Describe the photo or video, since the form takes words only and the tool cannot see what you are posting. Add the story behind it and how you talk, and Hemmingway writes three captions to pick from.
Everything in them comes from your description. It will not add a place, a name or a feeling you did not mention. Two honest sentences about the day are enough.
What makes a caption worth reading
- Describe the picture as if to a friend on the phone. Who is in it, where, what they are doing, what the weather was.
- Tell it what the picture cannot show. Why you were there, what happened a minute before, what went wrong. The caption's job is the part the photo leaves out.
- Put the good line first. Instagram shows the start of a caption and hides the rest behind "more", so the opening has to work alone.
- Ask for hashtags if you want them. It leaves them out unless you say so. Two or three that describe the post do more for a reader than a long block.
An example
Asked for a caption for a photo of the writer and their dad at the top of Snowdon in the fog, both soaked, the dad holding a flask, on his 60th birthday, after years of wanting to climb it, with nothing to see from the top, in a dry, short voice with no hashtags, captions along these lines are what to expect:
Happy 60th, Dad. Lovely view.
He waited years to climb Snowdon. Snowdon sent fog.
Sixty today, soaked through, flask out, and nothing to see from the top. He has wanted to do this for years.
For a shop or a brand account
The same form works. Put the product or the moment in the first field, and in the voice field say how the business talks to customers. If the post should lead somewhere, put that in the story field: "orders open Friday, link in bio".
For the words on the listing itself there is a product description generator, and for the profile an Instagram bio generator. For the same clip on TikTok, use the TikTok caption generator.
Common questions
Is the Instagram caption generator free?
Yes. Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, and this tool opens it with your answers filled in. You sign up once, and the captions are written in the chat.
Can it see my photo?
Not from this form, which only takes text. Describe what is in the picture in the first field. In the Hemmingway app you can attach the picture itself, since the model reads images, and ask for another round.
Does it post to Instagram for me?
No. It writes the caption, and you copy it into Instagram and post it yourself.
How long should an Instagram caption be?
As long as the story needs and no longer. A single line suits a picture that explains itself, and a short paragraph suits one with something behind it.
Will it sound like AI?
It is built not to. Hemmingway-1, the model behind it, came first on sounding like a person in our own blind test, Human-Likeness. It still helps to read it aloud and change any word you would not use.