This paper deals with the study of the parametric instability characteristics of delaminated composite plates subjected to periodic in-plane load. A first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) based on finite element method (FEM) is developed for studying the instability region of mid-plane delaminated composite plate. A detailed parametric investigation is carried out to study the influence of the delamination area, number of layers, degree of orthotropy, aspect ratio and static in-plane load on the dynamic stability characteristics of delaminated cross-ply plates. The results of vibration and buckling of delaminated composite plates are compared with previous numerical studies in the literature and the authors’ experimental investigations. The boundaries of instability regions are obtained by using Bolotin’s method and are represented in the non-dimensional load amplitude-excitation frequency plane. It is observed that the natural frequencies and the critical buckling load of the plates decrease with an increase in delamination size. The increase in delamination size also causes dynamic instability regions to be shifted to lower excitation frequencies.