Instagram only shows your analytics for 90 days. Here's how to keep them.
The Junibloom team
Building the growth OS for growing creators
You opened your insights to pull six months of numbers for a brand, and the months you needed were not there. Nothing is broken. Instagram's free insights show your account-level numbers for 90 days, and each post's own numbers for up to two years. So there are three ways to see further back: read your posts one at a time, which is free and reaches two years; pay Instagram, whose Meta One Advanced plan and above have offered data "beyond 90 days" since 15 September 2026; or keep your own record, which only covers the days after you start.
The short version:
- Two clocks, not one. Account-level metrics: 90 days in the free app, and Meta's developer docs say "User Metrics data is stored for up to 90 days." Per-post metrics: "Metrics data is stored for up to 2 years."
- The dashboard shows you 90 days. It does not delete your post data at 90 days, and a post from last year still shows its own numbers.
- Seeing further back is now a paid option. Meta One's Advanced plan and above let eligible public accounts "See data about your content, audience and more beyond 90 days". Meta publishes no maximum, does not say whether it reaches back before you subscribed, and its spreadsheet export covers content-level insights only.
- Every other tool is limited to the 90 days the API serves. Anything showing you last year's account reach started collecting it when you connected, or is showing post-level numbers.
- Whatever you choose, five minutes on the first of every month builds the record you will want in a year.
The two clocks, side by side 📄
None of this is a rumour from a growth blog. Both figures sit in Meta's developer documentation for the Instagram Platform, the same data layer that feeds the app's Professional dashboard.
| What it covers | How long it lasts | Where Meta says so | |
|---|---|---|---|
| User (account) metrics | Account-level reach, profile views, follower activity | "User Metrics data is stored for up to 90 days." | Instagram Platform insights guide, Limitations, Account insights |
| Media (post) metrics | Reach, likes, comments, saves and shares on one post | "Metrics data is stored for up to 2 years." | Instagram Media Insights reference, Limitations |
Read that table again, because the asymmetry is the trap. A post from last year can still show you its numbers, which makes the whole system feel like it remembers. What the free app stops showing is the account-level shape: what your monthly reach was, how your profile views moved, which weeks your audience was actually growing. That is the layer a brand asks about, and it is the first layer to slide out of view.
Two more limitations from the same pages are worth knowing. Meta notes that when insights data does not exist, the API returns an empty data set rather than a zero, and an empty result and a real zero look identical in a screenshot taken months later. It also states that "Data used to calculate metrics can be delayed up to 48 hours," which is why a number you read today can move by Thursday without anything having happened.
Why everyone gets this wrong: there are three different 90-days
Instagram's own documentation contains three separate 90-day figures, and the niche collapses them into one.
| Which 90 days | What it actually says | What it limits |
|---|---|---|
| API storage of user metrics | "User Metrics data is stored for up to 90 days" | What any app reading Meta's API can fetch at account level, ours included |
| The in-app date-range picker | "Your selected date range can be anytime within the past 90 days" | What the free app shows you |
| Switching private back to public | You can regain access to past insights if you switch back within 90 days | Nothing about the data window at all |
The middle one is where the confusion breeds. Instagram's Help Center says you "can view insights on an aggregate or individual post basis, for any time period within the past 90 days," and the date picker offers 7, 14, 30 or 90 days. Because that sentence mentions posts, people conclude that post data dies at 90 days. It does not. The dashboard shows you 90 days. A single post's insights stay available for two years. That distinction is most of the answer, and it is why the honest advice depends on which number you actually need.
How to get Instagram insights for more than 90 days
There are three routes. One of them arrived in September 2026.
| Route | How far back | What you get | Cost | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per-post insights, in the app | Up to two years per post | Each post's own reach, likes, saves and shares | Free | No account-level trend. You rebuild it one post at a time |
| Meta One Advanced, Expert or Max | "Beyond 90 days". Meta publishes no maximum and does not say whether it reaches back before you subscribed | "data about your content, audience and more", plus a spreadsheet export of content-level insights for reels, posts and stories | Advanced is listed at $49.99 a month, and Meta says pricing varies by region | Public accounts only, not for teens, and a monthly subscription |
| Your own record | From the day you start | Whatever you record, kept for as long as you keep it | Free by hand, or a tool that snapshots daily | It cannot reach back before the day you started |
In more detail, in the order that gets you the most history back:
- Read your per-post insights. They go back two years. If you need to prove reach on a campaign from eight months ago, the individual posts still hold their numbers even though the monthly trend is out of the free app's view.
- If you need numbers from before today, Meta One is the only official product that goes past 90 days. Meta's help page says looking back beyond 90 days and exporting insights "are only available to eligible public Instagram accounts with a Meta One subscription". It does not say which metrics reach further back, how far, or whether the extra history starts before the day you subscribe, so check the time-period menu on your own account before you count on a particular month. The creator plans run from $14.99 to $499 a month, and extended history starts at Advanced.
- Screenshot the full 90 days you can see right now. Today is the deepest account-level view the free app will give you, and every day you wait, one more day slides out of it.
- Start a record. Monthly by hand, described below, or with a tool that snapshots daily. A record kept by hand is the only history on this list that no subscription controls.
One caveat on the two-year figure so you do not over-trust it: Meta states reel insights are available "for reels posted on and after May 14, 2021," and older content predates the window entirely.
And one caution on tools, including ours. No third-party app can read data Meta's API does not serve, and the API serves 90 days of account-level history. So any app showing you last year's account reach is either showing numbers it started collecting when you connected, or showing post-level data and calling it account data.
Where the missing history actually costs you
Your media kit. Brands screen a kit for whether your numbers are real and current, and the strongest thing you can show is a trend rather than a snapshot. If your best quarter was five months ago you can describe it but you cannot evidence it, and describing it without evidence is exactly what makes a brand manager nervous. That is the same screening problem covered in what brands actually check on a media kit.
Seasonality. Almost every creator has a season. Festival cooking, exam months, wedding season, the January fitness spike. You need last year's same month to know whether this year is good, and the free app's 90 days can never reach back a year. The same wall stops you working out an annual follower growth rate, which is the number every growth benchmark asks you for.
Any test you run. Changed your posting time, your format mix, your hook style? The honest way to judge it is against a baseline recorded before you changed anything. Without stored history you are comparing this month to a memory, and memory is generous about the weeks that went well. Splitting a reach change into its real causes, as in why did my Instagram reach drop, needs a before picture to split against.
Negotiation. "My reach is usually around this" is a claim. "Here is the last eight months, and here is the month that looked like your campaign window" is evidence. The second one prices better, and it is unavailable to anyone who did not start saving early.
The five-minute habit
Do this on the first of every month. It is not clever and that is the point.
| Record | Where it is | Why it matters later |
|---|---|---|
| Reach, last 30 days | Professional dashboard | The headline number on every media kit |
| Profile views and follower count | Professional dashboard | Turns reach into a funnel rather than a stat |
| Your best three posts, with reach and saves | Post insights | Proof of what you actually make, by format |
| Audience split: top countries, age bands | Audience tab | The first thing a brand checks for fit |
| Anything you changed this month | Your own notes | The variable, without which the rest is noise |
A screenshot into a dated folder is enough. A spreadsheet is better, because you can chart it. Either beats what most creators have, which is nothing older than the current window.
Start it today rather than on the first, and give the numbers 48 hours to settle before you record them, for the reason above.
❓ Questions people actually ask
Does Instagram delete insights after 90 days? Not in the way most people mean. The free app stops showing account-level numbers after 90 days, a single post's insights stay available for up to two years, and since September 2026 Meta One's Advanced plan and above sell a longer view.
Can I see Instagram insights from last year? Per post, yes, for free: open the post and its insights reach back up to two years. For account-level numbers like monthly reach, the free app stops at 90 days. Meta One's Advanced plan and above offer a longer look back, but Meta does not say which account-level numbers it covers or how far back it goes.
How far back do Instagram post insights go? Up to two years from the post's publish date, for reels posted on or after 14 May 2021.
Can I export my Instagram insights? Meta One's Advanced plan and above add a spreadsheet export of content-level insights for reels, posts and stories. The Edits app can export video insights as a PDF to share with brands. On the free tier, screenshots and your own spreadsheet are the dependable route.
Does Meta One show insights from before you subscribed? Meta does not say. Its help page states no maximum lookback and nothing about data from before you subscribe, so open the time-period menu on your own account before paying for a particular month.
Why do my Instagram insights only show 90 days? Because 90 days is the widest range the free app's date picker offers, and it is also how long Meta's API stores account-level user metrics. It is a viewing window, and now a paid tier sits on the other side of it.
What this really is
For years the 90-day window read like a technical limit. Since 15 September it is a product line: the free app shows a quarter, and Instagram sells the view past it. That settles one question for good. Your account history is worth paying for, because Meta has put a price on it.
A creator running this as a business is still in a strange position, because your own performance record is held by a company that decides how much of it you see for free. Every other business tool you use assumes the opposite. Your bank keeps years. Your email keeps everything. The free insights give you a quarter of account history, and a quarter is shorter than most brand relationships.
That gap is what Junibloom exists to close. It takes a daily snapshot of your Instagram numbers through the official API and keeps all of them, so the account-level history you would otherwise lose sight of is still there in a year when a brand asks what your reach looks like across a season. Nothing you have to remember to do, which matters, because the reason most creators have no history is not that they disagreed with the idea. It is that the first of the month kept arriving on a busy day.
Whatever you use, the rule underneath it does not change: the numbers you can prove are worth more than the numbers you can remember, and Instagram's free insights only show you a quarter of them.