You can preview how photos will sit together on your Instagram profile before you publish any of them. A Color Story added grid planning to its iOS app with version 2.0, announced on January 19, 2018. That announcement describes a way to design, preview and sequence a feed, with edited photos and videos placed into the grid. Whether that feature and its surrounding steps still work the same way today is something to confirm in the current app, because the announcement is the most recent official description the available sources provide.
What A Color Story’s grid planning was built to do
The purpose of grid planning is to check a sequence of images in the context of the whole profile, not one post at a time. A Color Story’s 2018 announcement presented its version 2.0 for iOS as a tool for exactly that: designing and previewing an Instagram feed, and adding edited photos and videos to the grid. The same announcement described batch editing and a posting reminder. In that flow, you wrote a caption inside the app and were then taken to Instagram to post.
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That reminder flow is the detail most worth reading carefully. It means the app prepared the post and handed off to Instagram; it did not publish on your behalf. Do not assume that a grid preview implies automatic posting. If you are looking for scheduled publishing, you need a different capability, and the 2018 announcement does not establish that A Color Story offered it.
How to plan a grid in A Color Story, step by step
The steps below follow the workflow the 2018 announcement described. Menu names and button labels change between app releases, so match each step to what your installed version shows rather than following labels from memory.
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- Edit the photos first. Finish colour and crop adjustments on each image before placing it in the grid. Changing an image later means re-checking its position, so editing up front saves a second pass.
- Add the edited images to the grid view. Use the app’s grid or feed planning screen and add each photo or video in the order you think it should go. The 2018 description covered both photos and videos.
- Review the sequence as a whole. Scroll the planned grid the way a follower would see it. Check that neighbouring images share a colour, subject or contrast level, and that no single frame breaks the rhythm of a row.
- Reorder before you commit. Move images until the sequence holds up. Treat the grid view as a draft space; the point is to make these decisions before anything goes live.
- Write captions and move to Instagram. Under the 2018 flow, captions were written in the app and the posting step happened in Instagram. Confirm whether your version still works this way before you rely on it.
Check that the feature exists in your version
Availability is the first thing to confirm, because the most recent official description of this feature is dated 2018. Before following the steps above, check the following:
- The current App Store listing for A Color Story, which shows the version number and what it says about grid or feed planning.
- Whether your installed app has a grid or feed planning screen, and whether it can take edited photos and videos as described.
- Whether the posting handoff still opens Instagram with your caption, or whether the flow has changed.
- Whether the app runs on your device. The 2018 announcement covered iOS; the sources available for this article do not establish the Android situation.
If the feature is missing or different in your version, the planning method still works with any grid preview tool. The sections below explain what to compare.
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What a grid preview cannot show you
A grid preview is only as complete as the posts it can see. Two limits from the cited planner documentation illustrate the point. Sprout Social’s help page notes that its planner does not display pinned posts in the preview. Kontentino’s help page, dated August 12, 2026, states that its grid displays only posts created inside Kontentino. In practical terms, a preview may leave out posts that matter to how your profile looks.
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Before you judge a layout, count the posts you can see against the posts on your live profile. If some are missing, arrange the visible ones with that gap in mind, and check the full profile in Instagram before you publish.
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Comparing dedicated grid planners
If A Color Story does not fit your workflow, three dedicated planners document grid-preview features. The table below records only what each cited source states. Where a source is silent on a point, the cell says so.
| Tool | Grid preview | Existing posts shown | Publishing | Plan or pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Color Story (version 2.0, iOS, 2018 announcement) | Yes, design and preview of a feed with edited photos and videos | Not stated | Caption written in the app, then the user is taken to Instagram to post | Not stated in the announcement; check the current listing |
| Sprout Social (support documentation) | Yes | Sent posts from the prior 90 days, plus pending, draft and scheduled posts; pinned posts do not appear | Not stated in the cited page | Available on Professional and Advanced plans |
| Kontentino (help center, dated August 12, 2026) | Yes, including rearranging unpublished posts | Only posts created directly in Kontentino | Not stated in the cited page | Not stated in the cited page |
| Hopper HQ (product page, accessed October 7, 2026) | Yes, browser-based grid preview for arranging images | Not stated | Free planner is visual planning only, with no direct publishing | Free planner exists; current paid plan details not stated and should be checked on the product page |
When you compare these tools, the axes that matter most are these: whether the preview includes posts already live on your profile, whether you can reorder unpublished posts, whether the tool can publish or only plans, and whether your plan tier controls access. The Sprout Social and Hopper HQ entries show that the same word, “preview,” can mean very different things.
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Which approach fits which situation
- You already edit in A Color Story and only need to test a sequence. Use its grid planning if your installed version has it, and post manually through Instagram.
- You need to see existing posts next to new ones. Prioritise a planner that displays live posts, and confirm which post types it leaves out, such as pinned posts.
- You want scheduled publishing as well as planning. Check the publishing column closely. The Hopper HQ free planner documents visual planning only, so publishing would require a different tool or plan.
Bottom line on planning your grid before you post
Plan the grid as a sequence, not as a set of separate photos. A Color Story’s grid planning, as described in its 2018 announcement, gives you a way to arrange edited images and review them together before you post them in Instagram. Confirm that the feature and posting handoff exist in your installed version, and check any planner’s preview coverage against your live profile before trusting the layout.
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Sources for this article: A Color Story, “A Color Story 2.0 for iOS is HERE!” (January 19, 2018); Sprout Social Support, “How do I use the Instagram Grid Planner?” (accessed October 7, 2026); Kontentino Help Center, “Reviewing content in a grid format” (dated August 12, 2026); Hopper HQ, “Free Instagram Grid Planner & Feed Preview” (accessed October 7, 2026).
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The Bottom Line
Use the grid view to test the sequence of your feed, but confirm the feature in your current version first. A preview shows only the posts its tool can see, and a planning tool is not the same as one that publishes for you.
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