How to Write an Instagram Carousel, Slide by Slide

To write an Instagram carousel, start with the last thing the reader should take away, list the points that get them there (one per slide), and only then write the first slide. Most people write in reading order, cover first, and end up with a promise the slides don’t keep.

Below is the order I’d write in, what each slide needs to say, and real first slides and captions from carousels that beat their creator’s usual.

Why write a carousel out of order?

Because the cover is a promise, and you can’t write a good promise until you know what you’re delivering. If you start with the cover, you write something broad (“Tips for better sleep”) and then fill slides to match it. If you start with the payoff, the cover writes itself around it.

So the writing order is:

1. The payoff
2. The points, which set the slide count
3. The cover
4. Slide two
5. The middle slides
6. The last slide
7. The caption

1. Write the payoff in one sentence

Before any slide, write the one sentence the reader should leave with. Not the topic: the conclusion.

@drmarkhyman’s carousel “american chicken european chicken” scored 13.6× its creator’s usual. Its caption is the payoff in six words: “Same foods. Very different food systems.” Written first, a sentence like that decides everything else: every slide has to show a difference, and anything that doesn’t gets cut.

If you can’t write the payoff in one sentence, you have a topic, not a carousel yet.

2. List the points, then count the slides

Write every point, step or story beat that gets the reader to the payoff, one per line. Each line becomes a slide. Add one for the cover and one for the ending, and that’s your length.

Don’t pick a number first. In our sample of 9,923 scored carousels, those with 2–3 slides reached 2× their creator’s usual only 17.3% of the time, against 27.7% for 11–15 slides. Past 15 the gain stopped: 16–20 slides reached 2× 24.6% of the time. The outliers posted in our library in the last 30 days have a median of 8 slides. These are correlations across the creators we track, not a rule, but if your list has three lines, check whether the idea deserves more. The full breakdown is in how many slides a carousel should have.

3. Write the cover around the payoff

Now write the first slide. It promises the payoff without giving it away, in as few words as it takes.

Six to ten words is the range that did best. Of the 5,442 first slides we’ve transcribed, 25.6% of 6–10 word covers reached 2× their creator’s usual, against 19.7% for 1–5 words and 19.4% for 26 words or more.

Some covers that put the promise up front:

“The 5 Blood Tests Every Adult With ADHD Should Ask For” — @myadhdventure, 6.1×

“I’m in my 30’s If I was 18 again this is what I’d focus on” — @andrewcodesmith, 3.0×

“5 high protein takeout copycat meal preps” — @successmealprep, 3.8×

Each one tells you the format (a list), the reader (adults with ADHD, someone younger, someone who orders takeout) and what you’ll get. For ten first-slide patterns that recur among outliers, see Instagram carousel hooks that outperformed.

4. Make slide two deliver, not introduce

Slide two is where the reader decides whether the cover was honest. Spend it on substance: the first item, the surprising number, the first beat of the story, or the reason the topic matters.

The weakest slide two is a welcome: “Here’s what you need to know.” The reader already knows that; it’s why they swiped. Cut it and move the first real point up.

5. Write the middle slides: one idea each

Every middle slide gets one idea, written in two layers:

• A headline of a few words that makes sense on its own. If someone screenshots slide 5, the headline should still say something.
• One or two lines under it: why it matters, how to do it or an example.

Keep the structure identical from slide to slide. If slide 3 is “headline + one example”, so is slide 7. The reader learns the pattern on the first point and reads the rest faster.

Then read only the headlines, in order. They should tell the whole story by themselves. If two headlines say the same thing, merge them. If one doesn’t move the reader towards the payoff, cut it.

6. Write the last slide with one job

The last slide does one of three things, and only one:

• Recap: all the points on one slide, which gives people a reason to save.
• Payoff: the conclusion from step 1, stated plainly.
• Ask: follow, comment, share or save, with a reason.

A last slide that tries to do all three ends up doing none. If your caption already carries the ask (below), let the last slide recap.

7. Give the caption a different job from the cover

The caption sits under the slides, so it doesn’t need to repeat them. Look at what outliers use it for:

• The setup. @myadhdventure’s caption gives the reason behind the list: “Standard bloodwork checks none of these specifically for ADHD.”
• The detail. @successmealprep’s adds the numbers the cover leaves out: “all macro tracked, 37 to 52g protein each.”
• A reason to reach the end. @andrewcodesmith’s points at the last slide: “The last one, changed my life 👾”
• The takeaway. @creatorkarro’s “The average millionaire is 57. Not 23.” (90.1×) has the caption “Aim high, but give yourself time to get there.”
• An ask. @studio_2am’s “fonts that are trending right now :)” (103.6×) ends its caption with “comment ‘fonts’ for the link”.

Some outliers simply repeat the cover as the caption. @clay.note.fragrance did it on two different posts built on the cover line “Perfumes I want just for the bottles”, and both scored well (37.6× and 30×). So repeating isn’t a mistake, it’s a missed chance to add something.

One caution on comment asks: our score counts likes plus comments, so a “comment X for the link” caption lifts the score directly. That’s fine for your own posts, but when you study someone else’s outlier, remember part of its number may be people asking for a link.

A worked example

Here is the order applied to a made-up idea, to show how the pieces connect. It’s an illustration, not an outlier.

• Payoff: “You don’t need a new routine; you need to stop three things.”
• Points: three habits to stop, why each one matters, what to do instead. That’s three points with two slides each, plus a cover and an ending: eight slides.
• Cover (9 words): “3 habits quietly wrecking your sleep (and the fixes)”
• Slide two: the first habit, straight away. No welcome slide.
• Middle slides: for each habit, one slide with a headline such as “Habit 2: the late coffee” and a line on why it matters, then one slide with the fix. Same layout for all three.
• Last slide: the three fixes on one slide, to save.
• Caption: the one detail the slides couldn’t fit, and a question for the comments.

Draft every slide’s text like this before opening a design tool. It’s much faster to rewrite a sentence than to redo a slide. If you’re starting from someone else’s carousel, I wrote up how I remixed an outlier into my own post, copy first and design second.

Frequently asked questions

How do you write an Instagram carousel?

Write the payoff in one sentence first, list the points that lead to it (one per slide), then write a 6–10 word cover that promises the payoff. Make slide two deliver straight away, give every middle slide one idea and end with a recap, the payoff or one clear ask.

How much text should each carousel slide have?

On the first slide, 6–10 words: those covers reached 2× their creator’s usual most often in our data (25.6%). For the rest, a short headline that makes sense alone plus one or two lines is a good limit. If a slide needs more, split it into two.

What should the last slide of a carousel say?

One thing: a recap of the points, the conclusion stated plainly, or an ask (save, share, follow or comment) with a reason. Trying to do all three on one slide usually weakens each of them.

Should the Instagram caption repeat the carousel?

It can, and some outliers do, but it’s a missed chance. Outliers in our library use the caption for the setup, a detail the slides leave out, a reason to swipe to the end, the takeaway or a single ask.