Best Instagram Growth Service In 2020: We Compare The 12 Top Tools

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Gaining followers on Instagram can be hard — and it’s only getting more difficult, which is where an Instagram growth service comes in.

Without help, getting more real followers for Instagram is often a tedious and time-consuming process. Going at it alone means adding more pesky tasks to your schedule that you never seem to have enough hours in the day for.

That’s why so many Instagram growth services and Instagram marketing services have begun popping up. These tools take on the burden of getting you more followers and let you reap all the benefits.

It’s a great idea. But with so many options out there, trying to determine the best Instagram growth service for your brand can be overwhelming.

Think of this guide as a checklist you can follow as you vet organic Instagram growth services and decide which one is right for you.

Now let’s first take a look at the 12 best Instagram growth services on the market in 2020:

12 Best Instagram Growth Services

1. Kicksta

Kicksta helps you get real, organic followers by automating engagement marketing tactics. After you create an account, you provide Kicksta with a few sample accounts whose followers are people you want to target. This can be a list of your competitors, complementary brands, influencers in your niche, etc. Then Kicksta will automatically engage and like posts of the followers of the target accounts that you listed. 

This inspires them to come and check out your page, where they decide if they want to follow you – completely organic. Inside your account you can set your filters so you get the best followers and monitor your growth with tracking. Kicksta’s Standard Plan is $49/month and the Premium Plan is $99/month for more targets, support options, and maximum growth.

2. Upleap

Upleap pairs you with an account manager to grow your following, promising more followers, real results, smart targeting and more. (Although their site doesn’t explain how they generate these results). You can set filters for your preferred hashtags, users and categories, and you can track your growth and monitor your best and worst performing hashtags. After a three day free trial, you can upgrade to a paid plan at monthly or annual rates. Monthly, Lite is $39/month, Standard is $69/month, and Premium is $99/month. For the annual options, Lite is $349/year, Standard is $579/year, and Premium is $709/year.

3. Gramista

The next growth service is Gramista, which asks you to provide hashtags and locations to target people with certain interests or in certain areas. Then, Gramista’s bot will like and follow and unfollow accounts on your behalf, while trying to not be flagged for spammy behavior. You can also customize your follow/unfollow speed and can track every action taken. You can choose daily or monthly plans. One day of growth costs $1.79, three days is $4.99, and seven days is $10.99. A 30-day package is $39.99, a 60-day package is $64.99, and a 90-day package is $89.99.

4. Social Captain

Next up, Social Captain boasts automatic growth, better productivity, and a beautiful dashboard. The way Social Captain engages with potential followers on your behalf is through likes, comments, and direct messages. Liking is a good strategy, but auto-comments and DMs can be seen as spam. Target your ideal followers with hashtags, usernames, and filters, or use AI with their upgraded Turbo option. Watch your growth in the crisp, clean dashboard. The Growth Plan is available for $15/week or $39/month, or upgrade to Turbo for $99/month for more engagement and better support.

5. Buzzoid

Buzzoid is a growth platform that claims to offer followers and likes in minutes, and that all orders are delivered within an hour of purchase, or you can get your money back. They don’t detail how they grow your following or get you likes, but after you sign up you can submit your account for followers or specific posts for likes. Their prices range depending on the type and quantity of engagement you want. Video views range from $1.99 for 500 views, to $74.99 for 50,000 views, whereas their premium followers range from $11.99 for 500 followers to $84.99 for 5,000 followers. 

6. Combin

Another Instagram growth service is Combin, whose platform offers “Instagram audience management and attraction.” Combin is different from other platforms because it’s a desktop tool. You’ll choose the exact profiles and posts you want to engage with, and then Combin will do so at a normal rate. You can save the searches you run for future reference, and you can use advanced filters to optimize your targeting. If you want to leave comments, you can pre-write a few comments Combin will cycle through as it leaves them. You can choose Combin’s free trial, or upgrade to a Personal plan for $15/month or Business for $30/month.

7. AiGrow

If you’re looking to grow your following with artificial intelligence, AiGrow offers that. AiGrow likes potential followers’ posts for you, and it will follow and unfollow accounts, too. You can hyper-target the types of users you want to follow, based on hashtags, locations, and accounts they follow, and you can control the speed that AiGrow takes actions on your behalf.

AiGrow offers a free plan and then starts at $75/month (for 12 months) for 300+ new followers each month, and can get as high as $100/month (for 3 months) for 1500-2000 new followers each month, or $150/month for a dedicated account manager.

8. Instaboostgram

Instaboostgram is another Instagram growth service to consider. Their process is easy: choose your package, enter your username, make your purchase, see the followers roll into your account. Now, they don’t explain how they find these followers for you. They also boast instant delivery, although some customers have seen their new followers leave them over the next few hours. They don’t offer any analytics, as they act as a storefront for a certain number of followers. You can choose from $2.89 for 100 followers, all the way up to $189.99 for 25,000 followers.

9. Instazood

Another popular Instagram growth platform is Instazood. After signing up with Instazood, customers choose the accounts they want to target from a dashboard that also includes DMs, posts, and comments. Their bot will then automatically engage with these accounts, from viewing Stories to sending DMs, and everything in between.

Within your dashboard you can also see the click-through rate of a particular post, and you can analyze promotion types and various metrics. When it comes to pricing, the Instagram bot is $11.99/month, the Auto Direct Message is $11.99/month, Comment Tracker and Search Tools are each $7.99/month, and Manual Promotion is $11.99/month.

10. Ampfluence

Ampfluence prides themselves on being a “100% human-powered service.” The process begins with a consultation to understand your audience and strategy, then research to understand what’s working in your industry, then engagement with consistent interactions, and then finally analytics to easily see results. They’ll also reply to comments on your account for you.

They have three packages: Engagement is $129/month, Growth is $199/month and includes hashtag research and standard reporting, and Growthx2 is $299/month with priority support and custom reporting. Growth averages 250+ organic followers, and Growthx2 averages 500+.

11. Social Buddy

Social Buddy promises real followers, not bots or fake accounts. They target real people based on the information you share, like niche, competitors and hashtags. Then, Social Buddy lets these accounts know that your page exists and encourages them to visit your page and follow you. They’ll also target influencers and the people following your competitors. They estimate that you’ll grow your following by about 150-500 followers each week. Social Buddy’s Growth plan is $99/month.

12. Mr. Insta

Finally, let’s talk about Mr. Insta. You can get started for free by following a few select accounts, and then you’ll activate your account and see the followers coming in. You can even ask for more free followers every 12 hours. Or, you can pay for automatic followers, although Mr. Insta doesn’t share how they find these followers. You can choose to subscribe on a monthly basis, or just buy a set number of followers. Get 15 new followers each day for $20/month, 30 followers a day for $40/month, or 60 followers a day for $80/month. Or buy a set of followers, ranging from 250 followers for $10 up to 10,000 followers for $190.

Now let’s dive into it. Here’s what you should look for to find and choose the best Instagram growth service in 2020.

Instagram Growth Services: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The primary goal of Instagram growth services is to help you increase your followers. Obviously.

But the best Instagram growth service will help you increase your reach organically and gain you real followers, not just make your numbers look good.

It’s true. Some Instagram growth services have a dark side and can put your account at risk with their spammy tactics, which is why some people are hesitant to use these tools. .

Low-quality Instagram growth services have been accused of getting accounts shadowbanned or even disabled by Instagram.

However, a high-quality Instagram growth service helps you promote your Instagram in a manner that is secure and beneficial to your brand.

Along with growing your Instagram following, a quality Instagram growth service will:

1. Save you a lot of time: They automate the process of getting more real followers on Instagram, doing the work for you so you can invest your time into more important tasks.
2. Increase your social credibility: Having a large number of followers on Instagram gives your brand a sense of authority in your niche and can open the door to more sales, collaborations, and opportunities.
3. Improve client satisfaction: If you are a Social Media Manager or digital agency,
   Instagram growth services ensure your accounts are consistently growing, which keeps clients happy and increases retention.
4. Increase your sales: If you’re an e-commerce brand  marketer aiming to earn Instagram affiliate money, having more followers on Instagram means more opportunities to sell your products, especially with Instagram’s latest shopping features.
5. Improve your engagement rate: Given the changes to the Instagram algorithm, having a strong enagement rate on Instagram is just as important as having a high following.

The best Instagram growth service will help you achieve all of these goals on autopilot. Now let’s go over how to determine if an IG growth service is legitimate and which ones to avoid.

Check out this infographic and read the article below to know the things you need to look for in finding the best Instagram growth service in 2020.

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<p><strong>Please include attribution to https://kicksta.co/ with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href='https://blog.kicksta.co/best-instagram-growth-service/'><img src='https://51chq46p2eu3z0o231w2i5ow-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/How-To-Find-the-Best-Instagram-Growth-Service-Infographic-Optimized-850x2200.jpg' alt='How To Find The Best Instagram Growth Service In 2019' width='700' border='0' /></a></p>

1. Find an Instagram Growth Service That Focuses On Real Followers

Low-quality Instagram marketing services are notorious for getting people ghost followers— fake or inactive users who don’t engage with your content.

You won’t see any true growth and you definitely won’t see any engagement, website clicks, or sales from their “followers.”

The best Instagram growth service will focus on real followers that will not only increase your following, but improve your business as well.

Avoid These Types of Instagram Growth Services

Three things that should be instant red flags when looking for an Instagram growth service:

1. Anyone who guarantees a certain number of followers
2. Services that want you to buy followers
3. Preloaded accounts with “thousands” of followers

Let’s unpack each of these concepts a little further.

The “Guaranteed” Number of Followers

First, if anyone guarantees you a certain number of Instagram followers from working with them, run!

A truly organic service, one that gives the end user the decision to follow you, can never promise a set number. It’s just not possible.

If somehow the service is always getting you exactly “x” followers per month, it will undoubtedly be through ghost followers and fake accounts. Which brings us to our next point.

Buying Followers For Instagram

You should never buy followers for Instagram.

Best case scenario, you’ll end up with followers who are uninterested in your page and your engagement rate will suffer. Ghost followers take away from your credibility and make it almost impossible to measure the results of your marketing efforts.

Worst case scenario, Instagram disables your account for spam behavior. This tactic is very clearly outside the terms of service of Instagram and is the number one reason accounts get disabled.

Buying followers on Instagram may seem like a quick fix, but is never worth it.

The Preloaded Account

This is when you buy an account that has thousands of followers. But if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Eventually, these followers will drop off. Again, they are probably ghost followers.

On the off chance that they are real people, there is no guarantee that they will be interested in your brand. You have no idea what was being promoted on this account before you, so how can you be sure your brand will resonate with these followers?

Its an unnecessary risky investment.

Instead, Look for These Types of Instagram Growth Services

So, what should you look for in an Instagram marketing service?

First, find a service that talks explicitly about organic growth. When it comes to social media, the term “organic growth” refers to the number of users who happen across your post or profile without boosted distribution. Organic growth is achieved by consistently posting engaging content, usually the result of using the right photo and video editing tools to polish photos to help them resonate with potential followers.

Organic growth is crucial for your brand’s reach and reputation.

“Everything nowadays is shifting towards ‘organic’. So when pondering upon whether to choose organic or spam tactics to drive more followers, you know what the answer is!”

– Ilona Iftode, Preppr

Second, any service you consider should emphasize real followers for Instagram. We’ve already covered all the reasons ghost followers are bad. With ghost followers, your business is never going to get off the ground, even if you have thousands of them.

A good organic Instagram growth service will tell you the same.

And finally, find a service that explains to you exactly how it works. Don’t settle for a nice tag line with the buzzwords organic and real, look for the proof.

Kicksta, for instance, has a video that shows any customers or prospective customers how the magic happens.

Honesty and transparency are the best qualities you can find in an Instagram growth service, so look for a tool that offers both.

2. Examine Methods Used by the Instagram Growth Service

Each Instagram growth service uses a specific method to get you more organic Instagram followers; this could be liking photos posted by people in your target audience, following users in your audience, auto-commenting, or sending automatic direct messages.

Each of these tactics have their own benefits and drawbacks.

Before choosing a growth service, it’s important to identify which method is right for you and your goals.

The Liking Method

Many Instagram marketing services attempt to get you more followers by liking the photos of users in your target audience. This is by far the safest method for Instagram growth.

Truly organic Instagram growth services generally use this method to get more real followers for Instagram.

It’s a good idea to look for services that outline the specific range of actions that will be taken on your behalf.

If a service only performs a handful of actions, they’re not worth your time. On the other hand, too many actions could put your account at risk of being banned.

For example, Kicksta uses proprietary software to determine the specific amount of actions allowed by Instagram for each client’s account. This lets the maximum number of actions occur, but eliminates the risk of being banned.

The liking method comes across as the least intrusive method of growth to your potential followers, which is great if you want to steadily grow your audience without being too aggressive.

Because it is less intrusive, the liking method generally causes slower growth than other methods, but it’s still significant — and it’s still much more efficient than liking photos on your own.

The Follow/Unfollow Method

The follow/unfollow method might get you followers faster, as it tends to have a higher touch point.

A potential problem with this method: Following people is more intrusive than simply liking their photos. Although many people will follow you back initially, there is the risk that they unfollow you after a couple of days, which is a pretty common practice on Instagram.

Or if they stay, they might not engage with your account, since they followed you back primarily out of a sense of obligation.

The real issue, however, is that the follow/unfollow method is extremely obvious. If it’s not done correctly, there’s a high risk of Instagram banning your account.

HypeAuditor, a service that lets you analyze Instagram accounts for fake followers, can tell you whether an account has used follow/unfollow before in an unsafe way.

“Steer clear of Instagram growth services that use inauthentic strategies like untargeted engagement, following, and unfollowing.

These strategies produce short-lived growth. Instead, seek a strategy and service that will treat your audience like humans, learn about them and their needs, and respond authentically. In the end, it’s this type of authentic engagement that creates sustained growth.”

– Alana Rudder, Fit Small Business

The Auto-Comment or Auto-Direct Message Method

The method of automatically commenting on posts or sending direct messages has a higher touch point than the liking method, but less than the follow method.

However, it is by far the riskiest method. If you aren’t careful, auto-commenting and DMs can really hurt the reputation of your brand; it tends to come off as very spammy.

And again, you run the risk of Instagram blocking or banning your account.

Auto-commenting by incorrectly programmed bots makes your account seem extremely spammy because people receive irrelevant interactions from your account. Sending automatic DMs is much the same and can also be very intrusive. People don’t want to receive direct messages from a brand they don’t even know.

If you’re trying to grow your Instagram following, “spammy” is not the vibe you want to put off.

The best Instagram growth services will not use the automatic comment and DM methods.

3. Determine the Targeting Options Offered by the Instagram Growth Service

Before you decide on an IG growth service, you need to figure out how they choose which users to target. If they don’t target users who would have a genuine interest in your brand, you’re not going to see much (if any) true growth.

You might get followers, but you won’t get relevant followers who are right for your band.

Gramista, for instance, simply begins liking accounts at random if you do not add specific targets during sign-up.

This is a bad idea!

It makes no sense to engage with people outside your target audience. They’re not going to care about your brand, interact with your brand, or become a customer of your brand (which is, after all, your ultimate goal).

Any growth service that doesn’t give you multipule methods to target your audience, is not a growth service worth using.

The best Instagram growth services use locations, hashtags, and accounts to find your target audience. As an added bonus, look for IG growth services that teach you how to pick targets and get the most of out their program.

“Most spammers usually target hashtags for targeting their customers so selecting hashtags smartly is the best way to defend yourself against spam.”

– Aayush Bhaskar, B for Bloggers

4. Pay Close Attention to the Instagram Growth Service’s Filtering Options

Equally as important as interacting with the right audiences, you want to make sure you can avoid the wrong audiences.

Even some of the most organic Instagram growth services don’t have enough effective filters in place, which can cause you to like inappropriate pictures and damage your brand’s reputation.

There are many different ways to tailor your audience to fit your specific needs.

As an example, here are the filters we offer at Kicksta to help clients segment their audience to their preferences.

• Ignore private accounts. Private accounts have to accept your follow request before you can view and like their photos, which tends to be a waste of time.
• Ignore inactive accounts. Kicksta avoids accounts that haven’t posted in the past 90 days. Since there’s a good chance these users are inactive, there’s no need to spend time trying to engage with them.
• Ignore suspicious accounts. “Suspicious” accounts are accounts that don’t have the right follower-to-following ratio. These accounts could be bots.
• Ignore new accounts. Kicksta has a filter for accounts that have been newly created in the last few months.
• Profanity filter. Your brand has a reputation, and it needs to be protected. That’s why Kicksta doesn’t interact with posts that include profanity.
• Gender filter. Is your audience primarily male? Or primarily female? If so, use this filter to target users that are only male or only female.
• Foreign language filter. This filter saves everybody time by avoiding non-English-speaking users.
• Business accounts filter. The business account filter is for B2C companies. If your business targets consumers, there’s no need to spend time with business accounts.
• Blacklist filter. Kicksta’s blacklist filter lets you avoid certain people.

Choose an IG growth service that has many diverse filtering options. This will save you time and help you reach as many members of your true target audience as possible.

5. Make Sure Their Dashboard Meets Your Needs

Once you specify your audience and tailor your filters to meet your needs… what’s next?

Tracking your growth, of course.

The Instagram growth service you use should provide detailed analytics to show you not only how many followers you’ve gained, but where they came from.

For example, Kicksta’s Dashboard allows you to track overall growth day-by-day to see progress.

“The best way to get fast followers on Instagram is to set up an Instagram growth service directly to your target audience. Analyze the results and set up the tool directly on the audience that likes you the most.

Don’t be afraid of low CTRs. The average CTR of a successful promotion is 20-35%.”

– Max Dalton, Ingramer

In addition, our target analysis also helps you determine which accounts are giving you the best return and which ones are falling flat. This helps you learn which types of targets perform best so you can optimize growth by adding similar accounts.

If you’re a social media manager, you’ll also want to make sure you have access to a dashboard that is capable of managing multiple accounts in one place.

You may also consider white-labeling the Instagram software, which allows you to consistently grow your client’s Instagram followers under your brand name.

6. Don’t Forget About Customer Support

Up to this point, we’ve covered all the features the best Instagram growth service should have.

But do not underestimate the power of strong customer support.

This is a factor you definitely want to check out before choosing a service.

Companies with poor customer service are hugely frustrating, so choosing a service with quaility support will save you lots of time down the road.

Depending on your level of Instagram experience and how serious you are about targeting your audience, you may look for companies that have the following:

1. FAQ Help Center
2. Support Videos
3. Live Chat
4. Dedicated Customer Support Team

7. Check Out their Online Reputation

Last, but certainly not least, you’ll want to check out the overall online reputation of each Instagram marketing service.

Websites like Trustpilot and G2 Crowd can help you find information on companies and learn what kind of experiences other customers have had.

For instance, Upleap got the following review on Trustpilot: “I have had a very positive experience using Upleap so I came here to recommend it. I was able to gather hundreds and hundreds of followers in a matter of a week! My only concern is pricing. Customer service is also very good, very easy to communicate.”

On G2 Crowd, a review of Kicksta reads, “We love that Kicksta lets us optimize our followers and grow organically without having to spend a ton of time on our account growth. We can’t say there is anything we don’t like about Kicksta. Great client support!”

Third-party review websites are a good way to help you make an informed decision.

Case studies and testimonials on a growth service’s website can help, too — the more in-depth they are, the better. Kicksta’s testimonial videos name specific companies and link to their website, and Kicksta’s case studies explain in detail exactly how Kicksta has helped its clients get organic Instagram followers. How’s that for social proof?

8. Compare Pricing for Quality

When budgeting for an Instagram growth service, it is important to remember one thing: you get what you pay for.

Growth services can range anywhere from $5 to $200 per month, which is quite a wide range.

As you price each IG growth service, keep your goals in mind. Do you want to gain more quality followers? If so, you’re not going to get them from a cheap growth service.

Don’t forget to look into:

• Dedicated IP Adresses: A unique Internet address that’s meant for one hosting account)
• Private Proxy: A type of server that provides a little extra privacy
• Customer Support vs. Customer Service: Individual attention vs. a support ticket system

Special services like these add on to the overall price, so a service that costs $5 won’t be giving you everything you need to grow your brand.

Muli-tier pricing is also a big plus!

Some growth services charge a flat fee no matter who you are and what your goals are, but others have 2-4 pricing options, which allows you to choose a plan that’s more tailored to you as you select an organic Instagram growth service.

Finally, keep an eye out for money-back guarantees and free trials, which can make it a little easier to go for that initial investment.

What is the Best Instagram Growth Service in 2020?

Basically it comes down to: How much do you care about the quality of your followers?

There are plenty of services out there that can increase the “number of followers” that is displayed on your profile.

But if you’re serious about Instagram marketing, you know that simply having more followers will not improve your brand.

Instagram is constantly improving its platforms and implementing new integrations to help brands and business monetize the platforms.

So it’s more important than ever to build an engaged community on Instagram.

We may be a little bias…. but we have also been around the block and know how to spot a shady Instagram growth service.

Kicksta was founded on the belief that truly organic tactics are the only way to help brands and business gain real followers on Instagram.

For this reason, Kicksta is the Best Instagram growth service in 2020.