alerts for feedback; the in-app Notification Center is a Scale feature. Stories are left out of approvals entirely.

The Social Inbox

The Social Inbox, also from Growth up, gathers Instagram and Facebook direct messages plus comments from Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. It is in beta and runs on desktop only. TikTok DMs are not included, and Instagram DMs can be answered only within 7 days of arrival, so someone needs to check it daily. Instagram profiles must be linked to a Facebook Page for the inbox to work. The owner cannot restrict who on the team sees it.

Reading the analytics

Analytics cover Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads and Pinterest, plus personal LinkedIn profiles on Starter and up (desktop only). There are none for LinkedIn Pages, YouTube Shorts or Snapchat, which matters if those channels carry your results. For Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, history depends on the plan: up to 3 months on Starter, 1 year on Growth and 2 years on Scale. Pinterest stays at 3 months on all three, and for Threads Later's pages differ: the help center says up to 3 months on every plan, while the pricing page lists the same 3 months, 1 year and 2 years. Later collects post performance for two weeks after publishing, organic only, and audience data needs at least 100 followers. Meta has removed impressions, profile views and website clicks from Instagram analytics, so older benchmarks will not line up. CSV exports start at Starter. For the full verdict, see our Later review.

What the mobile app can and cannot do

The iOS and Android apps are for upkeep away from your desk: checking the schedule, rearranging the grid in the Visual Planner, using Quick Schedule and finishing notification posts. The mobile calendar cannot create new posts. Stories, the collection tools, most analytics, the inbox and billing stay on desktop. Android has more gaps: it connects only Instagram and Facebook Pages, cannot schedule Threads or YouTube Shorts, cannot set up Link in Bio and cannot switch on auto publish for Instagram creator profiles. If you buy through the iOS app, Apple handles billing and refunds, and add-ons are unavailable. Do the setup on a computer. Use the phone for upkeep.

When posts fail: the common causes

• The Instagram cap. Instagram allows at most 50 auto published posts per profile in a rolling 24 hours ^[4]. A post that hits the cap must be recreated for later or sent by notification.
• Personal profiles. Personal Instagram profiles cannot connect at all; switch to business or creator first.
• Stories on creator profiles. Story auto publish works only for Instagram business profiles. Creator profiles must use notification publishing, as must any Story with stickers, polls, music, links or tags.
• Story batches. If one Story in an auto published multi-frame batch fails, the rest of that batch fails too.
• Expired or partial connections. Expired connections stop publishing, and skipped permissions cause failed posts.
• Plan limits after a downgrade. Once a paid plan ends, scheduled posts above the new limit are not published.

The bottom line

Later is easy to run once the groundwork is right, and the groundwork is mostly about profiles. Connect Instagram as a business or creator profile linked to a Facebook Page, plan your Social Sets and Access Groups before inviting anyone, and keep posts waiting for review as drafts. Then the routine is simple: load media, fill the calendar with Best Time slots, check the inbox daily on Growth and read the reports monthly. Just remember the trial converts to a paid plan on its own, and plans are non-refundable except case by case. Decide early. The calendar is the easy part.