How to get your music on Instagram

To get your music on Instagram, so that anyone can add your song to a reel, a story or a post, you release it through a distributor that delivers to Instagram. The song then appears in Instagram's music library under your artist name, and reels that use it show your name and the song's title.

You can also post a video of your own with the song in it today, without a distributor. The two routes do different things, and this guide covers both. For the steps every release shares, start with how to release music.

Two ways a song gets onto Instagram

People mean two different things by "uploading music to Instagram".

• Posting it yourself. You share a reel with your song as its sound. It's live at once, and it belongs to that one reel.
• Releasing it into the music library. A distributor delivers the song to Instagram, and it becomes a track anyone can search for and add to their own reels, stories and posts.

You can do both: the release puts the song in the library, and your own reels show people what to do with it.

Into the music library, through a distributor

Instagram's Help Center describes its music library as licensed music, available under Meta's agreements with the rights holders. It lists no way for an artist to upload a song into that library. An independent artist's music arrives the way it arrives on Spotify or Apple Music: your distributor delivers the recording, the cover and the credits, and Instagram files it under your artist name.

When you set up a release, check that Instagram is among the stores on it, then send the release as you would for any other service. Releasing on every platform covers how one release reaches them all.

Two details help the song land under the right name:

• Spell your artist name the same on every release. The library files a song by the name in its metadata. Song credits and metadata goes through every field.
• Send it ahead of release day. Each service takes in a release at its own pace, so a release sent weeks ahead is in place when the day comes. How early to send your music covers the timing.

Posting your song yourself: original audio

You don't have to wait for the library to post your own music. Instagram's page on what audio you can use in a reel explains how a reel's sound is credited:

• Audio you record or upload with a reel is original audio, and it shows your username.
• When you post a reel on a public account, anyone on Instagram can record a reel using your original audio.
• If you upload licensed audio as original audio, Instagram may change the description to the artist's name and the song.

So a reel of you playing an unreleased song is a sound other people can already use. It stays tied to your username and to that reel. A song in the library is tied to the release, with its title and your artist name, and it's what people find when they search for music to add.

How reels credit your song

Once your release is in the library, Instagram connects the videos that use it. The same Help Center page says that when Instagram detects licensed audio in a reel, it changes the credit from "Original audio" to the artist and the song title, and adds the reel to the audio page for that song, where more people may find it.

The audio page is where a song lives on Instagram. It collects every reel made with the song, yours and other people's, and it has a button to use the audio in a new reel, story or post.

Where your song can be used

A song in the library can be added in several places, each with its own Help Center page:

• Reels, from the audio tool when recording or editing.
• Stories, with the music sticker.
• Photo posts. Instagram's page on adding audio to a post says you can pick a song from its music library for a photo. Music can also go on a post with several photos, though not on a carousel that has videos in it.
• Your profile. Instagram has a page on adding a song to your profile. Put your current release there.

Instagram also sets limits. Its music guidelines recommend shorter clips of music and say a video should always have a visual component, while stories and filmed live performances have no limits on music. The library is meant for personal, non-commercial use, so certain business accounts and certain kinds of posts can't use it, and licensed music isn't available in every country.

After your song is live on Instagram

The delivery puts the song in the library. What happens next is yours to start.

• Find your song. Search for it in the music picker and open its audio page. If it's missing, or it sits under another artist with your name, ask your distributor to correct it.
• Post your own reels with it. Use the library version of the song, so your reels sit on its audio page.
• Add it to your profile and your stories. A song on your profile and a music sticker in a release-day story point followers to it.
• Point the link in your bio at the release. A reel can make someone curious, and the bio link is where they go to hear the full song.
• Invite people to use it. Show an idea that's easy to copy, and share the reels fans make.

How to promote music on Instagram goes further into reels, trial reels, stories and the bio link.

What your song earns on Instagram

What a song earns from being used on Instagram reaches you through your distributor, with the rest of your royalties, and distributors treat that money differently. TuneCore, for one, lists a 20% fee on what Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube pay on its pricing page (read November 11, 2026). Check what your distributor keeps of it.

Instagram with Audora

Every Audora release goes to Instagram and Facebook, alongside Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok and YouTube Music. We take nothing from your royalties on any plan. If you cancel and we keep your music distributed, we recover only our distribution costs from what it earns. Everything above that is still paid to you.

• The posts. Audora writes the Instagram posts for a release in your voice, and you approve the ones you like. Feed posts, Reels and Stories then publish to your account as planned.
• The videos. Lyric videos, song teasers and behind-the-song clips made from your song with your own photos, logo, colors and font. Your first video is on us.
• Your song as the sound. A Reel made on your song names its sound after you and the song, so every video that uses it credits you.
• Collaborators. Invite up to three collaborators to a post, picked from your release's credits.
• One link. A release link takes pre-saves before release day and opens the release from the day itself.

TikTok, YouTube, Instagram (Stories included) and Facebook Pages post automatically, and nothing goes out until you approve it. Stories carry no link sticker, so your release link goes in your bio.

The exact steps for your release are in your account, each dated from the release day you pick. Audora keeps adjusting them, adding, dropping and retiming steps, as it learns what works best for its artists. What every track gets shows the full release.