Instagram has long been a place to share your ideas through pictures and, more recently, videos and Instagram Reels. With success, it has become harder and harder to get your content noticed. As with websites, on Instagram, you need to make your content visible to people who want to find it. While people that follow you will usually see what you put out, marketers want the content to be seen far and wide. By far, the easiest way to accomplish that is by using hashtags–and hashtag generator tools can help you reach that end.

It’s often difficult to find the right hashtags. Some are normally obvious, such as a branded tag that goes on all of your content or a relatively generic tag for your products. However, we always want to include tags that will get our content noticed on a more targeted scale. Having the right hashtags boosts overall ROI and web traffic. For that, we need hashtag research to find the right community hashtags, versus using random hashtags that seem as though they might fit.

While there are many ways to carry out hashtag research, one of the easiest is by using a hashtag generator. Let’s look at how these tools work, then we’ll look at 15 of the best Instagram hashtags generators.

Instagram hashtags are very important for success on the platform. That’s because hashtags do more than tell a story; instead, they make it easier to find content along a similar theme. For that reason, hashtags are an important way to help people discover what you have to offer. Brands, in particular, need to associate their content with particular industries and topics. After all, they don’t have a face behind their content in the same way that people do, so hashtag usage is vital.

Here’s the thing. While it’s never a good idea to “spam” an Instagram post with irrelevant hashtags, you should still list enough hashtags to attract everyone who might be interested in your content. Posters should consider adding several relevant hashtags. In fact, researchers have found that using 11 or more hashtags boosts engagement with posts by up to 450% compared to posts that don’t have any hashtags. That’s a huge advantage!

Having the right hashtags has greater consequences than increased engagement. In fact, one company found that optimizing hashtags increased the reach of their posts by around 15-30%! Considering that each of these eyeballs can become customers in the future, it’s easy to see that hashtags greatly increase overall ROI. Luckily, there are Instagram hashtags generators to help boost your social media presence.

Further Reading: 8 Powerful Ways How to Use Instagram Hashtags for More Exposure

How Instagram Hashtags Generators Work

No matter how you cut it, it’s often hard to pick the right hashtag for your posts all the time. While branded hashtags will be used with most posts on brand profiles, there’s a significant amount of variation for the rest of your hashtags. This isn’t surprising when you consider that brands typically have many different products. For instance, fashion brands can sell different types of pants, shirts, ties, dresses, and so on. Each of these product types needs different hashtags on their Instagram pictures to shine, and to do well on the Instagram algorithm.

An Instagram hashtags generator helps bridge the gap between marketer creativity or knowledge, and the best descriptions to put products in a good light. They work by turning keywords or pictures into hashtags. In some cases, you’ll choose relevant keywords for each photograph, just like you would for a blog post or web advertisement. Other tools, though, help generate hashtags from the uploaded photograph. Once the hashtags are generated, you can pick the ones you think are best for each post.

Further Reading: Here is How the Instagram Algorithm Works Today and How to Make It Work for YOU!

The 15 Best Instagram Hashtags Generators

With that in mind, let’s look at the different hashtag generators available today. Each has different features, from basic to advanced, and there’s a range of pricing ranging from free to double digits. Some generators are freestanding, while others are part of a bigger tool or suite of tools. Either way, they’ll save you a lot of research time.

1. Tailwind

Tailwind is a multipurpose Instagram and Pinterest planner and scheduler. As part of this, they have a hashtag generator for Instagram. To use it, you’ll need to sign up for the service. Then, the hashtag tool will analyze your Instagram post to find the best hashtags. Simply post the content, and add the hashtags to your first comment. This way, your post looks neat and tidy while also ranking where it matters most.

Pricing: Freemium. Paid starts at $10/mo

2. Copy.ai

Looking for a tool to help you choose the ideal Instagram hashtags for your posts? Your photo will be seen by more people thanks to Copy.ai’s free Instagram hashtag generator, which also saves you time.

Copy.ai is a leading artificial intelligence tool, a competitor to Jasper.ai, which also provides a plethora of free tools, including the Instagram hashtag generator. The other free tools also include an AI-powered Instagram caption generator, which can help you create captions that are incredibly engaging, helping you increase your profile’s likes, follows, and comments.

Pricing: Free for up to 2,000 words a month. Paid plan is $49 per month.

Further Reading: 23 Recommended Tools for AI Content Creation

3. Flick

Flick is a tool that manages both hashtags and Instagram analytics. It’s also one of the few Instagram hashtag generators on this list that works in many different languages. With Flick, you get more than just a list of hashtags. Instead, you get information on which ones are performing the best, based on your own statistics. This helps you tweak your strategy over time. Unfortunately, Flick doesn’t let you test drive the tool without signing in, so some of its specifics remain uncertain.

Pricing: From £7/mo

4. Kicksta

Kicksta is an AI-based service that helps you expand your Instagram following. They do this with hashtag research and the “like method.” In other words, getting people to see your content and “like it.” This in turn helps you gain exposure, as the people who follow the users who like your stuff also get to see it. Over time, you’ll get genuine, engaged followers rather than fake followers who never do or say anything.

Unlike other Instagram hashtag generators I’ve seen so far, Kicksta doesn’t let you play with their tool. Instead, they’re using the “free” tool as a lead generator for their paid services. In addition, it appears that you need a starter hashtag for the tool to work.

Pricing: Free with email; paid subscription from $49/mo

5. Ritetag

Ritetag is a tool by Ritekit. It is available on the web, with a Chrome extension, or on mobile apps. You can get hashtags for any social network that uses them, plus email. Search using pictures anywhere on the web, or pictures stored on your smartphone. What makes this unique among Instagram hashtag generators, though, is that the suggestions are based on real-time results. This means that if a certain tag in your niche goes viral, Ritetag will know this. If you submit a picture or text that fits the tag, they’ll suggest that you use it.

The weakness of this tool is that it has some limitations. For instance, there isn’t a good way to use Ritetag for pictures stored on your hard drive. You might be able to use the browser extension to analyze pictures in cloud storage, though. With that said, the app is compatible with other social media and web publishing tools.

Pricing: $49 / year.

6. MetaHashtags

MetaHashtags is a hashtag generator that goes beyond generating the most popular hashtags or the most relevant hashtags; instead, they help you address your target audience and identify the perfect hashtags for your goals. When searching for the most effective hashtags for your social media strategy, MetaHashtags allows you to filter according to likes, posts per hour, and more, and allows you to find niche hashtags that will better serve your unique social media content and goals. Once your ideal hashtags have been identified, you can save them for future social media posts, and manage your online presence via hashtags. 

Pricing: ~$10 per month or ~$79 per year. 

7. All Hashtag

All Hashtag is different from other Instagram hashtags generators in that they also analyze hashtags to find out which ones are best. They also have a hashtag creator, which is handy if you’re planning a new marketing campaign or just starting out on Instagram.

Despite the extra features, All Hashtags is easy to use. Simply type in a single keyword, select the desired social media platform (it supports some others), and click “generate.” For Instagram, the maximum is 30 tags because that’s how many you’re allowed for each post. You can filter through hashtags if needed, or use the other tools to decide which ones are most likely to succeed.

Pricing: free.

8. Display Purposes

Arguably, Display Purposes is the OG of Instagram hashtag generators; it has been around for a very long time. It’s also super easy to use. Simply enter keywords or a hashtag, and get back more tags to use across social networks that use them. Display Purposes also tracks banned hashtags. To find them in your account, search for your Instagram or Twitter handle. Their search function will scan the profile automatically. Better yet, you’ll get pointers to form a new hashtag strategy.

Pricing: free.

9. Inflact

Inflact bills itself as a larger social media marketing toolkit, rather than a specific generator to ID and use relevant hashtags. Inflact is an AI-powered tool that helps generate specific hashtags per post. Hashtags can be generated using this AI tool in one of three ways: by keyword, photo, or URL. Users can plug their photo, keyword, or URL into the Inflact generator, and hashtags relevant to the attached item will appear. Inflact also offers the option of generating a template for continual use, making it possible to have a set series of hashtags for the social media manager in charge of Instagram. Its other suite of tools can also help address your target audience. 

Pricing: Starting at $54 per month.

10. Sistrix

Sistrix is a multipurpose SEO tool that provides free hashtag suggestions for Instagram. Unlike other Instagram hashtags generators, you need to start with the first hashtag. From there, you’ll get more suggestions for similar tags. You can get up to 25 results a day, after which you need to register. With that said, Sistrix is an option if you need other SEO services. This is especially true if you’re looking for non-social media solutions, since it supports Google search and Amazon. Great for e-commerce businesses.

Pricing: hashtag tool is free. Membership for Google optimization from $125/mo

11. Tags Finder

TagsFinder is a tool that helps you find Instagram hashtags based on your keywords. Simply type the keywords into their tool, and ask for one of three different results types. “Related” hashtags find the top hashtags for your keyword. “Similar” hashtags contain the keyword itself. Finally, “combined” results give you both.

Besides these three results options, with TagsFinder you can get local hashtags. This sets it above many other Instagram hashtags generators when it comes to small, local business, and location-specific products.

Pricing: free.

12. Hashtagify

Hashtagify is a keyword and hashtag planner that is specifically geared towards marketers. Use it to track other users’ hashtags, find popular ones in your industry, and quantify your success. For this reason, it’s a great analytics and intelligence tool, too. The Instagram hashtag generator part is subscription-only; however, I was able to determine that you can find tags based on keywords as well as an analysis of your account.

Pricing: from $29/mo with a free trial

13. Photerloo Instagram Hashtag and Keyword Generator

Photerloo is a photo uploading tool. It supports Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, along with several photo sites that can host images for sale. This means that among Instagram hashtag generators, this one has a more commercial focus.

To obtain hashtags, you’ll simply upload the photograph. Then, their machine learning based program will analyze your picture to find both hashtags and keywords. In other words, to get hashtags, you don’t need any post copy or even keywords. For this reason, you can use Photerloo results while planning other ads or campaigns around the photo.

Pricing: free. Unpublished cost for the uploading functions of Photerloo.

14. HashtagsforLikes

A hashtags research tool that helps find the most popular hashtags, and those that will work best for your brand. Hashtags for Likes can use a keyword or your own user-generated content to find suitable hashtags for your social media. Using the search bar, users can either search for a single word, or perform an audit of their platform, in order to find a hashtag list suited for their business or brand. Hashtags for Likes does more than produce a database of hashtags to use; it also offers a series of social media tools to improve your reach. 

Pricing: Starting at $59 per month.

15. Bigbangram

Bigbangram is a digital marketing agency that provides a lot of free tools for content marketing purposes. Simply navigate to the hashtag generator page and input a keyword that describes your picture. They even have an iOs and Android app. Bigbangram will return results and indicate which ones are most likely to get you to the top of the search. They’ll also tell you which hashtags will give your post a wider audience. Select the tags that make sense based on those metrics, and you’re ready to post.

Pricing: the tool is free; general services pricing requires contacting the agency.

Instagram Hashtag Generators Summary

There’s little question that Instagram has come a long way from its hobbyist roots. Now, rather than being only a social network, it has morphed into a vast online marketplace. In turn, that has made it harder to get images discovered on the network. Luckily, with these Instagram hashtags generators, you have a good chance of growing your following and increasing buzz around your brand. Try one today!

Hero photo by Guilherme Lahmann on Unsplash

Instagram Hashtags Generator FAQs