- Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder is the best free Instagram hashtag generator that offers intelligent hashtag suggestions relevant to your post captions.
- If you want access to advanced hashtag performance analytics like the number of hashtags ranked and time spent ranking on them, Flick is a good option.
- HashtagsForLikes, All Hashtag, Inflact, and Photerloo are also great tools for advanced hashtag research and performance tracking.
- Ensure that you use a mix of popular-in-your-niche and relevant-to-your-post hashtags for maximum reach and engagement.
- To be able to rank on hashtag pages, you must have a public Instagram account. You can use up to 30 hashtags in your IG post captions or comments.
You’ll also learn why these tools are important and how to use them to maximize your reach and engagement. So sit back, relax, and get ready to take your Instagram game to the next level!
What Are Instagram Hashtag Tools?
Instagram hashtag tools are platforms, software, or online services that help you find, generate, and analyze hashtags to use in your Instagram posts.
These tools can help you:
- Identify popular and relevant hashtags for your content.
- Vet the difficulty of your post appearing on a specific hashtag page.
- Track the performance of your hashtags.
- Suggest new hashtags based on past performance.
By using the right hashtags, you can increase the visibility of your posts and reach a wider audience.
Why Do You Use Instagram Hashtag Tools?
Instagram hashtag tools can help you find hashtags that boost your post visibility and increase engagement from a relevant audience.
Using these tools will help you:
- Identify relevant and popular hashtags that people in your niche follow.
- Filter out spammy hashtags that have been overused irrelevantly and can harm the visibility of your posts.
- Identify which hashtags are most effective for your content.
- Save you the time and stress of manually researching hashtags relevant to your posts.
- Provide hashtag analytics and tracking features to see how well your hashtags perform.
- Get insights into your competitors’ hashtag strategies.
Overall, using Instagram hashtag tools can help you optimize your use of hashtags, attract new followers, and strengthen your Instagram presence.
How to Choose the Best Instagram Hashtag Generator
Choosing the right Instagram hashtag generator can be a game-changer for your IG growth strategy. With so many options available, it can be overwhelming to decide which tool best fits your needs.
So, I’ve put together the five essential factors to consider when choosing the best Instagram hashtag generator for your account.
- Features: Look for a tool that offers a range of features to help you find, generate, and analyze hashtags. Some useful features to look for include hashtag suggestions, analytics, and tracking.
- Ease of use: Choose a tool that is user-friendly and easy to navigate. You should be able to quickly and easily find and generate hashtags without having to spend a lot of time learning how to use the tool.
- Cost: Consider your budget when choosing an Instagram hashtag generator. Some tools are free, while others require a monthly subscription. Make sure you choose a tool that fits your budget while still providing the features you need.
- Reputation: Look for a tool with a good reputation and positive reviews from other users. This can help you feel confident that you are choosing a reliable and effective solution for hashtag optimization.
- Customer support: Choose a tool that offers good customer support in case you have any questions or issues while using the tool.
The List of the 11 Best Instagram Hashtag Research Tools
Ever since marketers discovered the power of trending hashtags, Instagram became saturated with them. Now every campaign, including branded, UGC, and giveaways, uses Instagram hashtags.
Thankfully, there are hashtag generators to help you cut through the noise. These tools help you find relevant hashtags based on your keyword, link, video, or photo.
But there are currently so many Instagram hashtag tools out there, that it may be hard to pick one for your business or account. Check out my favorite ones along with details about what makes them unique and how much they cost before making your choice.
1. Vista Social – Hashtag Generator & Instagram Management Tool
Vista Social offers a powerful yet free Instagram hashtag generator that helps you find hashtags related to any topic or keyword. Just enter the details and click on the “Generate hashtags” button.
And the best part?
You don’t even need to sign up for these free results.
However, for features like saved hashtags and reports on trending hashtags, you need to sign up for Vista Social.
You can also get insights about your hashtag performance. This will help you choose interaction-driving hashtags for future posts.
Along with hashtag suggestions and analytics, this tool also offers end-to-end Instagram management features. These include everything from content calendar to post scheduling, analytics, team collaboration, and inbox management.
Key Features
- Hashtag suggestions for your topic or keyword
- Saves hashtag groups for easier usage
- Hashtag performance tracking
- Hashtag gaps report based on your and your competitors’ hashtags
- UGC discovery by hashtags for quick social proof sharing
Pricing
- Free plan
- Pro plan: $15/month
- Pro+ plan: $25/month
- Custom plan: Contact their sales team for pricing details.
2. Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder – Free Hashtag Suggestions Relevant to Your IG Captions
Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder offers intelligent hashtag recommendations relevant to your Instagram content. It makes it easy to use a perfect mix of hashtags for each of your posts with color-coded tag options for popular hashtags to niche hashtags.
Along with hashtag research, Tailwind also lets you create content and social images, and schedule them across Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
In fact, you can auto-post hashtags in the first comment of your Instagram post and also preview and plan your IG grid.
If you find a photo you love online, you can post it with easy attribution using the Tailwind browser extension. No more emailing photos to yourself!
You can also access actionable social media analytics to make more informed decisions about the types of content to post and the best ways to grow your Instagram presence.
Key Features
- Smart hashtag suggestions based on your IG captions
- Hashtags lists to save your favorite ones for future use
- Color-coded hashtag tags for segregating popular to niche-specific hashtags
- Instagram post scheduling (up to 20 posts/month for free)
- SmartSchedule to suggest optimal times to post your content
- Instagram post designs (up to 20 posts/month for free)
- Instagram link in bio tool
Pricing
- Free Forever plan
- Pro plan: $19.99/month
- Advanced plan: $39.99/month
- Max plan: $79.99/month
3. All Hashtag – Fast & Relevant Hashtags for Your Social Media Content
All Hashtag lets you choose the type of hashtags you want it to generate, varying from top hashtags to random and live hashtags.
Just insert a keyword, select the type of hashtag, and hit “Generate.”
It will give you the top 30 hashtags related to your keyword (if you’ve selected “top”).
It also has a Hashtag Creator that automatically adds the “#” sign to your text.
You can access important hashtag analytics related to your hashtag, including data like how many times it has been used, other similar hashtags, and how it compares with the most popular hashtags of all time.
Key Features
- Hashtag suggestions based on your keyword
- Hashtag sign addition to your text
- Hashtag Counter to count the number of hashtags in your text
- Analytics like used times and popularity of your hashtag
Pricing
- Free to use
4. HashTagsForLikes – Hashtag Suggestions and Analytics
HashTagsForLikes not only suggests popular and trending hashtags that can go with your Instagram posts but also shows analytics related to the effectiveness of your target hashtag.
When you upgrade to a premium plan, you can gain more insights into hashtags, such as:
- Hashtag difficulty score
- The number of times it has been used
- Average likes
- Reach
You can even analyze your Instagram profile using HashTagsForLikes. Just select “Username” from the drop-down list, enter your Instagram handle, and click on the search icon.
You’ll get details about:
- Audience demographics
- Average engagement rate
- Number of post types
- Engagement by post types
- Top hashtags from the last 10 posts
- The most-used hashtags from the last 10 posts
- Fraud detection
- Brand affinity
Key Features
- Create and curate all the related, popular, and trending hashtags for a keyword you add to the tool.
- Get insights about the hashtag difficulty scoring to identify hashtags that can increase your posts’ exposure more easily than others.
- Check the volume of posts using a specific hashtag to ensure the competition is not too high.
Pricing
- Regular plan: $59/month
- Pro plan: $89/month
- A 7-day money-back guarantee
5. Inflact – Free Hashtag Generator & Instagram Profile Analyzer
Inflact is an AI-powered Instagram hashtag generator tool that delivers hashtag suggestions for you within seconds. The best part about this tool is that it can suggest Instagram hashtags for your photos by analyzing the images themselves.
With Inflact, you can generate hashtags using three options:
- Search hashtags related to a particular keyword.
- Search hashtags related to a photo.
- Search hashtags by entering the link (URL) to a particular Instagram post.
In either case, you’ll get a list of relevant hashtags that can help boost the findability of your content on Instagram.
Inflact allows you to enter up to five key phrases, thus speeding up your hashtag research process.
As you can see above, Inflact also segregates hashtags based on their popularity or how easy or difficult it would be to appear in searches.
Other than specific hashtag searches, you can also look at the current trending list of hashtags on Instagram overall as well as for various niches.
Key Features
- Hashtag generation using keywords, photos, and links to IG posts
- Trending hashtag lists for different niches, including fashion, food, travel, etc.
- Hashtag usage and difficulty to rank analytics
- Smart hashtag selection and grouping for instant use
- Instagram profile analysis for free by entering the username
Pricing
- Free to use for limited searches
- Basic plan: $54/month
- Advanced plan: $64/month
- Pro plan: $84/month
Note: Want to try Inflact? Use the coupon code “SHANEBARKER” for a 10% discount on all their paid tools.
6. Flick – Advanced Hashtag Performance Analytics
Flick is a smart hashtag finder for Instagram as it lets you find hashtags relevant to your posts based on your niche and the performance of your existing hashtag collections.
Get 40 hashtag suggestions for every search. Filter your hashtag search results by competitive level, total posts, daily average post count (DAPC), and average number of likes on content posted with each hashtag.
Flick also lets you identify banned hashtags that can do more harm than good to your post’s visibility.
You can track the performance of the hashtags you use and see where your post ranks on the hashtag feed. Flick also tells you about the time spent ranking a post for a specific hashtag.
However, with their Solo plan, you can only track hashtag metrics for up to 30 hashtags/month. For unlimited hashtag performance tracking, you’ll need to upgrade to their Pro or Agency plan.
Key Features
- Hashtag search
- Hashtag collections for future use
- Suggested hashtags based on your niche and the performance of your existing hashtag collections
- Advanced filters to find suitable hashtags for your account based on likes, reach, and followers
- Hashtag metrics like competitive score, potential reach, average likes, and more
Pricing
- Solo Plan: £14/month (approximately $17/month)
- Pro Plan: £30/month (approximately $37/month)
- Agency: £68/month (approximately $84/month)
- A 7-day free trial for all plans
7. Kicksta – Free Instagram Hashtag Generator
Kicksta is a comprehensive Instagram marketing and growth tool that also offers a free Instagram hashtag generator.
This hashtag generator is designed to help you find relevant and effective hashtags for your Instagram posts. You can easily generate a list of hashtags by entering a desired keyword or phrase.
The hashtags Kicksta suggests will help improve the discoverability of your posts and attract new followers to your account.
To get started, just type in your hashtag and click on the search icon.
It will give you a list of trending hashtags and unique hashtags related to the keyword you entered.
Key Features
- Trending hashtag search
- Unique hashtag search
- Hashtag analytics (with paid plans)
- Instagram growth and engagement analytics (with paid plans)
Pricing
- Kicksta’s hashtag generator is free to use.
- For Kicksta’s Instagram growth features, the plans are as follows:
- Starter plan: $69/month
- Advanced plan: $129/month
- Ultimate plan: $219/month
- A 7-day free trial with all plans
8. SISTRIX’s Instagram Hashtag Generator – A Simple Hashtags Finder for Instagram
SISTRIX offers one of the best free Instagram hashtag search tools.
It's super simple to use. All that you need to do is enter a pillar hashtag. Based on this hashtag, the tool will come up with 30 of the best hashtags related to it.
You can copy these hashtags and use them in your IG post captions or comments.
You can perform up to 25 hashtag searches a day as a guest visitor. After that, you’ll need to register as a user (for free, no charges involved).
Key Features
- Hashtag search relevant to a key hashtag
Pricing
- Free tool
9. Photerloo – Instagram Hashtag Generator App for All Your Photos
Photerloo is an AI-powered tool that helps you upload your photos to multiple social media websites and stock websites at once (only the sites you select).
To help increase the discoverability of your photos, this app gives you suggested keywords and Instagram hashtags that best fit your photo.
All you need to do is – upload a photo you want to post and Photerloo will see suggested Instagram hashtags related to your photo.
Here’s an example:
You can also select the popularity level of hashtags you want this app to generate (like I selected “Fairly popular” in the screenshot above.
Just tap on the hashtags you want to use and enter a caption for your post. Photerloo lets you schedule your Instagram post right from its mobile app (if your IG account is linked).
Key Features
- Hashtag search based on your image or photo
- Hashtag search results filter by their popularity level
- Auto-publishing on Instagram, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Shutterstock, Flickr, Freepik, and more
Pricing
- Free Forever plan – up to 5 photo uploads/week
- Unlimited yearly plan – $60/year for unlimited photo uploads
- Unlimited Monthly plan – $8/month for unlimited photo uploads
10. TagsFinder – Free Hashtags for Your Instagram Posts
TagsFinder is one of the most advanced Instagram hashtag tools in the world. You can add up to 10 hashtags and the tool will find the rest of the hashtags for you.
This tool gives you the option to customize your searches based on your target country. You can also skip hashtags that contain certain words.
You can also select the type of hashtag suggestions you want to get – related hashtags, similar hashtags, or a combination of both.
Key Features
- Hashtag search related to the keywords you enter
- Related and similar hashtags
- Hashtags except those that contain specific words you want to omit
Pricing
- Free to use
11. IQhashtags – Find Hashtags Relevant to Your IG Account’s Niche & Following
IQhashtags is an all-in-one Instagram hashtag and analytics tool that can help you skyrocket your profile growth.
Whether you’re struggling to find the right hashtags or spending too much time searching for them, this tool can help you optimize your hashtag profile. You can find hashtags with the right popularity for your profile and increase your IG reach.
Key Features
- Hashtag lists creation for different purposes and different types of posts
- Advanced hashtag search to find hashtags relevant to the size and theme of your Instagram account
- Advanced hashtag analysis to evaluate the connection between your hashtag reach, posting times, and engagement
- Reels metrics to identify hashtags your Reels have ranked for
- Banned hashtags checker to avoid being shadowbanned by Instagram
Pricing
- Starter plan: $14/month
- Growth plan: $18/month
- Pro plan: $24/month
- Enterprise plan: $60/month
- A 7-day free trial on all plans
A Comparison of the 10 Best Hashtag Generators for Instagram
| Platform | Pricing | Hashtag Search | Hashtag Analytics | IG Profile Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vista Social | Free plan Premium plans start from $15/month | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder | Free Forever plan Paid plans start at $19.99/month | Yes | Used times Relevance to your content | Yes |
| All Hashtag | Free to use | Yes | Used times Popularity against the most popular hashtags | Yes |
| HashtagsForLikes | Starts at $59/month | Yes | Difficulty score Used times Reach Likes | Yes |
| Inflact | Free to use for limited searches Premium plans start from $54/month | Yes | Difficulty score Used times | Yes |
| Flick | Starts at $17/month | Yes | Competitive score Potential reach Engagement Post rankings for hashtags Time spent ranking your post on each hashtag Banned hashtags check | Yes |
| Kicksta’s Instagram hashtag generator | Free to use | Yes | Yes, but with the paid plan for IG growth | Yes |
| SISTRIX’s Instagram Hashtag Generator | Free to use | Yes | No | No |
| Photerloo | Free Forever plan for up to 5 photo uploads/week Paid plans start from $8/month for unlimited photo uploads | Yes | Relevance to your photo Popularity level | No |
| TagsFinder | Free to use | Yes | No | No |
Get the Best Instagram Hashtag Tool for Your Business
There are loads of Instagram hashtag tools out there, and with the advent of AI, their number is only increasing.
Gone are the days when you’d need to spend hours pondering over which hashtags you should be using on your Instagram posts. All you need to do now is upload your photo, add the URL, or enter your target keyword, and the tools will find the hashtags for you.
Do you use other Instagram hashtag tools you think should be included on this list? Let me know in the comments.
FAQs
1. Are there any free Instagram hashtag generators?
Yes, some Instagram hashtag generators are free to use, such as:
– Vista Social’s Free Instagram Hashtag Generator
– Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder
– All Hashtag
– Inflact
– Kicksta’s Instagram hashtag generator
– SISTRIX’s Instagram Hashtag Generator
– Photerloo
– TagsFinder
2. How do you use Instagram hashtags correctly?
To use hashtags correctly, follow these tips:
Use a mix of popular hashtags in your niche and hashtags relevant to the content of your post.
Check out the hashtags that your target audience follows and use them if they are relevant to your content.
Use 3-5 specific hashtags that can help people easily search for your content.
Do not use hashtags that have nothing to do with your content. For example, #explorepage
Don’t use overly generic hashtags such as “#food” or “#travel” as it will be harder for people to find your content due to the huge volume of posts using these hashtags.
Think of hashtags as a tool that provides context about your post’s content and helps deliver it to users who are likely to be interested in the topic.
3. Which is better: IQhashtags or Flick?
Both IQhashtags and Flick are great hashtag generator tools that can help you find relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts. Both tools help you identify banned hashtags as well.
However, IQHashtags is cheaper than Flick.
But Flick offers data about more hashtag-related metrics like their competitive score, reach, engagement, your post rankings for the hashtag, and the time spent ranking your post on that hashtag.
You know your needs best so it’s a good idea to try out both tools and see which one works best for you.
4. What is hashtag optimization?
Hashtag optimization refers to the process of selecting and using the most effective hashtags for your Instagram posts.
This involves researching and identifying popular and relevant hashtags for your content and tracking how these hashtags perform to identify the ones that are driving maximum engagement.
