When Did Instagram Come Out? Instagram's History, Dated

Instagram came out on October 6, 2010. Who created it, who owns it, the first post, the $1 billion sale, and every big change since, with dates.

By Hclout Team23 October 20264 min read

Instagram came out on October 6, 2010, when its iPhone app went live in the App Store. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger built it in San Francisco. Facebook bought it in April 2012 for about $1 billion, and the company, now called Meta Platforms, still owns it. That's 16 years as of October 2026. On September 24, 2025, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said it had reached 3 billion monthly users.

We've taken the dates from Wikipedia's article on Instagram, read on October 23, 2026, and the news reports Google showed that day.

Instagram's history, step by step

Date	What happened
Mar 5, 2010	Burbn raises $500,000
Jul 16, 2010	The first photo is posted
Oct 6, 2010	Instagram comes out on iPhone
Apr 3, 2012	The Android app arrives
Apr 2012	Facebook buys it, $1 billion
Aug 2016	Stories launch
Jun 2018	1 billion monthly users
Aug 2020	Reels roll out
Sep 24, 2025	3 billion monthly users

Wikipedia, "Instagram," read October 23, 2026, and Reuters and CNBC, September 24, 2025, as Google showed them.

Who created Instagram?

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. They first built Burbn, a check-in app, and on March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 seed round for it. Burbn was too much like Foursquare, so they cut it down to its most popular part, photo sharing. The new name, Wikipedia says, is "a portmanteau of instant camera and telegram."

Both founders announced they'd step down on September 24, 2018. Adam Mosseri was named head of Instagram on October 1, 2018. TechCrunch still called him Instagram's head in September 2025, as Google shows it.

What was the first Instagram post?

Mike Krieger posted the first photo, of "South Beach Harbor at Pier 38," at 5:26 p.m. on July 16, 2010. That was almost three months before the public launch. The app then grew fast. It reached 1 million registered users in two months and 10 million in a year, Wikipedia says.

Who owns Instagram?

Meta Platforms, the company once called Facebook. Facebook bought Instagram in April 2012 for about $1 billion in cash and stock. The same month, Instagram had raised $50 million at a $500 million valuation, so the sale doubled that price within weeks.

When did Instagram add Stories and Reels?

Feature	Arrived
Android app	April 2012
Web profiles	November 2012
Stories	August 2016
IGTV	June 2018, shut 2022
Reels	August 2020

Wikipedia, "Instagram," read October 23, 2026.

Stories gave posts a 24-hour life, "similar to its main competitor at the time, Snapchat," Wikipedia notes, and they're still there today. By June 2018, 400 million people used Stories every day. IGTV, a separate app for long videos, launched on June 20, 2018, and closed in March 2022, "citing low usage and a shift to short-form video content." Reels took over that job from August 2020.

How old is Instagram?

Instagram turned 16 on October 6, 2026. Its first photos had to be square, 640 pixels wide, to match the iPhone screen of 2010. Our Instagram sizes guide has today's formats, and they aren't all square anymore.

If you're posting on Instagram today, Hclout's free tier gives 12 free Instagram likes and 100 free Instagram views on a public post, with no password, on the free page. A short Cloudflare check runs before each claim.

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