How to set up Instagram Shop comes down to four jobs in Meta's Commerce Manager: connect an Instagram business account and a catalog of physical products, prove you own your website, add a checkout URL and delivery settings, then submit for review. Since September 2025, buyers pay on your website, not inside Instagram.

This page follows Meta's own setup path. Every fact below comes from Instagram's Help Center or Meta's Business Help Center, read on 30 October 2026, because many older guides still describe in-app checkout.

What are the Instagram shop requirements?

Meta's commerce eligibility page lists five requirements for any business that sells on Instagram: follow Meta's policies, represent your business and domain, sit in a supported country, show trustworthiness, and give accurate information.

  • Policies. Your professional account must follow Instagram's Terms of Use and Community Standards, plus Meta's Seller Agreement and Commerce Policies. Meta says falling short at any time can cost you commerce features.
  • Your domain. Your profile must list products people can buy directly from your website, and you give Meta a single domain with no link shortener. Instagram's Help Center says tagged products must lead to a domain you own, held in your own Business Manager or shared with it.
  • Location. Your account must be in a supported country, listed further down.
  • Trust. Meta asks for an authentic, established presence and says that may include a sufficient follower base. The page names no follower number.
  • Accurate information. Prices and availability must not mislead, and your refund and return policies must be easy to find on your website or on Instagram.

The catalog has its own rules, from Meta's catalog eligibility page. It must hold physical goods, cannot already be connected to another shop, and must contain at least one item. Every product link must lead to that item's own page on your domain. You also need full control of the business portfolio that holds the catalog.

How do I set up an Instagram Shop, step by step?

Create the shop in Commerce Manager, then finish the task list Meta shows at the top of the page. Meta's setup article runs in this order:

  1. Start from a professional account. Meta's setup article names an Instagram business account, so switch to a professional account first if you have not. Meta also says that if you only sell on Instagram, you do not need a Facebook business Page.
  2. Create the commerce account. In Commerce Manager, click Get started, pick your commerce platform or the option for none of them, add your Instagram account as a sales channel and choose or create a catalog. Add a contact email, return window, return URL and privacy policy URL, agree to the Seller Agreement and click Submit for review.
  3. Wait for the shop check. Meta says its review can take up to four weeks. Commerce Manager shows the status, and Meta emails you if there is something to fix.
  4. Prepare the catalog. You can connect one catalog to a shop and cannot switch it later, so choose with care. For variants such as sizes or colors, Meta's task asks for a data feed so you do not lose product event data.
  5. Set a delivery profile. Choose the countries and states you ship to and add at least one delivery speed.
  6. Add a checkout URL. This is the address that sends a buyer from your shop to your website's checkout, and Meta says the shop cannot be visible without it.
  7. Pick the optional extras. Meta offers a personalized home page layout, ratings and reviews, and offers.
  8. Publish. When every task shows as done, click Publish shop. Every product in your catalog is included by default, and you can group products into collections.

How does Instagram shop checkout work now?

Instagram shop checkout now happens on your own website. Meta's Business Help Center says that as of September 2025, shops on Facebook and Instagram use website checkout: people browse your home page, collections and product pages on Instagram, then go to your site to pay.

Meta lists what left with in-app checkout: payment processing for shops, order management in Commerce Manager, return handling, and Meta's chargeback and dispute services. Meta also says you can no longer use the Commerce Manager Inbox to reply to customer messages. Orders, payments, delivery and returns are yours to run on your website.

Ads changed too. Shops ads now use the website conversion location, and purchases that used to count as Meta purchases show as 0 after the update. Meta keeps earlier figures for up to 39 months.

One wrinkle: Meta's commerce eligibility page, read the same day, still says checkout on Facebook and Instagram is supported only in the United States. The pages read differently, and we follow the September 2025 article because it describes how shops run today.

How do product tags work in posts, stories and reels?

To tag a feed post, tap Create, choose Post, pick your photo or video, tap More options, tap Tag products, choose the items and tap Share. Instagram's Help Center says a photo feed post can carry up to 20 products and shops, and a carousel can carry 20 in total across all its photos and videos.

Stories use a product sticker: one per story, holding up to five products. On Reels, the Help Center says adding products to a reel applies only to legacy shops catalogs, so check whether the option appears in your app before you plan around it.

Meta reviews tagged products against its Commerce Policies and says that usually takes seconds. If an item is pending or rejected, open it in Commerce Manager and request a second review if you think the decision was wrong.

Creators without a shop can tag too. Instagram's page says a qualified public account can tag products from brands with shops if it is 13 or older, active in the last 30 days and has no more than two policy violations, or if a business approves it as a branded content partner.

Why is Instagram Shopping not available on my account?

Instagram Shopping is unavailable when a condition on Meta's pages is not met. Check these in order.

  • Your country is not on the list. Meta's supported-countries page, read 30 October 2026, gives the full Shops experience to the United States, excluding American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand are in an open beta, where Meta says some sellers may not have full capabilities. Ukraine and Indonesia have limited Shops and no Shops ads.
  • Your shop's location is its commerce account's location. Meta says that location can follow the country chosen at setup, where the account's creator is, or other factors. Meta also says that traveling temporarily outside a supported country may cost you the ability to tag products.
  • You lack control of the business portfolio. If a business portfolio holds your Instagram account or catalog, Meta says you need full control of it.
  • The catalog fails a check. The wrong inventory type, a catalog already tied to another shop, or product links that do not sit on your own domain make a catalog ineligible.
  • The review has not finished. Up to four weeks, per Meta, and each product is approved on its own.

Start in Commerce Manager, which shows the status. Meta's supported-countries page says you can contact support from Commerce Manager for help with your shop.

Where this stops working

An Instagram Shop is a window display, and a few things sit outside it.

  • Physical goods only. Meta's catalog page says shops are for selling physical goods. It does not list digital products or services as supported, so courses, templates and bookings need another route. How to sell on Instagram DMs covers one.
  • No payment, returns or disputes. Your website handles all three now.
  • No promised outcome. Meta says up to four weeks for the shop check and gives no follower minimum, so we cannot tell you whether an account will pass.
  • Live selling is separate. Instagram live shopping covers what is available.
  • Things we could not verify. We did not test a Shopify connection, and we could not confirm which accounts still see Reels tagging.

What do you do about the questions under a tagged post?

People still comment "does this come in blue?" under a tagged product, and Meta's checkout article says Commerce Manager's Inbox no longer handles replies. A comment-to-DM automation can answer instead: someone comments a keyword under the post, inDM replies publicly and sends a DM with the link to your own product page. Instagram allows one private reply per comment, sent within 7 days of it. The setup guide walks through the first automation, and tracking sales from Instagram DMs covers tagged links.

Set the shop up for discovery, send buyers to a website that is ready for them, and let every question under a tagged post lead to a link.

Sources

Everything about Instagram and Meta above was read on 30 October 2026 from these pages:

What is ours and what is not. Nothing here is an inDM measurement. These are Meta's published rules with the date we read them, and Meta changes shop rules often, so treat the date as an expiry stamp.