PostDecks
PostDecks

What's new in PostDecks, newest first.

Updates

What we've shipped, and why. Newest first.

An Instagram character counter

Count an Instagram caption against all of Instagram's limits at once: its length, what shows before more, how many hashtags it carries and how many people it mentions.

Check a caption before you post it

  • See exactly which words show in the feed before the caption folds behind more.
  • Hashtags and @mentions are counted as you type, so you know the moment you pass Instagram's limits.
  • Press Preview it to carry the caption straight into the Instagram preview.

A quick tour on your first visit

The first time you open PostDecks, a short tour points out where everything is: your images, the caption, the previews, and how to send a post to a client to sign off.

Shown once, there whenever you want it

  • Six short steps, each next to the part of the page it is about. Skip it at any point.
  • Afterwards it lives behind the ? in the bar along the bottom. Press it to take the tour again.
  • How PostDecks works, with every platform's ratios and limits, now has a page of its own, linked from the top of the tool.

Pinterest Pins, the size a feed shows them

The Pinterest preview draws your Pin as one tile of a feed, at the size Pinterest's own site gives it, on a desktop and on a phone.

See how much of your title makes it

  • A feed shows a Pin's title on one line: about 25 to 30 characters on a desktop and about 20 on a phone. The preview cuts yours in the same place, so you can put the words that matter first.
  • Switch between phone and desktop to see both tiles, and export either one as a PNG or in your PDF.

Update a link, post what was approved, and preview YouTube

Six additions today, all free. The post you are working on is kept in your browser, a link can be updated after you have sent it, and an approved post is one click from the app it is going to. There are three new tools as well: character counters for X and Bluesky, safe zones on Story and TikTok previews, and a YouTube thumbnail preview.

Your post is there when you come back

  • Refresh the page, close the tab or go and check your inbox. The post you were making is waiting when you return, photos included.
  • It is kept in your own browser for seven days and is never uploaded. Reset to blank clears it at once.
  • Your choice of light or dark and the formats you ticked come back with it.

Change a post after you have sent it

  • Press Share link again on a post that already has a link and choose Update this link. Your client sees the new version at the address they already have.
  • Their page shows the date it was updated, and they can approve the new version. Your list shows who approved which version.
  • Choose Make a new link when you want a second option to sit beside the first.

Approved? Post it

  • Every post you have shared has a Post it button on your account page. It opens the post box in X, LinkedIn, Threads or Bluesky with your caption already typed, ready for you to add the photos and publish.
  • For Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and TikTok there is Copy caption.
  • Posts in a campaign deck are listed under their deck, each with its own responses and its own Post it.
  • The View responses button in your email opens the link it is about.

Character counters for X and Bluesky

  • X counts every link as 23 and every emoji as 2. Bluesky counts an emoji as 1 and shortens a link before counting it. The new X character counter and Bluesky character counter count your post the way each app does, and show what went into the number.
  • When a post runs over, you see exactly which words do not fit.
  • One button takes what you wrote to the preview tool, where it is drawn as a real post.

Safe zones on Story and TikTok previews

  • Press Safe zones on an Instagram or Facebook Story preview to shade the edges Meta asks you to keep text and logos out of: the top 14%, the bottom 35% and 6% at each side. Meta gives Reels the same figures.
  • The TikTok preview has the same button, drawn from TikTok's own template: the top 12.5%, the bottom 34.4%, 11.1% at each side, and the column where its buttons stand.
  • The shading is a guide for you, so it stays out of your PNG and PDF exports.

YouTube thumbnail preview

  • See your thumbnail and title on the Home page, beside a video, in search and on a phone, in light and in dark.
  • The title is cut at the end of its second line, where YouTube cuts it. The preview uses YouTube's own font and sizes, measured from the site.
  • The small badge showing the video's length is drawn in the corner of every thumbnail, so you can see what it covers.

Client approval links are free

Everything that was PostDecks Pro is free from today. Sending a client a link to approve, grouping a campaign into one deck, your logo on what they see, saved clients and saved grids no longer cost anything, and two of those no longer need an account either.

Free with an account

  • Share a post as a link your client approves or comments on, with no login for them. You get an email when they reply. This was $8 a month.
  • Group a week of posts into one deck, approved post by post.
  • Put your logo and colour on the pages your clients open.
  • Keep your saved clients on every device, and a saved Instagram grid for each client, each with its own approval link.

Free with no account at all

  • Your logo and name on PDF exports. That was always done in your browser, so it no longer asks you to sign in.
  • Save up to 20 clients in this browser, where it used to be one.

One step, at the moment you need it

  • Press Share and the tool asks where your client's reply should go. Enter your email, click the link we send, and your post is still on screen with its link ready. There is no password and no card.
  • The same goes for the grid planner: sign in from the planner itself and the grid you were arranging is still there to save.

Why it is free

  • Getting a client to say yes is what PostDecks is for, so it should not sit behind a checkout. The ads beside the tool pay for it instead, and they are the only thing PostDecks charges for.

X and Facebook photo posts, measured from the apps

Posts with several photos on X and Facebook now match what those apps show. Neither platform publishes how it arranges photos, so both layouts were measured pixel by pixel from screenshots of their iPhone apps.

X: two photos side by side

  • Two photos on X sit side by side inside the post at one height, both whole, each as wide as its shape.
  • Three or four are a strip you swipe, at the height X uses, with X's narrow gaps and tight corners.

Facebook: a collage that follows your photos

  • Two wide photos stack one above the other, each the full width.
  • Two tall photos sit side by side, in the taller block Facebook gives them.
  • Three photos with a tall one first put it down the left half of a square block, with the other two stacked beside it.
  • Four squares make a grid of two by two. Add more and the fourth tile is dimmed and counts the rest, such as +3.
  • The collage is a square block in most cases, as it is on Facebook.

LinkedIn photo posts that match LinkedIn, and a home for the guides

Two changes you will see in the tool and two new pages. Posts with several photos on LinkedIn now follow LinkedIn's own published rules, and the preview opens on the view that suits the screen you are using. Alongside them there is a guide to how every platform lays out several photos, and a Guides page that collects everything like it.

LinkedIn, drawn by LinkedIn's rules

  • Two photos sit side by side at their own shapes.
  • With three or more, the first photo decides the layout, as it does on LinkedIn: one wider than 4:3 runs across the top, and a square or tall one takes the left column.
  • The collage grows with your photos up to LinkedIn's 4:5 limit, and anything past 20 photos is flagged, because LinkedIn stops there.

Opens on your own screen

  • A first visit now starts on the phone view on a phone and the desktop view on anything bigger. Pick the other one and it stays picked, as before. If you send clients PDFs from a desktop, it is worth switching to phone first, because that is where most of their audience reads.

New guides

  • How many photos each platform takes in one post, and how it lays them out: Instagram's carousel, the strips on X and Threads, Bluesky's grid and carousel, and the collages on LinkedIn and Facebook.
  • A Guides page that gathers the specs guides, the client sign-off guide and the comparisons, so you can find them without scrolling to the footer.
  • The HeyOrca and Planable comparisons now quote monthly and yearly prices side by side, re-checked against their own pricing pages, so the two are compared like for like.

Counts and photo layouts that match the platforms

Three improvements, all about matching the platforms exactly: the character counter on X and Bluesky, posts with several photos on Bluesky and Threads, and tall photos on Instagram. Each follows the platform's own rules, read from its own code or its own help pages.

The counter counts like X and Bluesky

  • On X a link costs 23 characters however long it is, and an emoji or a Chinese, Japanese or Korean character costs 2. The X counter charges the same, so a post with a long tracking link shows the count X itself would give.
  • Bluesky counts an emoji as one character and shortens links before counting. The Bluesky counter does the same, so the number you see is the one Bluesky goes by.

Several photos on Bluesky and Threads

  • Bluesky posts can carry up to 10 photos. The preview shows all of them, two to four in Bluesky's grid and five or more in its swipe carousel.
  • Threads puts two photos side by side and runs three or more in a strip at the height Threads itself uses, so a carousel previews at the size it posts.

Instagram takes 3:4

  • Instagram's app shows 3:4 photos, the shape most phone cameras shoot, without cropping. Preview a post at 3:4, and a phone photo picks it on its own. If you post through a scheduler, 4:5 is still the safe size, because Meta's publishing documentation stops there.

See every post the way a phone shows it

Feeds are read on phones, so every preview and every client PDF can now be drawn the way a phone shows the post. Desktop is one click away, and the choice sticks. A first visit starts on the view that suits your own screen: phone on a phone, desktop on anything bigger.

New: phone and desktop

  • Every format previews as a phone, at the width a phone actually renders it.
  • Switch between phone and desktop whenever you need to, and it is still set that way next time you come back.
  • Captions cut in different places on the two. LinkedIn shows about 148 characters on a phone against 210 on a desktop, and the preview now cuts where your reader's device does.
  • Exports carry the device in the title, so a client is never guessing which view they were sent.

Photo strips on X and Threads

  • X and Threads both lay several photos out side by side at one height, each keeping its own shape: a strip with the next already visible at the edge. Exactly two photos sit next to each other across the column.
  • Drag the strip to move along it, or use the arrows, and whichever photo you land on is the one that gets exported.

Settings moved to the bottom

  • Device, formats, appearance and the export buttons sit in a bar along the bottom of the screen, so the settings column is half the length and Export is always in reach.

Plan an Instagram feed, then send the grid for sign-off

A post is only half of what a client is judging. The other half is what the profile looks like once that post lands in it, and a single preview cannot show you that. The new grid planner does: drop your images in, drag them into the order you will post, and read the profile as a whole before anything goes out.

New: the Instagram grid planner

  • Upload your images and drag them into place on the three-wide profile grid, newest top left, the way Instagram actually fills a profile.
  • Drag works with a thumb: hold a tile for a moment on a phone and it lifts, so swiping still scrolls the page.
  • Leave empty slots for posts you have not made yet, so you can plan around a gap instead of imagining it.
  • Your plan is still there tomorrow. It is kept in your own browser and never uploaded, with no account and no signup.
  • Download the finished grid as a PNG.

With a free account

  • Save as many grids as you have clients, one per account, each with its own profile picture, bio and follower counts.
  • Grids live on your account rather than in one browser, so a new laptop opens the same work.
  • Turn any grid into a client link. They open it, approve it or leave a comment, and never make an account.
  • The link follows the grid: save a change and the client sees the current plan, not the version you sent on Tuesday.
  • Your logo and colour carry across, the same as your other client links.

Also new

  • TikTok joined the preview formats: one image reads as a video frame, several become a photo carousel with the counter and dots.
  • A reference page for caption limits and image sizes, generated from the same specs that drive the previews, so it cannot quietly go out of date.

Nothing to connect

  • The planner works on its own. There is no Instagram login to hand over, and you carry on posting the way you post today.

Send a client a whole campaign, approved post by post

Until now a share link held one post, so a week of posts meant a handful of links and a handful of conversations. Campaign decks put them behind one link your client works through in order.

New

  • Tick two or more of your share links and group them into a campaign deck: one link, every post, approved one at a time.
  • Your client approves or comments on each post separately, so a change to post two never holds up the other four.
  • A progress bar at the top tells them, and you, how far through the deck they are.
  • You get an email per response saying which post it was and where the deck now stands, instead of five that read the same.

Still true

  • Your client has nothing to sign in to, same as a single shared post.
  • Every post in a deck keeps its own link, so anything you already sent still works.
  • Ungrouping a deck retires the deck link and leaves the posts alone.

Why it builds on links you already made

  • You build a deck from posts you have already shared, so there is one way of making a post, and a deck is a grouping of real links rather than a copy of them.

Four more places to check before you post

The formats people kept asking for. Each one gets the same treatment as the rest: real chrome, real character limits, and the truncation point drawn where the platform actually cuts your caption.

New formats

  • Threads and Bluesky, for anyone who has moved part of their posting there.
  • Facebook Story, sat next to Facebook rather than buried at the end of the list.
  • Pinterest Pin, which is the odd one out: a tall 2:3 image where the caption barely matters.

Improved

  • Every format has its own page now, so you can link a client straight to the one you are talking about.

Send a link instead of a file, and let clients approve it

The tool always ended with a download, which meant your client got an attachment and you got a reply in a different thread. Now you can send a link instead.

New

  • Share a preview as a link. Your client opens it, sees the post in every format you picked, and approves or comments right there.
  • You get an email the moment they respond, so you are not refreshing anything.
  • Put your own logo on PDF exports.
  • Save the clients you post for and switch between them, instead of retyping a name and handle every time.

Still true

  • Everything the tool did on day one: previews, exports, no account.

PostDecks is here

A free tool for the message every social manager has had: can you show us how it will look? Paste a caption, drop in an image, and see the post as it will actually appear.

What it does

  • Previews one post across X, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Carousel, Instagram, Instagram Story and Facebook at once.
  • Counts characters against each platform's real limit, and shows where each one truncates your caption, which is rarely where you would guess.
  • Exports a PDF proof sheet for sign-off, or a PNG per platform.
  • Light and dark, aspect ratios per platform, and multi-image galleries laid out the way each platform lays them out.

Private, and nothing to set up

  • Previewing and exporting need no account and upload nothing. Your images stay in your browser: the previews and the exports are all made on your machine.
  • It works alongside whatever you already post with, so there is nothing to connect and nothing to move.