Most "best Instagram carousel maker" lists compare the same five tools on features that barely matter. The thing that actually decides which one you should use is simpler, and it comes first.
What ratio are you making? An Instagram feed carousel is 4:5 portrait, 1080 x 1350. A vertical set for Stories or Reels is 9:16, 1080 x 1920. Those are different jobs, and tools are good at one or the other. Pick the tool that starts you at the right size rather than the one that lets you resize afterwards, because resizing a designed slide moves every text box you already placed.
Here are five free options, split by which job they are actually for.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Native ratio | Free tier watermark | Publishes to Instagram | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canva | Any, 4:5 preset | No | No | Feed carousels, widest template choice |
| Adobe Express | Any, 4:5 preset | No | No | Feed carousels, Adobe users |
| Figma | Any, manual setup | No | No | Designers who want full control |
| PXT Creator Studio | 9:16 only | Yes | No, exports ZIP | Vertical Stories and Reels-style sets |
| Meta Business Suite | n/a, not a design tool | n/a | Yes, scheduling | Actually getting the post out |
1. Canva
The default, and for feed carousels it deserves to be. There is a 4:5 Instagram preset, an enormous template library, and the free tier will take you a long way before it asks for anything.
The carousel-specific weakness is consistency. Nothing enforces that slide seven matches slide one, so if you post regularly the thing worth doing on day one is building your own template and duplicating it, rather than starting from a new library template each time.
Use it for: 4:5 feed carousels, especially if you are also designing other things.
2. Adobe Express
Closer to Canva than its reputation suggests, with a free tier that handles Instagram sizes cleanly and text tooling that is a little stronger. If you already use Adobe apps, font and asset sync is the real reason to pick it.
Same trade-off as Canva: general purpose, no direct Instagram publishing, consistency is on you.
Use it for: 4:5 feed carousels if you are already in the Adobe ecosystem.
3. Figma
Not marketed as a carousel maker, and better at it than that implies. Frames make a multi-slide set natural, components let you define a slide layout once and reuse it, and auto layout keeps text behaving as it changes length. The free tier is generous.
The cost is setup. Nothing is preconfigured, so you build the 1080 x 1350 frame, the text styles and the export settings yourself before you make a single slide. Worth it if you will make hundreds of carousels, overkill if you will make five.
Use it for: full control, and reusable systems rather than one-off posts.
4. PXT Creator Studio
Ours, so weigh it accordingly, and the honest positioning matters here: PXT is 9:16 only. It was built for TikTok photo carousels, and everything in it starts at 1080 x 1920.
That makes it a good fit for Instagram in one specific case and a bad fit in another. For vertical sets that live in Stories or get posted as Reels-format content, it is doing exactly its job: templates already sized for full-screen vertical, text styling that carries across every slide, an AI outliner that drafts the slide breakdown from a one-line topic, and a ZIP export of the finished images.
For a 4:5 feed carousel it is the wrong shape. A 9:16 slide cropped to 4:5 loses the top and bottom of the frame, which is usually where hook text sits. If the feed is your target, use Canva or Adobe Express instead. We would rather say that than have you find out after designing eight slides.
There is also no direct Instagram publishing. PXT publishes to TikTok; for Instagram you export the ZIP and upload.
The free plan includes 5 AI generation credits a month, 50 active posts, 50 images, one connected TikTok account and the system template, with watermarked standard-quality exports. Details on the pricing page.
Use it for: 9:16 vertical carousel sets, particularly if you post the same content to TikTok.
5. Meta Business Suite
Not a design tool, and it belongs on the list anyway. It is free, it connects to a professional Instagram account, and it will schedule a feed carousel so the post actually goes out on the day you planned rather than the day you remembered.
Design somewhere else, upload here.
Use it for: scheduling and getting the post published.
4:5 or 9:16: deciding before you design
This is the choice that wastes the most time when it is made backwards, so it is worth being concrete.
Pick 4:5 (1080 x 1350) when the carousel is going in the feed. It occupies more vertical space than square, which means more of the screen is yours as someone scrolls past. This is the default for tip lists, breakdowns, before-and-afters and anything designed to be saved.
Pick 9:16 (1080 x 1920) when the set is going to Stories, or when the same content is going to TikTok. Full-screen vertical is the native shape for both, and a 4:5 slide posted there gets letterboxed with bars top and bottom.
If you genuinely need both, design at 9:16 but keep every important element inside the middle 4:5 of the frame. You lose some breathing room, and you gain the ability to export the same set twice without redoing layout. The alternative, designing 4:5 first and adding space to reach 9:16, works too but tends to leave awkward empty bands.
What does not work is designing at one ratio and resizing at the end. Every text box moves relative to the frame, so a set that was carefully aligned comes out with headlines at six different heights.
Where each free tier actually stops
The restrictions matter more than the feature lists, because they are what you hit in week three rather than week one.
Template access. A large library usually means a large paid library. Before you build a look around a template, confirm it is one the free tier can still open next month.
Export quality and watermarks. Free exports from general design tools tend to come out clean. Specialist and template-driven apps are likelier to watermark, and standard-quality exports get visibly soft once Instagram recompresses them, which shows on text edges first.
Saved project limits. The cap you care about is on projects kept, not projects created. Being able to make unlimited carousels is no help if last month's is gone when you want to duplicate it.
Brand assets. Custom fonts, saved colour palettes and logo uploads are the most common paid feature across every tool here. If your carousels need to look like your brand rather than like a template, price that in early.
Building a carousel people finish
The tool decides how fast you build. These decide whether it works.
Earn the swipe on slide one. It is the only slide most people see, and it is competing with everything else in the feed. State the problem or make the claim. Save the topic name for the caption.
Give slide two the reason to keep going. A carousel loses most people between one and two. The second slide should pay something off immediately rather than setting up context.
One idea per slide. If a slide needs two sentences to make sense, it is two slides. Density feels efficient while you are making it and reads as a wall while someone is swiping.
Repeat your visual anchor. Same font, same position, same colour treatment on every slide. It is what makes ten images read as one post rather than ten posts.
End with an action. The last slide has the most attentive audience you will get. Ask for the save, give the follow reason, or ask a question worth answering in the comments.
What to do with whichever you pick
The tool is the smaller half. The carousel itself follows the same rules everywhere:
- Slide one is a thumbnail, not a title. It is the only slide most people see. Lead with the problem or the claim, not with the topic name.
- One idea per slide. If a slide needs two sentences to make sense, it is two slides.
- Keep the ratio consistent across the set. Mixing 4:5 and 1:1 in one carousel makes Instagram crop unevenly as people swipe.
- Give the last slide a job. Save, follow, or a question worth answering. A carousel that just stops gets no second action.
- Keep text away from the edges. Roughly a 15 percent margin all round survives every crop and every interface overlay. Why your slide text is getting cut off shows where each platform's buttons and captions actually land.
If you are posting the same content to TikTok as well, our size guide lists every ratio in one place, and how to make a TikTok carousel covers the vertical build step by step. To skip the blank page, an AI carousel generator will draft the slide structure from a single topic line so you start from an outline instead of an empty frame.
For the ratios themselves, what size should a TikTok carousel be lays out the feed, Stories and Reels sizes side by side, including which ones are interchangeable.
Vertical templates to start from are at pxtcreator.com/templates.