Why I bother with carousels
Reels get reach. Carousels get saves. Saves are what tell the algorithm your stuff was worth coming back to, and they're the posts people actually send to a friend.
The problem is that carousels are slow to make. Ten slides in Canva, lining up text boxes, matching colors you picked six months ago and can't remember. Most people quit after three posts because the design work eats the whole afternoon.
This fixes that part. You give AI a topic, it gives you back a finished carousel that already looks like your brand. No design software, no template hunting.
What you need
- Claude or ChatGPT (this works best in Claude Projects, because the brand details stick between chats)
- One hex color from your brand
- Your handle and whatever you want the last slide to tell people to do
That's it. If you don't have brand colors yet, pick one you like and move on. You can always change it later, and a decent carousel published today beats a perfect one you never post.
Set it up once
Open a new Claude Project and paste the prompt below into the project instructions, not the chat window. That's the whole difference. Instructions live in the project, so every future carousel starts from your brand instead of you re-explaining it every time.
Fill in the four bracketed lines with your own details before you save it.
You are my Instagram carousel designer.
MY BRAND
Handle: [@yourhandle]
Brand color: [#HEX]
Voice: [direct, no fluff, talking to beginners building income online]
Default CTA: [what you want the last slide to say]
WHAT I WANT FROM YOU
When I give you a topic, build a complete Instagram carousel.
Ask me nothing unless the topic is genuinely unclear. Make a reasonable
call and show me the work instead.
STRUCTURE
Default to 7 slides. Use 5 for a simple idea, up to 10 if the topic
genuinely needs it. Never pad.
Slide 1 Hook. One line that stops the scroll. No "in this post I will".
Slide 2 The problem, framed the way the reader already feels it.
Slide 3 The turn. What most people get wrong, or what changed.
Slide 4 The core idea, stated plainly.
Slide 5 How it works in practice. Specifics, not principles.
Slide 6 The mistake to avoid, or the first step to take today.
Slide 7 CTA. My default CTA above, plus my handle.
WRITING RULES
Short lines. A slide is read in about two seconds, so no paragraphs.
Aim for under 25 words per slide.
Write like a person talking, not a brand posting.
No emoji unless I ask.
No em dashes.
Never open a slide with "Did you know" or "Let's dive in".
DESIGN
Build it as a single HTML file I can open in a browser.
Each slide is 1080 by 1350 pixels, which is the 4:5 ratio Instagram
gives the most screen space to.
Derive the whole palette from my one brand color: a dark background,
a light text color, and my brand color used only for emphasis. Do not
introduce colors I did not give you.
Pick one font for headings and one for body text, and keep them
consistent across every slide.
Put a small progress indicator on each slide so people know how far in
they are, and a subtle swipe cue on slide 1.
WHEN YOU'RE DONE
Show me the slides, then wait. I will tell you which ones to change.
When I say a slide number and what's wrong, rewrite only that slide.Why 7 slides
Because it's the shortest sequence that still tells a whole story.
Hook, problem, turn, idea, practice, mistake, CTA. Every slide has one job, and if a slide doesn't have a job it shouldn't be in there. Most carousels that flop are twelve slides of someone repeating themselves.
Five slides works fine for a single tip. Ten is the ceiling. Past that, people swipe away before the CTA, and the CTA is the only slide that makes you money.
The specs that matter
- 1080 by 1350 pixels, which is 4:5. It takes up more of the screen than a square, so people see more of it while scrolling.
- One accent color. Two or more and it stops looking like a brand and starts looking like a template.
- Under 25 words a slide. People read carousels with their thumb already moving.
- Readable at thumbnail size. If slide 1 doesn't work small, it doesn't work.
Getting the slides out
Open the HTML file in your browser and screenshot each slide at full resolution. On a Mac that's Shift Command 4, then space, then click the slide.
That's the boring way and it works. If you're posting carousels every week and screenshotting gets old, ask the AI to add a download button to the HTML that saves each slide as a PNG. It can do that, and then it's one click per slide.
Either way, check the export before you post. Text that looked fine in the browser can end up cramped once it's an image.
Editing one slide
Don't regenerate the whole thing when one line is off. Tell it which slide and what's wrong:
Slide 3 is too vague. Rewrite it with a specific number in it.
Leave every other slide alone.That's why the prompt above ends by telling it to wait for you. Without that, most models cheerfully rebuild all seven slides and you lose the ones you liked.
Do this next
Pick one thing you've explained more than twice in your DMs or comments. That's your first carousel. You already know it cold, which means the writing takes ten minutes instead of an hour.
Then post it. A carousel sitting in your drafts is worth the same as no carousel at all.
Want the system behind the posts, not just the design? The Instagram Income Blueprint covers the offer and the funnel underneath it, built for beginners.