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Setup & Start October 4, 2026 2 min read· YouCast Team

Instagram Live Requires a Public Account and 1,000 Followers

What Instagram's Help Center says about who can go live, and how to save, share and archive a live video.

Instagram Live live streaming streaming platforms followers
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In this article · 4 sections

What the Help Center Says

Instagram's Help Center describes Live as a way to start a broadcast and talk to followers in real time. After the broadcast ends you can share the recording or view it in your archive.

It carries a note that only Instagram users with a public account and at least 1,000 followers can start broadcasts.

Instagram Live requirements: a public account and at least 1,000 followers
A public account and at least 1,000 followers.

Platform requirements change. The page we checked states 1,000 followers and a public account, but verify the current rule in your own app before planning around it.

What the Help Center Covers

Three Instagram Live help topics: starting and scheduling, inviting guests, saving and sharing replays
Start, invite, save.
  • How to start a live video and how to schedule one.
  • Inviting guests into a live video.
  • Watching other people's live videos and reporting a live video.
  • Saving a live video to your phone's camera roll and sharing it from the archive.
  • Deleting a live video from the archive and viewing a replay of your own live video.

For Pre-Recorded 24/7 Streaming

The page we read describes Live as a real-time interaction with followers, and it does not mention continuous or pre-recorded streams. We therefore do not claim anything about running a 24/7 broadcast there. If you want to reach an Instagram audience, check Instagram's own rules for the format you plan to use before you build a workflow around it.

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Start Streaming with YouCast

Upload your videos once and stream them 24/7 from the cloud.

Skip the Setup With YouCast

YouCast turns the videos you upload into a 24/7 live stream that runs from the cloud, to YouTube and, with a stream key, to Twitch, Kick and Instagram, so there is no encoder to configure, no computer to keep awake and no home upload line to saturate.

YouCast can send a pre-recorded video to Instagram through a stream key, as long as your account meets Instagram's live requirements, a public account and at least 1,000 followers on the page we checked.

You can try one stream on the free trial and add more streams as the channel grows.

Start Streaming with YouCast

Upload your videos once and stream them 24/7 from the cloud.

Complete 24/7 Streaming Setup Guide

From first upload to a running stream, step by step.

Sources

Further reading

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