Can I Buy An Instagram Account
10 Things You Need to Know Before You Buy Instagram …
Asja Francisti
Sep 05 2018
Building a loyal Instagram follower base from scratch takes a lot of hard work, time, and patience, which is why many businesses decide to take a shortcut and simply buy Instagram accounts. However, before you do that, make sure you’re aware of all the risks and potential pitfalls that may come from that.
Instagram is one of the best social media channels for advertising and building your brand. Around 60% of Instagram users learn about a product or service on this social network. This is an astounding number considering the fact that half a billion people log in on a daily basis, and this number keeps growing.
While Instagram has the highest engagement rates, the new algorithm makes a new business’ breakthrough a bit tricky. It focuses on posts and users with a good track of engagement. This pushes to the curb those who still haven’t built their follower network and results in 70% of Instagram posts failing to get noticed.
If you feel the only way to overcome these obstacles is buying Instagram accounts, let’s clear two things first. Buying Instagram accounts goes against Instagram’s terms of service. Second, buying an Instagram account is not the same thing as buying Instagram followers. Let’s explain.
1. Buy Instagram accounts at your own risk
Buying Instagram accounts goes against the social network’s terms of service. On Instagram, you are not allowed to “buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username) or solicit, collect, or use login credentials or badges of other users.
If you buy Instagram accounts, you buy them with awareness that Instagram can shut them down at any point if their team finds out or finds something fishy about this account.
Since this process takes place “under the table, ” there is no official guarantee that acquiring someone else’s account won’t turn out to be a scam that will cost you more money and nerves than acquiring followers organically.
2. Buying followers ≠ buying accounts
Let’s cut this conversation short – don’t buy followers. Chances are they are not real and even if they are, people can tell a difference between paid and genuine engagement. In the long run, bots can make you look stupid and seriously harm your brand’s reputation.
Several examples of bot comments completely irrelevant to the post. (Source: Einstein Marketer)
You’ll probably find websites that sell followers for ridiculously low amounts of money. These followers are unlikely to engage with your posts, and even if they do, their comments will be pointless generic comments filled with emojis.
If you are still not convinced, Andrew Tate from AdEspresso conducted a case study on Instagram. He spent one month attracting followers the old-fashioned way. The next month, he switched to a fully bot-run method. Here are the results.
Source: AdEspresso
The pitfalls connected to buying Instagram followers are similar to those that may await you if you decide to buy Instagram accounts. But if you are still positive that you want to proceed with this plan – take care of a few things.
If you buy Instagram accounts directly from a seller
1. Run a background check
This means that you should make sure the person you are talking to exists and owns the account. Second, you want to make sure that their followers are not bots. Go through their posts and look at the comments, and noticing fake accounts should not be too difficult. If you want to be 100% positive, here is a great free tool that enables you to run a quick check on the account.
2. Run a niche check
It should go without saying, but you should double-check whether this account suits your needs. There is not much point in buying a fashionista’s account with 50K followers if you are trying to sell home improvement tools.
Since you’re already preparing to cash out for followers, don’t get scammed just because you were trying to save 30 bucks for background checks. This tool will give you an access to over 30 key metrics for any publicly available Instagram user. These metrics include most used hashtags and words/phrases, post frequency, average engagement, etc.
3. Agree on terms in detail
When you verify that the account, its owner, and followers are legit, create a sales contract. While I am not in a position to give any legal advice, there are plenty of legal experts and websites that can advise you on drafting a sales contract. In general, this contract needs to include:
Identity of the Parties
Date of Agreement
Description of Goods and/or Services
Payment
Delivery
Miscellaneous Provisions
You can find more details about sales contracts here.
4. Use a trusted payment service
First, make sure that the account belongs to the person you’re talking to. Any attempt to persuade you to send money through a third party, a friend or family should immediately raise a red flag.
Paypal is a good option, since this platform enables disputes, claims, chargebacks, and bank reversals, providing you with an added level of security.
5. Separate the payment into milestones
You can never be too careful, so it’s recommended to be in direct contact with the seller as the purchase takes place.
Seller will provide you with username and password. After you log in, you are supposed to change the email and password of the account, unlink it from the seller’s Facebook account and link it to yours. Only then you have the control over the sold Instagram account.
The seller will also ask for some assurance, because scams can run both ways, so it’s best to split the payment into two or three phases during this process. Keep in mind that, should anything go wrong, you can’t go and complain to Instagram, since that will end in termination of your and seller’s account. Also keep in mind that this account could end up deleted by Instagram at any point.
If you buy Instagram accounts from a middle-man service
While middle-man services promise to protect you from scams and fake followers, many of these services are equally scammy and shady. There are hundreds of forums with accounts listed for sale, including the famous e-bay, with prices ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars. Do yourself a favor and skip those. While some offers may be legit, both forums and e-bay are a scam minefield.
I went through some marketers’ forums and review websites to see how several well-known services that sell Instagram accounts fare among users. These are the results. And keep in mind that even there – you’re purchasing at your own risk.
1. ViralInstas
Currently, ViralInstas offers only up to 15K followers accounts in model/fashion/animal niche, while larger accounts are out of stock. This could imply that the website doesn’t stash fake accounts, and depends on the level of current offer among the account sellers.
One Instagram account will cost you $225, and according to their FAQ, you are provided with login info instantly upon purchase. The Instagram account’s username is visible on their website so you can run background checks on the account.
“I’ve bought multiple accounts for various clients from them since they offer instant passwords delivery which was a huge plus compared to when I used to purchase accounts via eBay and my clients would have to wait on the seller to provide the passwords, ” wrote one Quora user.
“All the accounts came with a manual on how to maintain and grow the page with info I myself found useful and aside from that they also came with a hashtag research tool tailored to each account which had about 500 or so hashtags related to each page and gave the probability that the account’s content would have of doing well for each of the hashtags so it basically gave my clients the best hashtags to use for their posts. ”
2. Viral Accounts
Viral Accounts connect buyers and sellers – you can find Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and other social media accounts here. They are an established company that boasts several big clients and is pretty straightforward about its company structure and whereabouts.
Viral Account does not only sell social media accounts – it also enables you to hire influencers, buy websites, domains, etc.
The price of one Instagram account on this website varies from $50-20, 000 USD, depending on followers’ location, their activity, and the account’s niche. The site runs on “we flip them as we get them” regime, so much like Viral Instas, certain accounts may be “out of stock. ” If you are interested in buying, you have to register and contact the Viral Accounts team.
This means that as a buyer, you may be put on a waitlist. Viral Accounts prioritizes the current pool of buyers and enables exclusively long-term clients with the option to request a property within their niche.
3. Social Tradia
On Social Tradia, you have a little bit more flexibility, as you can browse the available accounts by category. This, however, leaves it up to you to vet some of the accounts – if the link is available.
For example, it is pretty obvious that this 3. 8K yoga account is filled with stock photos with little meaningful engagement.
On the other hand, there are accounts marked as “authentic” by Social Tradia’s team. You’ll have to take their word for it, because they won’t provide you with a direct link for vetting.
Social Tradia ads one layer of assurance to the buyers, who can get a refund if they appeal within 24 hours of purchase.
Conclusion
Ultimately, keep in mind that each purchase of this type is a risk. Even the most genuine and successful Instagram account won’t bring you results if you don’t have a solid marketing strategy on your mind.
Here you can find some amazing, up to date advice on how to get found on Instagram search, how to get more followers, or how to make more money with your Instagram accounts. As you may conclude, the work you will have to put into nurturing these account is the same type of work you’d put into legitimate growth from scratch – so why not give it a shot?
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Should You Buy an Instagram Page? – Charles Tumiotto Jackson
Is it better than buying followers? Likes? Engagement? Or is it a scam? We all know how hard it is to build an audience on Instagram. If you have a personal Instagram page, you know how hard it is to get new people to discover your content. You may even know how hard it is for all your followers to get to see your you are starting a company or thinking about getting started on a new project, the idea of starting an Instagram account from scratch may terrify you. And that’s understandable. Imagine having to start from scratch again. Imagine the grind of getting your first 100 followers, then your first 1, 000. It takes a lot of time and is so hard to build an audience that the idea of buying likes, followers, and engagement gets very tempting. You may even think social proof will help you. You might imagine having 20, 000 followers is probably going to attract more people to your ever, you also know that buying followers and likes isn’t a sustainable way to grow your account. You know that it’s a risky practice and that it might compromise your account. But what about buying an existing account? You will not purchase likes nor followers. You will just buy an account with an existing community. You will only buy an account you can rebrand into what you an Instagram account appears to be the right compromise: you don’t have to start from zero, you get social proof, and you don’t have to deal with sketchy websites to buy followers and just like any other shortcut, buying an Instagram account isn’t going to help you in the long run. It may even discourage you and penalize you and your are several ways to buy accounts. You can do a quick Google search and visit marketplaces that will put you in relation with a seller. Some of these marketplaces are legit, some aren’t. Keep in mind that since buying accounts isn’t a practice that’s tolerated by Instagram, there’s nothing you can do if you get can also DM Instagram accounts that you would be interested in buying. This is a very common practice, actually, and lots of accounts will get back to you with a price. Of course, you want to target niche or theme pages; people aren’t probably going to sell their personal account or the account of their any case, try to target niche pages and theme pages. These accounts are usually created and grown with monetizing it in mind. You could also buy a theme page that’s in your niche. Let’s say you want to start selling supplements, then purchasing a fitness page or a diet page could be helpful for you as the audience you’re purchasing may be interested in the products that you are in mind that buying and selling accounts is risky, and there is technically no way to make it perfectly safe. However, to be extra cautious, you may want to ask for the email address used to login to the account and the password of this email address. If you don’t do that, the seller will always have a way to get the account back using the “I forgot my password” feature. Once you have the login information of the Instagram account, and the email address linked to it, you can go ahead and change the email address linked to the Instagram account, change the password of the Instagram account. You’re done, the account is making sure the Instagram you purchased is wholly yours, you are ready to rebrand the profile. You will go ahead and change the name, handle, bio, link in bio, everything. The account will now look entirely different from how it was looking before. There aren’t any limitations about changing the name, bio, and so on, and you should be able to customize every element of the changes can be seen by anyone on Instagram, on your profile, in the “about this account” section. Even if most people aren’t aware of that, and even if close to no one will actually check this information, just keep in mind that your rebranding can be visible. This is also a way for you to verify if an account you’re planning on purchasing has been bought and rebranded in the you start posting from the account you just bought and rebranded, the followers might be confused because they did not subscribe to the account you are posting from. From there, they might end up looking at your profile and decide whether or not they want to keep following you or general, posting from a rebranded profile results in a drop in engagement. When you rebrand an Instagram account, Instagram limits your reach automatically, showing your post to a small portion of your audience to see how this small group engages with your content. If the engagement is terrible, the reach will remain low. If this portion of your followers engages well with the content, then it will spread stagram is careful about rebranding an account as the platform wants to make sure that you keep producing high-quality content. A way to make sure your bought Instagram account performs better is to come up with a strategy to announce to your followers that you will rebrand. If you want to sell supplements and you just bought a fitness Instagram, keep posting fitness content and then announce that you will now sell supplements on top of that. Once you made the switch in content, you can then explain that you will rebrand. This way, the audience will be prepared, and they will understand why the account randomly changed name and will help with having a good engagement after you rebrand as your followers will understand what’s going on, then they won’t have to spend time and energy figuring out where this new content comes we’ve seen before, it can’t be 100% safe. However, if you follow the right practices I shared previously, you should be have to be very careful with the account you will buy. Selling an Instagram account is a big business, and some of them are not genuinely legit. Some accounts are full of fake followers; some others are just the result of some aggressive follow-unfollow method. You want to make sure the account that you are buying is decent quality. To make sure it is, you should follow the account for a few days before deciding whether or not you should buy it. See how many times they post, if they generate comments, if they reply to comments, if the accounts liking and commenting seem legit or not. Pay attention to details to make sure if an actual community follows the account or if it’s just a bunch of fake you buy an account full of fake followers, you won’t get any results, even if hundreds of thousands of users follow the account you purchased. That’s the main trap people fall into when they get started at buying Instagram an Instagram account is somewhat risky, and even if you don’t get scammed during the transaction, you might end up with an account that’s full of fake followers. Also, if the account is legit, rebranding it is risky, takes a lot of time and effort to be done right, and might not even drive the results that you ’t it be more comfortable and more long-term to learn to build an audience instead? I know starting on Instagram from scratch is hard; I’ve done it multiple times for clients. But this way, you can build an audience and a community that will likely convert in the long-run. If you want to make things happen quicker, take the budget you had to buy an Instagram account, and invest it towards Instagram Ads. This way, your growth will be faster and way better quality than what you will get from buying a shady Instagram may buy a super high-quality Instagram account, but if you don’t know how to build a community, you will stay stuck anyway. So commit, learn about how you can create a community, start from scratch, spend a few hundreds in ads, and you will get better results in a few days than what you would have gotten in weeks of struggle, rebranding, negotiating.
How Much Is an Instagram Account Worth? – Market Realist
Instagram, the photo and video-sharing app owned by Facebook, caters to individuals who want to share content instantly. Instagram has grown considerably since Facebook acquired it in 2012. Article continues below advertisement“The deal was a great strategic fit for Facebook’s mobile offering while removing a potential rival, ” according to Yahoo Finance. By August 2020, the platform had about 1 billion active monthly users. Source: UnsplashArticle continues below advertisementA widely-followed Instagram account can be worth a lot of money for the people creating its content. Major celebrity names like Kylie Jenner, Ariana Grande, and Cristiano Ronaldo make a lot of money from Instagram. Anyone with a devoted following can also earn a significant amount of money. While Instagram doesn’t directly compensate Instagrammers for posts, there are multiple ways to earn money through Instagram including brand sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and directing customers to your business or products. Article continues below advertisementBrands make deals with those who are deemed “influencers, ” who have a certain number of engaged followers on their Instagram account. In general, those with higher numbers of followers and a high level of engagement from those followers will command a larger payday. 10K Instagram account is worth $100The number of followers isn’t the only factor that determines how much an Instagram account is worth. Although a high number of followers is important, the compensation also depends on whether the followers are actively engaged with posts. Article continues below advertisementThe average engagement level for an Instagram account is about 3 percent, according to InfluencerMarketingHub. Therefore, “Any engagement rate above that, combined with a high number of followers, suggests that you are an influencer amongst your peers. ” Some digital marketers suggest one cent per follow as a basic rate of compensation, which would mean earning $100 per 10, 000 followers. A 10K-follower account’s worth also depends on other factors like engagement. Article continues below advertisement50K Instagram account is worth $500Using the one-cent-per-follow estimate, a 50K Instagram account might be worth about $500. Again, Instagrammers can earn money in various ways — marketing their own products, sponsored posts, and affiliate marketing. 100K Instagram account is worth $700–$900A sponsored photo posted by an Instagram account with 100, 000 followers might be worth $700–$900, according to InfluencerMarketingHub. Article continues below advertisementSource: UnsplashHow much is an Instagram account with 1 million followers worth? An Instagram account with an extraordinarily large following like 1 million followers is likely worth a lot of money. Reportedly, Kylie Jenner earned $1. 2 million per Instagram post last year. Her account has over 200 million followers as of December 2020, according to Statista. Article continues below advertisementA lesser-known area of Instagram monetization is that of curated accounts where the owner shares other creators’ work. One user explained that he earned $36, 000 over four years running a curated Instagram account with 1. 9 million followers, according to Medium. How to calculate Instagram username worthThere are online calculators where you can plug in your Instagram username to receive a rough estimate of your account’s worth. People do sell Instagram usernames (and usernames and accounts for other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube). However, Instagram actually prohibits the sale or transfer of any part of your account, according to Vox.
Frequently Asked Questions about can i buy an instagram account
Is buying an Instagram account worth it?
Buying an Instagram account is somewhat risky, and even if you don’t get scammed during the transaction, you might end up with an account that’s full of fake followers. … This way, your growth will be faster and way better quality than what you will get from buying a shady Instagram profile.Jul 12, 2020
How much is a 100K Instagram account worth?
100K Instagram account is worth $700–$900.Dec 29, 2020
Can you buy Instagram usernames?
Buying an Instagram Username There are numerous secondary markets where holders of good usernames can sell them for sums ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. … If the profile becomes “inactive,” you may be able to get the username.Oct 15, 2021
