Instagram Collabs: how to make a joint post, accept an invite and remove yourself as a collaborator

What a joint post is and how it helps both creators

Per the Instagram Help Center, the original creator invites another account, and once it accepts, its username is added to the post. The post goes to the co-author's followers and shows on their profile, and the co-author sees all likes and comments. Visibility follows the original creator's settings. If they switch to private, only their followers see the post. If a private account invites a public one and it accepts, the post becomes public through that co-author's profile.

The benefit for both sides is a shared audience: each author reaches the partner's followers. Instagram's advice to post jointly for reach is in our piece on why Instagram reach drops.

A joint post is easy to confuse with a tag or a repost. The table below shows the difference. Reposts are covered in our guide to reposting on Instagram.

How many co-authors you can add and who you cannot invite

Per the Help Center as of September 2026, a post can have up to 5 co-authors. In August 2023 Meta announced a cap of three. A public account can add any account, a private one only its followers. A block in either direction ends the collaboration.

How to make a collab post step by step

Feed post and carousel

The Help Center gives this path.

1. Build the post or carousel and tap Tag people on the caption screen.
2. Tap Invite collaborator.
3. Search for the account and tap it.
4. Tap Done and publish the post.

Until the other author accepts, the post lives only on your profile.

How to make a joint reel

For reels, follow the help article on joint reels. Tap Tag people, then Invite collaborators, pick the account and tap Done in the top right. The button has the same name on iPhone and Android.

Can you add a co-author to a story?

No. The Help Center says you can mention accounts in stories but cannot add co-authors to them. Publish the shared material as a post or reel, and mention your partner in a story.

Adding a co-author after publishing

Per the help article about joint posts, the original author can add or remove a co-author at any time. In a published post, the co-author list opens through Options, Edit and Tag people, and on a reel Manage comes before Edit.

How to propose a joint post to another creator

Technically, a proposal is the same Invite collaborator request. In practice, message the creator before you publish, since a surprise request is easy to decline. How to agree on shared work is in our guide to working with influencers.

How to accept or decline an invite

The invite arrives as a message. The Help Center gives this path.

1. Tap Messages at the bottom and open the conversation with the invite.
2. Tap the invite, then tap Review.
3. Tap Accept or Decline.

Once you accept, your username appears in the post header, and the post also shows on your profile and in your followers' feeds. You can leave later, as shown below.

Why the invite does not arrive or the button is missing

The first five points come from the Help Center.

1. Private creator account. It can add only its followers, so follow the author.
2. Wrong place. Look for the request in Messages, in your Chats list.
3. A story. Co-authors go on posts, carousels and reels, not stories.
4. The cap. The five slots per post may be full.
5. A block or violations. A block takes the co-author off the post, and rule violations may cost access to the feature.
6. An old app. Button names follow the current Help Center, so update the app.

Is there a setting that allows invites?

The Help Center describes no separate switch for incoming requests. Whether one reaches you depends on the sender's settings. A private account sees a note on who can view the post before its first invite. Without your Accept, nothing appears on your profile grid.

How to remove a co-author or leave a joint post

The original author removes a co-author: before publishing through Tag people and Remove next to the name. After publishing, tap Options, Edit, Tag people, Remove and Done, and on a reel tap Manage before Edit. Only that author can delete the whole post, and then it disappears for the co-author too, as the Help Center says.

How to remove yourself as a collaborator

A co-author may remove themselves from someone else's post at any time, as the Help Center says. Open the post and tap Options, top right on a post or bottom right on a reel. Tap Stop sharing, follow the on-screen steps and tap Stop sharing again. The post leaves your profile and stays on the original author's.

Who to make a joint post with and how to tell it worked

Pick a partner by the public numbers on their profile. Likes say little, while saves and shares show that viewers found a post useful. Look for posts with a high share of saves and for older hits. You need no personal data for this.

Measure the outcome by ratios to views, since an older post had more time to collect numbers. Take a ceramicist whose reels collect 6 saves per 1,000 views. A joint reel with a pastry chef collects 14 saves per 1,000 views, more than twice her usual level. The pastry chef usually gets 9, so the joint reel beats the average for both authors.

The top posts and reels report puts the account's best reels of all time and up to 36 recent posts into one table. It shows views, likes, comments, saves and shares, plus likes and saves per thousand views, sortable by any column. Where Instagram does not expose saves, the report says unknown, not zero. The report does not mark joint posts or count followers who came from the partner. How to read such a list is covered in our guide to an account's most popular reels.

Consent and rights come first

A co-author appears on a post only after they tap Accept, so you cannot pass a post off as joint work without consent. Publishing someone else's photos, videos or texts as your own or as a joint post is banned. Instagram's Terms of Use require you to hold the rights to what you post.

Collabs and advertising

Under Russian law, a joint post by a creator with a shop, craftsperson, expert or brand in exchange for money, products or barter counts as advertising. Clause 1 of Article 3 of the Advertising Law No. 38-FZ defines advertising as information for an indefinite group of people that draws attention to the advertised object. The definition names no payment method.

Part 10.7 of Article 5 of that law was introduced by Federal Law No. 72-FZ. Since September 1, 2025, it bans advertising on resources with restricted access, and Garant legal analysts list Instagram among them.

So a paid joint post with a brand on Instagram is not available to a Russian advertiser. Neither an ad disclosure, nor the paid partnership label, nor the online ad labeling required by Article 18.1 of the Advertising Law since September 1, 2022 lifts the ban. The label itself is a platform feature: per the Help Center, a "Paid partnership with" label above the post names the partner.

US disclosure rules for paid influencer posts are covered in our article on what Instagram influencer ads cost. Whether a joint post by two private creators with no product or payment counts as advertising is for a lawyer to judge.

Common questions