User guide

How Autopostmate thinks

Autopostmate writes social captions and draws carousel or single-image posts for a business or a personal brand. It works from a brand profile you own, it checks its own work before you see it, and nothing ships without a person pressing approve.

• Grounded, not generic. Every caption is written from your brand identity, example posts, products and testimonials. A thin brand profile gives thin posts. The brand profile section shows how to feed it.
• Checked before you read it. Plain-code guardrails (words to avoid, platform limits, personal data, emojis, dashes) run on every caption. A separate fact-checker attaches verdicts to claims. Guardrail failures send the copy back for a rewrite; fact-check notes are advisory and never block you.
• Two human checkpoints. You pick one of two captions first. Only then does Autopostmate draw slides, for that caption alone, and you approve the visuals separately. No pictures are drawn for copy you did not choose.

Autopostmate does not post to platforms for you, with one exception: LinkedIn, and only when you press the button. Everything else is exported as a ZIP, posted by you, then marked as posted so the history stays honest.

Getting started

Create your account

1. Open the app and choose Create an account. Enter an email address and a password. Sign-in is handled by Supabase; Autopostmate never sees the password.
2. You land on onboarding. The workspace opens once one brand exists.
3. Forgot the password later? The Sign in page has a reset link. An email arrives with a Save password screen.

Onboarding: one brand in five minutes

1. What are we writing for? A business (a company, shop, agency) or a personal brand (you, as a professional). The choice changes labels everywhere: a personal brand gets a headline instead of a tagline, and captions are written in the first person.
2. How do you want to start? Paste a brand brief (fastest) or Fill it in myself (by hand).
3. Press Finish setup. The brand is created, you are its owner, the workspace opens.

Paste a brand brief

The paste path reads a labelled block of text. No model is involved: a plain parser maps labels to fields, so it is instant and cannot invent anything. Press Copy template, fill the labels in your notes or with any chat assistant, paste the result back and press Read the brief. Labels are case-insensitive and may be bulleted or bold.

Lines the parser could not place are listed as Lines the parser could not place. Copy each one into the field you meant, check the form and save. Everything is editable later under Settings and in the brand profile.

Keep the brief honest and specific. "Warm, direct, no hype" is a usable tone. "Professional and engaging" is not, and the copy will show it.

The workspace

The sidebar has two groups. Make holds Dashboard, Generate and Brand profile. Plan holds AI Planner, Calendar and News. Templates, History and Settings are reached from the dashboard, the command palette or the brand menu.

The command palette

Press Ctrl+K anywhere. Go to jumps to any screen. Actions include Plan a post, Add product, Add example post, Add testimonial, Add calendar event, Upload image, Manage news sources, Check copy and Sign out. A manager who lives in the keyboard can run the day from here.

The brand switcher

The sidebar names the active brand. Open Your brands to switch, or to add a second business or your own personal brand beside it. Every screen is scoped to the active brand: brand profile, calendar, news, history. Switch first, then work.

Posts left

The counter in the shell shows posts remaining this month. Each Generate post spends one. Template packs with direct fill, post editor edits, caption edits, planner chats and news curation spend nothing. The allowance depends on your plan, is shared across every brand on the account, and resets on the first. See Plans and trial.

Undo, not confirm

Deleting a product, example post, testimonial, image or planned post does not ask "are you sure". It deletes and shows an undo toast for a few seconds. Forms keep drafts in the browser, so a refresh does not lose a half-typed brief.

The brand profile

The brand profile is the biggest lever on output quality. The line reads it on every run; the fact-checker verifies claims against your testimonials and results; the renderer uses the colours, fonts and logo. Spend the first hour here.

The readiness score

The dashboard shows Readiness score / 100 and a level. Scoring is a fixed checklist, so the same brand profile always gives the same number.

70 or more is ready; 90 or more is strong. Example posts and testimonials weigh most because they are what make copy sound like you and survive a fact-check.

Brand identity

• Colours. Primary (headlines and fills), Secondary (supporting surfaces), Accent (highlights only), as hex values. These drive every slide background and text colour.
• Fonts. Heading and body font by name. The renderer bundles its own display faces and matches yours as closely as it can.
• Logo. A PNG with transparency if you have one. Autopostmate decides the treatment per slide: bare, on a chip, or knocked out to the caption colour when a single-colour mark would not read. The logo never overlaps text.
• Tone and Tagline (or headline for a personal brand).
• Words to avoid. Words the copy must not contain: "revolutionary", a competitor's name, the phrase legal banned. This is a hard rule; a caption containing one is rewritten before you see it.

Example posts

Paste posts that already sound like you, each with a label. Three good examples move the score more than anything else and are shown to the model as the voice to match. Show range: a launch post, a customer story, a plain announcement.

Products

Name, description, price (a plain number, no currency symbol), status (Draft, Active, Discontinued), launch date and benefits. Active products are what captions may mention. Draft products stay out of copy until you flip them.

Testimonials & results

A Claim ("Rated 4.9 by 380 customers"), the Evidence behind it and a Source URL. The fact-checker reads this when it verifies a claim. A caption that says "rated 4.9" with a matching testimonial or result comes back Supported. The same line with none on file comes back Uncertain, with a question for you.

Images & logos

Upload images as Logo, Product photo, Background or Other, with tags. Product photos and backgrounds are offered to the design step and appear in the background picker at final review. Use square or landscape photos of at least 1080 pixels on the short side.

Calendar

Launches, seasonal moments, events: a title, a start date, an optional end date and what the posts should push. The research step reads upcoming events and the planner uses them when proposing a month.

Visual styles

The catalogue of slide themes, filterable by vibe. Pick one as the brand default. Every post uses it unless the brief says otherwise. See Templates.

Copy check

A bench for testing any caption against the guardrails without spending a post. Paste a draft, pick the platform, read the findings with the rule that fired and the character count. Use it on copy written outside Autopostmate before it goes to a client.

Connected accounts

Connect LinkedIn here (owner only). See Export, publish, record.

Order of work for a new client: brand identity with logo and words to avoid, three example posts, two testimonials with sources, then products and photos. That alone reaches a strong score.

Generate a post

Open Generate. Pick a vibe, a platform and a post type; the line does the rest and hands it back for review.

Which post type when

• Single image with your own photo. Fastest, one review step, no model spend on the picture. Product shots, event photos, anything where the image already exists.
• Single image, generated. Autopostmate draws one slide with a backdrop, your words and the logo. Two review steps.
• Carousel. Two to eight slides, each with its own layout. Lists, stories, menus, team introductions. Two review steps.

After you press Generate post

You are taken to the review page and the stage tracker lights up as the job moves: Research, Generating, Copy guardrails, Fact-check, Review. For visual posts a second track follows later: Designing slides, Visual checks, Final review.

• Research reads the brand profile and the web. Search results are treated as untrusted data, never as instructions, so a hostile page cannot steer your copy.
• Generation writes exactly two versions of the caption.
• Copy guardrails check both. A failure sends the caption back for a rewrite before anything is drawn.
• Fact-check reads every checkable claim and attaches a verdict. It never blocks.

Caption-only posts usually finish in under 30 seconds; carousels in under 45. If the page says Connection lost, reload to resume, reload. The run is still going in the background and picks up from its last checkpoint. Nothing is lost and nothing is charged twice.

Review step 1: the copy

The two versions sit under Pick the copy, each a card with its caption, the guardrail stamp and a fact-check panel.

The panel says it on screen: advisory only, these never block you. The gate is your judgement, not the model's.

Edit a caption

Every caption has an editor at this step. Change the words, watch the platform meter, press Save caption. The copy check runs on save; if a rule fails the save is refused and the rule is named. Emojis and long dashes are refused because captions must not read as machine-written.

Choose or reject

• Choose a version. For a single image with your own photo that is the end: the post is approved and export opens. For anything with a visual phase, the design step now draws slides for that caption only.
• Reject both captions. Write What should change and press Reject and regenerate. Your note goes into the next run.

The three-attempt limit

A request allows three regenerations. The Limit / regeneration attempts meter shows where you stand. After the third the panel reads Three attempts, all spent and offers Accept current best (back to the two captions, pick the stronger) or a fresh request. The counter resets only on a new request. This is deliberate: endless regeneration means the brief or the brand profile needs fixing, not the dice.

Review step 2: the slides

For carousels and generated singles you arrive at Final review once the slides are drawn. The strip shows every slide, the canvas shows the one selected, and the panel lists Visual notes and the post editor.

Visual notes

Plain-code checks, no model: Contrast (the text band against its background), Logo over text, Logo missing, Backdrop missing, Headline length, Body length, Empty image slot. A failed check is flagged, not blocked. Fix it with the editor, or approve if you disagree with the rule.

Edit a slide without spending anything

Edits in the post editor never call the model. They re-render in seconds and do not touch the allowance.

• Drag the caption block, the logo or (on poster templates) the photo on the canvas. Arrow keys nudge. A corner handle resizes the photo. Edits collect until you press Save and re-render.
• Words. Eyebrow (the small line above the headline), Headline, Body, Title, Subtitle, Detail, depending on the layout. Editing reflows the layout; a hand-placed caption stays where you put it.
• Layout. Swap between caption, image-slot, quote, stat and item layouts for that slide.
• Caption panel. Put the caption on a card, choose the overlay (soft scrim, frosted band, none) or the classic soft panel.
• Logo position. Top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right, or leave it where you dragged it.
• Background. Another generated backdrop, one of your uploaded images, or a flat brand colour.
• Items on this slide. For template packs, correct names, roles, prices or dishes directly and re-render.
• Change visual style. Swap the whole deck to another theme. The choice sticks to this request.

Brand colours, fonts and the order of layers are not editable here, on purpose. Change them in the brand profile and generate again.

Approve or reject

• Approve the carousel or Approve the image confirms once. Unsaved edits are flagged first.
• Reject this carousel or Reject this image with a note sends it back to the design step. The same three-attempt limit applies.

Export, publish, record

Download ZIP

An approved request offers Download ZIP: the caption as text plus every slide as a 1080-pixel PNG. Copy caption copies the text alone. Post them wherever you post.

Mark as posted

After you publish elsewhere, press Posted. This writes a published record so History and the calendar know the post went out. Autopostmate never guesses; if you do not mark it, it stays approved but unposted.

Publish to LinkedIn

1. Brand profile, Connected accounts, Connect LinkedIn. Only the brand owner can connect. LinkedIn asks you to sign in and consent, then returns you to Autopostmate.
2. On an approved request press the LinkedIn publish button. Images upload first, then the post goes to your member profile. You see Posted to LinkedIn and the record is written for you.
3. The connection lasts 60 days. When it expires the section says so and the owner reconnects. Company pages are not yet supported; posts go to the connected member profile.

Templates

Templates has three parts: visual styles, packs by purpose, and the community gallery.

Visual styles

Each visual style is a theme: palette treatment, text card, overlay, typography. Cards say From your brand palette where colours come from the brand profile and Any the design agent picks where the agent is free. Filter by vibe, set a brand default from the brand profile, or override per post in the brief.

Template packs

Packs are fill-in-the-blanks designs with no model spend on the picture. The brief becomes a short list of items and Autopostmate places your words on the design. The caption is still written by the line and still reviewed.

Filter the gallery with All, People, Products, Offers, Menus. Press a pack to open Generate with it selected. Every item needs its title field. At final review, Items on this slide fixes a typo without regenerating.

Community templates

Bring your own design. Upload a 1080 by 1080 PNG, or import a PDF and accept the suggested zones, then draw the zones in the studio: where the caption sits, its alignment, light or dark text, an optional logo, portrait circle and value zone. Save draft keeps it private. Submit for review sends it to the review team. It comes back as Needs changes with a note, or Published to the community gallery, where every member can pick it in the brief as a community template. Your own drafts live under Your templates.

Plan the month

Calendar

A month grid with three kinds of entry and a goals strip.

• Campaigns. Name, colour, optional start and end. Planned posts belong to one, and the grid colours by campaign.
• Planned posts. Title, brief (what the post should say and push), platform, post type, campaign, date. Drag a chip to move it. Each has a Generate action that opens the brief prefilled, carrying a source link if it came from the news feed.
• Key dates. Launches and moments, the same records as the brand profile calendar.
• Goals. A one-line Focus for the month, Posts a week per platform (zero keeps a platform off the strip), and up to ten Numbers you are watching with current and target values.

Upcoming lists what is ahead, so a Monday check takes ten seconds.

AI Planner

A chat that knows the brand profile, the calendar and the goals. Start with one of the prompts (Draft a posting schedule for this month, Help me set goals for this month, What should I prioritise this month?) or type your own.

• Replies carry proposal cards: planned posts and monthly goals. Apply writes one to the calendar; Apply all does the lot; dismiss what you do not want. Applied cards are marked so nothing is added twice.
• Each chat is anchored to a month and titled by the planner after its first reply. The Chats sidebar holds as many as you like per brand.
• Memory. Durable decisions ("We post product launches on Tuesdays") the planner saves for itself, up to 50, plus notes you add by hand. Edit or delete them in the memory panel. They ride into every future chat for this brand.

Planner turns do not spend posts.

A rhythm that works: the planner proposes the month, you apply, then each morning open Calendar, pick today's planned post, press Generate. The brief and the source link arrive prefilled.

The news hub

News is a feed Autopostmate fetches for the active brand from sources you choose, tagged by industry match and location. No third-party news service; you own the source list.

Read and act

• Cards show source, age and summary. Sort newest or oldest first.
• Each card offers Plan (a planned post with the article as its source) and Generate (the brief with the link filled). Both carry provenance, so the caption is grounded in the actual article.
• Filter by industry match, by your categories, or by provider. Save as my default decides how the feed opens.

Edit feed

• Add your own. Paste a website or feed address. Autopostmate resolves a homepage or blog page to its feed. If a publisher blocks readers it says so; try the RSS link or another page.
• Choose from our list. A curated catalogue of ten industries with ten publications each. Your industry is pinned at the top.
• Describe what you want. "Local coffee news in Portland and anything about oat milk pricing." One model call, no post spent. It reports what it added and files the new sources under a category named from your ask.
• Your categories. Folders you name. Drag sources between them, rename, delete. Categories drive the filter.

Source rows show the feed address, how long ago the last item arrived, and an unfollow control.

History and allowance

History lists every request for the active brand with platform, post type, topic, status and date. Statuses run Queued, the working stages, Awaiting review, Awaiting final review, Approved, Posted, Rejected and Failed. Open a row to return to its review page; an approved one still offers the ZIP.

The Posts left counter is per account per month, shared across its brands. At zero, Generate post is disabled until the reset. Direct-fill packs, post editor edits, caption edits, the planner and news curation stay available. Plan sizes are under Plans and trial.

Flag a version

Every version card has a flag. Say what is wrong with it and press Send report. Flags reach the staff queue, where the team reads the prompt and the brand profile that produced it. Use it for anything off-brand, wrong or unsafe. It is how the product gets better.

Plans and trial

Every new account starts on Solo for seven days, with no card. When the trial ends the account moves to Free: 15 posts a month, one brand, one team member, a view-only post editor and no publishing. Nothing you made is deleted.

Plans are priced by posts a month. Free has 15. Solo has 40, with publishing, the post editor, the AI assistant and the daily news post. Studio has 150 across three brands and two team members, and adds Autopilot and private templates. Agency is custom. One post is one run down the line: rewrites and redesigns inside a run are free, and a run that fails is not charged. Prices, brand profile caps and the full comparison are on the pricing page.

Settings and brands

• Settings edits the setup answers for the active brand (name, headline or tagline, industry, value proposition, audience, tone, platforms, goals) and how you sign in. Everything else about the brand lives in the brand profile.
• The Brands card lists every brand on the account with the active one marked. Add a second business or your own personal brand beside it. Each brand has its own brand profile, calendar, news and history. Posts are shared across the account.
• Delete a brand from the danger zone. Type DELETE to confirm. Deleting the last brand returns the account to onboarding.
• Delete account removes the sign-in and every brand you own. Type your email address to confirm. There is no undo.

Guardrails reference

Guardrails are plain code, not a model. Same input, same verdict, every time.

A Fail on the line sends the caption back for a rewrite. A Fail on your own edit refuses the save and names the rule. A Warn shows a note and lets you decide.

Troubleshooting

A working week

Once per client

1. Onboard with a pasted brief. Reach a readiness score of 70 before generating anything.
2. Upload the logo as a transparent PNG, three example posts, two testimonials or results with source links, product photos.
3. Pick a brand default visual style. Connect LinkedIn if the client publishes there.
4. Curate the feed: the catalogue for the industry, plus two or three local or niche sources by description.

Start of month

1. Set goals on the calendar: a focus line, posts per week per platform, the numbers you report on.
2. Open AI Planner, ask for a schedule, apply the cards you like, tidy dates by dragging chips.
3. Add the key dates and campaigns the client told you about.

Each day

1. Calendar, today's planned post, Generate. Or News, an article worth reacting to, Generate.
2. Review step 1: read the fact-check panel, answer questions, edit words if needed, pick a caption.
3. Review step 2: fix contrast or logo notes with the editor, change the visual style if it clashes, approve.
4. Download the ZIP, post, press Posted. Or publish to LinkedIn directly.

Each week

• Add the post that performed best as an example post. Next month's copy improves.
• Flag anything that came out wrong. Check History for approved but unposted items.
• Check the Posts left counter against the plan before the last week of the month.