# Instories: AI Photo & Video — user reviews > 1,865 indexed App Store user reviews of Instories by Ylee Studio LTD, rated 4.70/5 from 45,467 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/instories-ai-photo-and-video/id1454762989/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/instories-ai-photo-and-video/id1454762989.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 40,523 · 4★ 1,827 · 3★ 664 · 2★ 398 · 1★ 2,055 ## What do users think of Instories? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 🚀 Easy to use - 🎨 Great templates and designs - 🎶 Ability to add music - 💻 Helpful for businesses and social media - 🤩 Overall amazing app **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and glitches - 🔒 Misleading free trial and subscription issues - 💰 Expensive subscription - 🤔 Limited free features - 📥 Issues with saving and exporting content **Commonly reported bugs** - App freezes when selecting images/videos - Exported videos have quality issues - Music not working properly - Saved projects disappearing **Most requested features** - Ability to edit text and elements within templates - More customization options - Syncing across devices - Improved search and organization of templates - Longer video duration limits ## Newest reviews (19 of 1,865) ### 2/5 — The editing keeps logging *2026-08-20, version 5.117.0* Whenever I try to do 1min video of a talking head reel for my page it just freezes in the middle of editing, takes way too long to edit simple style videos ### 1/5 — App is Scam *2026-08-18, version 5.119.0* They give you a 3-day free trial and charge you monthly the same day although i cancelled within 24-hr. ### 1/5 — No! Beware! Scams straight to annual membership after trial! *2026-08-17, version 5.119.0* Beware, they immediately charge you more than $100 after the seven day trial!!! ### 1/5 — The AI feature is Horrible!! *2026-08-16, version 5.117.0* I keep trying to use the AI tool and upload my videos but it won’t work and keeps telling me error. Waste of money. ### 1/5 — Crashes when saving *2026-08-14, version 5.119.0* Love the creation however every time I attempt to save what I made, the app crashes. Not very useful when I can’t export anything 🙄 ### 1/5 — App crashes *2026-08-12, version 5.117.0* Appr crashes. I should get a refund! ### 3/5 — Needs improvement *2026-08-12, version 5.117.0* This app has a lot of potential but it keeps crashing regularly. Thankfully it saves ur data but it takes even longer to get things done because it craches so much. ### 1/5 — Misleading *2026-08-12, version 5.117.0* It’s not a free app, don’t download ### 1/5 — Waste of time *2026-08-12, version 5.117.0* Long questionnaire to a pay wall. Don’t-waste my time with a non sense questionnaire ### 1/5 — Deleted App in 15 minutes *2026-08-10, version 5.117.0* The ads for this app looked amazing, but in reality, the content it creates is horribly below average. They want to charge a high annual fee plus you have to purchase in-app currency to use their premium features. I tried using 4-5 different content creation templates and all of them look like a 10 year old created it. ### 1/5 — App crashed within the first 5 mins *2026-08-10, version 5.117.0* Honestly not impressed. Okay templates but as soon as you try to create something custom it crashes. Plus it keeps pushing me to refer friends and has a countdown at the top of my phone that won’t go away even after i close the app. Very annoying ### 1/5 — Not Ready - Do Not Buy *2026-08-09, version 5.117.0* Instant Reel Editor is archaic and doesn’t do anything close to quality generation. This is basically a manual processes marketed as a Ferrari. This app is 7 months away in development from being market ready. ### 1/5 — Scam *2026-08-08, version 5.117.0* Don’t try the free trial. They will immediately charge you the yearly fee and will not refund you even if you don’t like product. ### 1/5 — App doesn’t work *2026-08-08, version 5.115.0* App doesn’t work ### 1/5 — Expensive subscription for templates that don’t work *2026-08-07, version 5.117.0* I genuinely regret paying for this subscription. The entire reason I purchased the app was to select my photos/videos, place them into one of the provided templates, and have the app generate the finished video. That basic function simply did not work. I spent about an hour selecting my media THREE separate times, closing and reopening the app, and even restarting my phone trying to troubleshoot it. Every time, the exported video came out blank without the media I selected. I eventually had to spend another 3–4 HOURS manually editing the video myself, which completely defeats the purpose of paying for an app like this in the first place. What makes this worse is that this is one of the most expensive app subscriptions I’ve ever purchased. I contacted Apple for a refund, clearly explained that the product did not function as advertised, and was denied. So I paid a premium price for software that failed at the exact task I purchased it to perform, wasted hours troubleshooting it, then had to do the work manually anyway. Save your money. Based on my experience, I absolutely cannot recommend paying for this app. ### 1/5 — Bad business decisions *2026-08-06, version 5.117.0* The app forces you to register your credit card before even trying it. I never used the product and was charged $89.99! When I requested a refund because I didn’t like the product and never used it, they denied my request! If I could give ZERO stars I would! ### 1/5 — Terrible Customer Service *2026-08-06, version 5.117.0* If you need help, don’t expect any. The in app help is hard to find, I think on purpose so people don’t reach out. They are unwilling to help. ### 2/5 — Update Issues *2026-08-06, version 5.117.0* I really like this app. The templates and fonts are unique and creative. My only issue is that lately there has been a bug in the updates where it does not recognize lifetime subscriptions. This is the second update in the last fee weeks where I have lost access to all of the templates and therefore all use of the app. It’s asking me to sign up for another subscription when I already have one. Hopefully this is addressed swiftly and is not an issue in any future updates. ### 1/5 — Ужасная работа, приложение стоит 20$, вылетает все время, невозможно загрузить субтитры. *2026-08-06, version 5.117.0* Раньше все работало без нареканий (примерно 4 месяца назад), ничего не вылетало, субтитры загружались и редактировались. Старые проэкты можно было тоже без проблем редактировать. Сейчас стало платным и работать в нем практически невозможно. Остаюсь только из-за старых проектов, но не вижу положительных изменений, придется искать другое приложение, альтернатив много, более дешевых и хорошо работающих ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Scam *2026-08-24, version 5.120.0* This app has no customer service team it’s completely AI, you sign in create an account on the free trial and then it asks you to do the same thing again when you click on my account. ### 1/5 — Charged me for a free trial *2026-08-22, version 5.120.0* Being charged for a free trial l just activated a day ago. Its a 3 day trial ### 1/5 — Very bad *2026-08-21, version 5.119.0* I got trial subscriptions after watching video in instagram. I try to create AI reel which we can create limited after full subscription. And it cannot create what I mentioned in prompt. Totally useless. Get subscription if you just want to add fancy text in your video and little good transition in between photos. ### 1/5 — Instories *2026-08-21, version 5.119.0* Nothing works here.All they wont is more money. No help with anything ### 1/5 — You keep charging me even though I canceled the subscription *2026-08-20, version 5.117.0* You charged me and will not refund my money! ### 1/5 — Wish I could put negative stars *2026-08-19, version 5.119.0* If I could put negative stars I would. I cancelled my free trial subscription on the day that it expired and they charged my card for an entire year and refuse to refund it. I will not be using this app at all during this year and still have to waste $120 on this stupid app. ### 1/5 — Bad bad bad *2026-08-19, version 5.119.0* ⭐ 1/5 — Very disappointing Unfortunately, Instories has been a very disappointing experience. The app constantly hangs, features don’t work properly, and the AI results are often unusable. I’ve wasted so much time waiting for content to generate, only for it to fail or produce nothing useful. For a paid app, I expected something reliable that would actually save me time creating content. Instead, it has made the process more frustrating. Definitely not worth the money in its current state. It needs major improvements in performance, reliability and AI quality. I want my one year membership back. ### 1/5 — Poor *2026-08-19, version 5.119.0* AI Instant reel always gives and error. ### 1/5 — SCAM ALERT!!! *2026-08-18, version 5.119.0* I paid for the lifetime pro plan and since the last 2 updates Instories will not honor my lifetime app purchase. They claim they cannot fix it only the developers can yet they want to mark the ticket as resolved. They stole my money and will not honor my purchase paid pro lifetime plan! STAY AWAY unless you want your money stolen too!!! ### 1/5 — Do not do free trial unless you are certain you want it for a year. *2026-08-18, version 5.119.0* If you do the free trial it automatically defaults to paying for a year for $130 if you forget to cancel prior to the end of the trial you will get charged and Apple will deny the refund and say this app is not eligible. I wish I never did the trial . ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Bom *2026-08-18* Gostei **Developer response:** Olá! Obrigado pela ótima avaliação do nosso app! Desejamos um uso agradável🧡 ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-08-04, version 5.115.0* It works great ### 5/5 — Travando muito *2026-07-31* Depois que as IAs foram incorporadas o aplicativo não funciona direito, trava muito, tem muitos erros, o aplicativo fecha sozinho no meio da edição, muitos vídeos ficam sem Áudio quando colocamos muitos elementos de edição juntos… Estou pensando em trocar de aplicativo, pois quando preciso usar ele trava e não consigo finalizar os projetos **Developer response:** Hello! Thank you for the good review of our app! We wish you a pleasant use🧡 ### 5/5 — Buena App *2026-07-25, version 5.115.0* Muy buena ### 5/5 — Me parece muy interesante y útil. *2026-07-24, version 5.115.0* La app es sencilla de usar , me parece que presenta varias opciones que te ayudan a hacer ediciones de videos de una manera más fácil sobretodo para personas con poca experiencia y capacidad creativa ### 5/5 — Love Instories *2026-07-24, version 5.115.0* It’s as good as An Old Fashioned Love (In)Story…. ### 5/5 — Not good *2026-07-23, version 5.115.0* The application often quits unexpectedly without saving the latest changes to the project! ### 5/5 — Agilidade total *2026-07-23* Nota 1000.. sensacional **Developer response:** Hello! Thank you for your feedback! We’re doing everything we can to make our app great for you 💜 ### 5/5 — нет в новом приложении подписки что делать *2026-07-15, version 5.112.1* аккаунт как будто мой не видит и пишет нет покупок ### 5/5 — Editing *2026-07-14, version 5.112.1* Easy use --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-28.*