Pick a post that's out, set a budget, choose the countries, narrow the age and gender, see a reach estimate, launch. The spend, reach, and clicks come back to sit next to the organic numbers on the same post. No tab juggle, no second tool, no exporting a CSV to find out what the boost did.
This isn't a replacement for Meta Ads Manager. Custom audiences, lookalikes, conversion campaigns, A/B testing across ad sets: those still live in Ads Manager and probably should. Boost is the part most people actually need: take an organic post that's working, put paid spend behind it. Publer postponed shipping the full thing publicly. We shipped the useful subset.
The boost flow plugs into the same workspace as the Instagram scheduler and the Facebook scheduler, so the post you boost is the post you planned. Run boosts inside a client account on the agency plan with the Editor or Admin role. See pricing for the full comparison; Boost is on Agency and above.
The composer asks five things: ad account, budget type and amount, run window, country list, and age plus gender. Reach estimate updates while you tune those last three so the trade-off between audience and budget is visible before you spend. Spend caps out at the lifetime budget, or runs daily until you stop it. That's the whole interface.
When the boost ends, hand the numbers off with the social media report template or attach a UTM upfront with the UTM builder so paid clicks land cleanly in GA4.
Updates as you edit
Lower and upper bound on potential reach for the audience you've built. Refreshes 500ms after the last keystroke so you see the trade-off as you tune.
Min $1.00
Daily budget runs continuously until you stop it. Lifetime budget caps total spend across the run window. Pick whichever matches the campaign shape.
Multi-select
Pick one country or layer twenty. The list covers the top markets (US, UK, CA, AU, DE, FR, IN, BR, JP and more). No interest targeting, no behaviours, country-led.
18-65, all/m/f
Narrow age between 18 and 65 with min and max sliders. Gender all, male, or female. Reach estimate refreshes on every change.
On the post
Impressions, reach, clicks, spend, engagements, CPC, CPM, CTR, frequency. Pulled from Meta Insights and surfaced on the post itself.
Per workspace
Connect more than one Meta ad account and pick which charges for each boost. Useful when one workspace serves several clients with separate spend.
Promote Instagram or Facebook posts that have already gone out. Drafts and scheduled-but-not-yet-published posts can't be boosted; the post needs to exist on Meta first.
Daily for ongoing always-on spend. Lifetime for a fixed amount across a fixed window. Minimum spend $1.00 in your account currency. Payment summary shows total, daily-equivalent, and run length before launch.
Pick a start date (today or future) and an end date. Lifetime budgets pace across the window; daily budgets just run until the end date or until you stop them.
Multi-country picker (top 20 markets), age min and max between 18 and 65, gender all/male/female. Honest scope: this is where the targeting ends.
Lower and upper bound on potential daily reach for the targeting you've built. Pulled from Meta's reach API, debounced 500ms so it doesn't fight your typing.
Connect more than one Meta ad account per workspace. Pick the charging account per boost. Currency shown on each account in the picker so you don't accidentally bill the wrong client.
Pause stops Meta charging. Resume picks up against the same budget. End early through delete; historical performance stays attached to the post for the record.
Impressions, reach, clicks, spend, engagements, CPC, CPM, CTR, frequency. Refresh on demand. Live status badge: Creating, Active, Paused, Completed, or Error.
Editor and Admin can launch, pause, resume, end. Viewer can read performance only. Useful when an account manager runs paid and a client wants to watch the numbers.
If your existing Meta connection is missing the ads permission, the composer detects it and prompts a reconnect with the right scope. Common when accounts were originally connected for organic posting only.
Find which existing posts are actually earning attention before you put money behind them. Boost the winners, not the average.
Tag boosted posts with clean campaign links so paid clicks attribute correctly in GA4. Build the UTM before launch, paste it into the post.
Turn boost spend, reach, clicks, and CPM into a stakeholder recap. The shape clients actually read at end of month.
Resize creatives to the right Instagram and Facebook dimensions before the boost goes live. Bad crops cost reach.
Tighten the hashtag mix on the original post before paid spend amplifies it. The hashtags ride along with the boost.
Audit which posts are worth boosting before you spend on the next batch. Look at the last 90 days, find the pattern.
Boost is a Meta-only flow because Meta is the only network with a mature, accessible boost API. TikTok ads, YouTube ads, LinkedIn ads, X promoted posts: those run inside their own native managers and don't share the same shape. The scheduler pages below are where you plan and publish the post itself; once it's out on Meta, the boost option becomes available.
Open a published Instagram post, click Boost, pick the connected ad account, set a daily or lifetime budget in dollars, choose a start and end date, tick the countries you want, narrow age and gender, and launch. The reach estimate updates while you tune the audience so you know roughly what the spend buys before you commit.
No, and the page won't pretend otherwise. Boost is the part of Ads Manager 90% of people actually use: take a post that's already performing, put paid spend behind it. Custom audiences, lookalikes, A/B testing, conversion campaigns, ad sets, creatives at scale: those still live in Ads Manager. Boost is the fast lane for promoting an organic post.
Both run through the same Meta ad account and the same composer. The settings are identical: budget, duration, country list, age range, gender. You don't switch surfaces between the two networks.
$1.00 in your account currency. Most boosts will go higher than that, but the floor is one dollar. Daily budgets keep running until you stop them. Lifetime budgets cap total spend across the run window you set.
One or more countries from a top-20 list (US, UK, Canada, Australia, plus 16 others), age between 18 and 65, gender all/male/female. That's it. No interest stacks, no custom audiences, no lookalikes. Honest about scope.
Yes. Boost runs on Meta's paid promotion infrastructure, so a connected Meta ad account is required. Connect once during setup. If your existing connection is missing the ads permission, the composer prompts you to reconnect with the right scope. Multiple ad accounts on the same workspace is supported.
Pause stops Meta charging the boost from that moment. Resume it and Meta picks up where it left off, against the same budget. The historical spend, reach, and click numbers stay attached to the post, so a pause-resume cycle isn't a fresh campaign.
Impressions, reach, clicks, spend, engagements, CPC, CPM, CTR, frequency. The numbers come straight from Meta's Insights API and refresh on demand. They sit on the post itself, next to the organic numbers, so you can see paid lift without exporting a CSV from Ads Manager.
If they have a Viewer role on the workspace, yes. Viewers can read performance but can't move spend. Editors and admins are the only roles that can launch, pause, resume, or end a boost. Useful when an account manager runs paid for a client account on the agency plan.
Agency plan and above. Creator doesn't include it. See the pricing page for the comparison.