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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How To Claim an Inactive Instagram Username Account – Alphr
The Market for Instagram UsernamesIf you’re setting up an Instagram account and have thought of the perfect username that reflects your individuality or mission, you may realize that an inactive account has the username. For companies and influencers trying to jumpstart an Instagram presence, having the correct username is inactive account is one that got abandoned or didn’t get used for an extended period. If the profile has the username you so desperately need, there’s no direct way to obtain it, but there are several things you can an Instagram UsernameThere are numerous secondary markets where holders of good usernames can sell them for sums ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of the most part, the people making money selling names are those who staked out their accounts in the early days and had the foresight to pick usernames that other people or businesses will eventually metimes a name becomes valuable because a movie or show, or album comes out. Suddenly, ‘BigBangTheory’ goes from being an excellent account for a physics student to being a highly sought-after property. If the profile becomes “inactive, ” you may be able to get the nding Their Contact InformationJust because the account is inactive doesn’t mean that the owner isn’t around. It may be that they would be delighted to sell you their old profile. However, getting in touch with them may be the tricky course, you can send a Direct Message on the Instagram platform itself. Though, if the person isn’t active on Instagram, there’s a good chance that they won’t see your DM for quite some time if they even see it at can check the bio of the account to try and get information about it. There are a few things to look for people put a contact e-mail address in their bio or even their personal website’s URL. If that’s the case, your quest is probably already people are more privacy-minded and don’t put that kind of direct contact information there. However, they may include links or references to their other social media accounts, such as their Facebook pages or LinkedIn bio. If you have this person’s name, you can always search through different social media sites and send them a you have no idea how much to offer, you might look up similar accounts at Instagram account market sites like InstaSale and see the pricing of profiles with You Get an Inactive Instagram Username? Instagram will purge inactive users eventually. This action offers another way to get your Instagram Delete Inactive Accounts? Yes, they will delete inactive accounts, although the time it takes for them varies depending on the website’s example, purges usually happen at random, or at least they seem random. Often these purges occur at the end of the for an Instagram PurgeIf the account you want is genuinely inactive and doesn’t have much or any content on it, there is an excellent chance that it will eventually get purged from the Instagram database. It’s no guarantee, but the inactive account you want may get dropped, and the username will become available stagram does not announce the schedule for its purges, so you won’t get a heads up to alert you to start trying to grab any usernames on your list. The best way to detect a purge is to follow one of the perennially popular Instagram accounts with a relatively stable follower list and check their follower count they have thousands of followers, then at least some of those followers are undoubtedly spam accounts or bots, and a purge will cut their follower list by some non-trivial quantity of users. If your monitored account goes from 9, 341 followers to 9, 102 followers overnight (and there’s not some apparent scandalous post driving the loss), the odds are good that Instagram did a purge, and some usernames are now up for ademark or Copyright the NameYou can go through the process of getting a patent online. Once the patent gets obtained, you can report the inactive account to Instagram. Although this may take time and an additional expense, this is an option for users have reported success by asking Instagram to transfer an account. When you hold a trademark on a name, you can argue that your customers’ existing accounts are confusing. Copyright infringement can be an effective way to obtain your Instagram you hold such a trademark or copyright, you can file a copyright/trademark violation report and attempt to claim the name as your the account is active and frequently used, you may have difficulty succeeding with this tting a new trademark is a complicated and expensive process, but getting copyright protection is reasonably straightforward. Any time you create anything original, you have implicit copyright; you can file an official copyright registration to cement your legal claim, but the claim is made by referencing the work, not by the act of filing the claim. In other words, you must use the name consistently and prove the damages it could incorporate if someone else uses course, you can also report a copyright issue directly to Instagram too. Head over to this link on the Instagram website and file a a Similar NameAlthough this may seem obvious, choosing a similar username is the simplest way to set up your Instagram account. Adding an underscore or a number is simple and stagram usernames can be up to 30 characters long and contain letters, numbers, periods, and underscores. This specification gives you quite a bit of flexibility in creating a close name to the one you so desire. You may need to use a little imagination, but the rest should be straightforward you run a business, add a city or location to your name. You can do the same for surnames or others. This move can help maintain your brand and add a quick local identifier that may work in your favor. You can also add the type of business to the arounds For Larger BrandsIf you’re a more significant business or a more established brand, adding ‘official’ or ‘real’ at the end of your Instagram account can work too. Artists with common names often do this, so you can do need to be careful about emulating established brands, however. Suppose you create an account for Microsoft Software. In that case, it’s a legal account name – but if you reach a level of success and visibility where Microsoft sees your account, they will shut you down promptly using the same trademark and copyright tools I described above. You can’t infringe on other people’s protected intellectual property just as much as they can’t intrude on you’re having trouble obtaining a username but there are no accounts with it, remember that some get set to private. If this is the case, the username is unavailable, and you cannot search for the eated Account But Can’t log inSeveral users have reported that they’ve created a new Instagram account with the perfect username and receive the “Sorry, Something Went Wrong” error message. Clicking the ‘Try Again’ option or trying to log in doesn’t work. Unfortunately, the username got taken, and you can’t log in. So what are you to do if this has happened? You can contact Instagram Support, which may or may not be helpful. If you have screenshots of the error message or username, that would be using a different application or web browser to log into your new Instagram account. This could be a simple glitch with the in with Facebook and see if your new account shows. Assuming you used similar login credentials, the new account may for a few hours, then try to log back into your Instagram above situation can be incredibly frustrating when you’ve created the perfect Instagram username and can’t access the account. Trying the tips we’ve outlined may help you regain equently Asked Questions Does Instagram delete inactive users? Yes, but after some time. Although we don’t know the exact process, Instagram does state that it’s essential to log into your account to avoid a purge. The company does not give time frames for when a profile gets purged. What can I do if I need help with my Instagram account or username? Instagram does have a help site that you can visit to get assistance or answers for various things. If you can’t access your account or if someone is accessing it unlawfully, check out the Instagram Help Center. How long does it take for a username to become available after someone deletes their account? Instagram has not given us the official word on this. Still, many users have reported they could take the name as soon as the original owner deleted their account. Keep in mind, the profile will need to be permanently deleted. If you’re trying to buy a username from another user, be sure you’ve obtained the username before sending payment.
For sale: Instagram account, lightly used – Vox
“Beautiful or not? ” captions a typical post on @fashions__ootd. The Instagram account posts photos of different outfits against a white background and asks its followers to comment with their opinions. A typical post features a carousel of photos of jeans and sweaters with a slew of growth-promoting hashtags. It’s common to see these sorts of niche interest profiles throughout Instagram, accounts that rely on generic pictures to build a following. A closer look at @fashions__ootd, though, will show something a little less common — in its bio, it advertises that it’s for sale.
The same is true for @ikpowervintage, which, until a few weeks ago, was advertising its for-sale status in its Instagram stories. @ikpowervintage posts photos of stylish young women, usually at the beach or in European cities, all edited with the same grainy filter. It’s racked up 33, 000 followers, and a highlighted story on the page lists @ikpowervintage’s prices for shoutouts to other profiles — $5 for a post, $3 for a story.
Although Instagram’s terms and conditions strictly forbid users to “buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username), ” accounts like these are sold on Facebook pages, in Instagram direct messages, and even on dedicated online marketplaces across the world. A single account can sell for thousands of dollars, depending on the size of its follower base. And an entire economy — of buyers, sellers, middlemen, professional flippers, and marketplaces — has sprung up around Instagram accounts.
Followers are what make Instagram, which reached 1 billion users in June 2018, so popular with buyers and resellers; a large audience can be translated into revenue by posting sponsored content, selling shoutouts on Instagram Stories, or selling products directly. For those willing to spend the cash upfront, buying an account that already has thousands of followers can ostensibly save a burgeoning memer or startup business the onerous process of building an audience.
While a similar moneymaking opportunity exists on YouTube, building a large Instagram following doesn’t require making original creative content. A YouTuber has to shoot and edit videos for their channel, which typically lends itself to a very recognizable and personal brand. An Instagram account runner, on the other hand, can repost pictures of tropical beach locations and gain a following in the tens of thousands without ever uploading a picture they themselves took.
These types of Instagram profiles, ones that post photos related to a theme rather than the individual user, are commonly referred to as “niche” or “theme” accounts by those involved in building, buying and selling Instagram pages. The opposite of niche accounts is personal accounts, where the content is mostly original photos and captions pertaining to the user’s daily life. These personal Instagrams may be where the most lucrative brand sponsorships happen, but niche accounts are where most of the buying and selling is taking place. A user can buy a niche account specializing in vegan food and continue to post content, including ads for their new vegan protein powder, without disrupting their theme.
Ilham Noor Habibie, a 20-year-old college student in Indonesia, lists his Instagram pages for sale on the Facebook page “Buy, Sell or Exchange [Group, Pages, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and more]”. He started selling Instagram accounts at the beginning of 2018, and through Facebook Messenger, he told me that he sells Instagram accounts that are “mostly about public figures, ” always with more than 5, 000 followers.
The latest Instagram profile he posted on “Buy, Sell or Exchange” has 25, 000 followers, and he listed it for $30. He uploaded a screenshot of the account with his post that showed a nearly blank account, with just one selfie of a young woman. “This is just additional work to meet my college needs, ” he said, and estimated that last year he made about $700 selling 10 Instagram accounts.
Habibie is just one of the 4, 503 members of “Buy Sell or Exchange” trying to buy or sell social media accounts. The page is full of screenshots of various accounts, with posters detailing the number of followers they have and the price they’re asking for the account. While the Facebook page sells multiple forms of social media (per its name), Instagram accounts are by far the most common offering.
The amount of money Habibie has made selling accounts is on the low end of the market. A 23-year-old entrepreneur and installation technician from Ohio, who asked to be referred to by the name he releases music under, Ace Looney, estimated that he has sold 50 Instagram accounts in the past two years. While he reported selling some for as low as $30, the most lucrative account sold for $800. He had started out trying to build a large following on Instagram in order to promote his music, when others began offering to pay him to post shoutouts to their music accounts on his Instagram Stories, a common practice for musicians. As he learned more about the money to be made on Instagram, a mentor taught him how to sell accounts, and his business took off from there.
What Ace Looney’s mentor taught him wasn’t just how to find buyers through Instagram DMs and on Facebook pages, but how to buy low and sell high, flipping an Instagram account like one might a piece of real estate. Thor Aarsand, a 19-year-old social media influencer from Norway, is well-versed in the art of flipping Instagram accounts. In 2017, he sold his first account, one he had built from the ground up, for $400.
After his first successful sale, Aarsand began looking for quicker ways to turn a profit. “I found people that were selling accounts for cheap, I bought them from them, and then I went to Facebook. ” He advertised the accounts on Facebook groups about Instagram, finding buyers who would make his investment worthwhile.
He initially found accounts to sell by searching for popular hashtags on Instagram, like the names of Bollywood actresses, and then asked the users behind fan accounts if they had any other niche accounts they were willing to put up for sale.
Aarsand doesn’t flip accounts anymore because he finds the process too time-consuming, but said that while he was flipping, he would typically purchase an account with anywhere from around 50, 000 to 100, 000 followers for $500 to $1, 000, and then flip it for upward of $2, 000. Aarsand would try to flip accounts immediately, but if he couldn’t sell an account right off the bat, he would continue to grow it to try to increase its value. “People actually don’t know what they should price their accounts at, ” he said. “You can find crazy-good deals. ”
Freddy Nager, an adjunct professor of communications at USC, has seen comparable selling prices. “Instagram accounts can sell for anything — for, like, a few hundred bucks to a few thousand dollars, ” he said. Nager said the price is mainly determined by the number of followers an account has, and what percentage of those followers engage with the account’s photos by liking or commenting on them.
When I spoke with Chris Gonzalez, the chief marketing officer at NeoReach, an influencer marketing firm in Orlando, he pointed out that a lot of accounts being bought and sold, especially meme accounts, end up getting passed back and forth rather than making money off large sponsorships. Gonzalez and NeoReach are not in the business of buying and selling Instagram accounts, but as part of his job working with influencers, Gonzalez has been exposed to this underground market.
“There’s just not enough frequency in branded deals and native advertising deals” to go around, he said. This means that often people will buy an account with the hope that they will potentially be able to sell it again. “A lot of the cash in the [buy and sell] economy is recycled cash in the economy, ” he said. “It’s all kind of staying in this marketplace. ”
When I reached out to Instagram about this article, the company responded by reiterating its terms, which clearly ban buying and selling accounts. “We have a variety of ways to determine when an account may have been compromised, sold, or traded including automated detection signals, user reports, and other methods, ” representatives for the app said. Instagram doesn’t keep statistics on how many accounts have been suspended because they were bought or sold, and when I asked if they had ever taken any legal action against a buyer or seller, they said they couldn’t comment on legal cases.
That said, the buyers and sellers I spoke with were not worried about Instagram suspending their accounts. “The thing is Instagram can’t really know if an account has been sold or if it’s being managed, ” said Aarsand, who says he has multiple accounts currently being managed by someone else.
Still, because of Instagram’s terms, buyers and sellers have to operate in semi-secret, which — unsurprisingly — breeds scammers. On Facebook pages and Reddit threads, buyers and sellers often call out people who have scammed them, by either not paying what they owe a seller or not turning over the login information for an account to a buyer. There are also instances of hackers selling stolen accounts, which they hacked to take advantage of a unique name or high follower count.
The most common way buyers and sellers combat scams is to use PayPal’s “Goods and Services” function, which allows buyers to dispute a sale after it goes through. Getting scammed is still part of the risk for buyers and sellers, though — both Aarsand and Looney say they have been scammed multiple times.
As with any underground market, people have built systems to try to protect themselves. Middlemen, who often act as a low-tech escrow service on messaging apps like Telegram, will charge a percentage of the sale to moderate it. These middlemen, trusted supervisors who usually buy and sell Instagram accounts themselves, will be transferred money from the buyer and the necessary account information (like the username, password, associated email, and email password) from the seller. When they have both, they will give the money to the seller and the account information to the buyer, which gives the transaction an added level of security.
Gulam Mohiuddin Chandiwala has been one of these middlemen since September 2016. Over Telegram, he told me that “people needed [a middleman], so I became one. ” He charges 5 to 12 percent of the sale price for his services, and said that most people came to him after seeing his name vouched for on forums and in YouTube videos.
As a result of this underground economy, there are also online marketplaces specifically for buying and selling accounts. On these websites, Instagram accounts are listed with their username partially obscured, so that users can’t skip the sites’ fees and go directly to a seller. The niche of the account — travel, memes, fashion, etc. — is listed, as well as the follower count and average number of likes on a post.
is one of these online marketplaces. Its homepage promises that the accounts it sells all have “genuine and organic” followings, and that the transactions happen instantly. The founder of Toofame, who asked to go by his nickname Shad, said he and two others founded Toofame after years of buying and selling accounts themselves. “After some time [of buying and selling accounts], we thought, okay, we have a lot of buyers, a lot of sellers that we are working with, so we decided to create our own marketplace, ” he said. According to Shad, Toofame sells “hundreds” of accounts a year, mostly to businesses trying to advertise their products to a targeted audience.
Saru Saadeh, the founder of the digital advertising agency Iron Roots, says he always advises clients against buying accounts as a way to promote their business. “Not only because it’s against the terms of service, ” he said, “but also because you don’t really know exactly what you’re getting. ” Account followings are often inflated by fake followers and engagement pods, and even then, you don’t know if people who enjoy looking at a curated stream of photos necessarily translate to customers. “You can hope that it’s the right target audience, but nothing is certain, so typically the best way [is] to organically build an audience and just do it the hard way, ” he said.
As long as there is money to be made on Instagram, there will likely be people trying to get a piece of it, which includes buying and selling accounts. But when it comes to paying thousands of dollars for an account and breaking your contract with Instagram, USC’s Nager says to be mindful of the potential consequences. Users “don’t own a piece of Instagram. They’re renting that little space, ” he said. “And they can get kicked off anytime. If Instagram feels that this profile is violating its terms of service, they can shut it down. And in [that] case, what have you purchased? ”
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Frequently Asked Questions about purchase instagram handle
Can I buy an Instagram name?
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
Is it legal to sell Instagram handles?
Although Instagram’s terms and conditions strictly forbid users to “buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username),” accounts like these are sold on Facebook pages, in Instagram direct messages, and even on dedicated online marketplaces across the world.Feb 1, 2019
How much is a 100K Instagram account worth?
100K Instagram account is worth $700–$900.Dec 29, 2020