Inside Instagram Growth Services: Booming Business, But At What Cost?

Instagram has exploded into one of the world‘s most active social networks. As of 2023, there are over 2 billion monthly active Instagram users spending over 30 billion cumulative minutes per day on the platform.essages, promotions, retail, or just plain inspiration – Instagram has become a go-to app for personal connections, influencer culture, and online brand-building.

With intense competition for attention and sighed lucrative potential influence and sponsorship deals, the drive to "make it" on Instagram has sparked an entire industry promising shortcuts to social media growth and fame: Instagram growth services.

Companies like Instoo, Growthsilo, and Ascend Viral claim they can quickly skyrocket key Instagram stats like followers, likes, and views using special techniques and automation. The promise is enticing, but the reality is murkier.

In this deep dive, we‘ll analyze what exactly these Instagram growth companies do under the hood, if their methods actually work long-term, and most alarmingly – could they get your account banned?

The Alluring Pitch: Rapid Growth On Autopilot

Launched in 2010 as a simple photo sharing app, Instagram has seen once-regular people reach celebrity status through document their lives online. Top Instagram stars now earn 6-figure sponsorship deals from brands lusting after their influential followers and eyeballs.

For businesses and personal brands, Instagram‘s unique formats like Instagram Stories and Reels make conveying lifestyle, behind-the-scenes, and even product information intuitive and engaging.

But with 25 million business profiles active on Instagram, the competition is cutthroat. Organic growth – steadily building real followers through quality content – can take months or even years of consistent effort.

Instagram growth companies offer what seems like a shortcut: guaranteed faster follower and engagement growth on autopilot for little effort.

Services like Instoo let users connect their Instagram account then handle automated liking, following, and commenting across the network. The services claim that this social proof and visibility rapidly converts into more followers and brand awareness for you.

Many Instagram growth providers showcase testimonials of users and minor celebrities who gained thousands or even millions of followers thanks to their automation techniques.

With the huge value that influencer status brings, it‘s no wonder so many are desperate to boost their Instagram presence. Spending a little money each month on a service that handles growth for you can seem like a smart investment.

But are these services too good to be true? And do they violate Instagram‘s strict rules?

The Business of Bots: How Instagram Automation Works

Instagram growth services typically offer monthly subscription plans charging anywhere from $10 to $100+ per month depending on desired growth pace and additional features.

Once users connect their Instagram account, the service gets to work automating several key actions:

Following and Unfollowing: Services use bot accounts they control to automatically follow then unfollow thousands of targeted Instagram users per day. They target accounts by criteria like users who recently posted photos with relevant hashtags to your niche. The goal is to attract reciprocal follows from a fraction of those users.

Liking and Commenting: Similarly, services use bots to automatically like posts and post short comments across Instagram. This helps increase visibility and engagement on those posts. If done strategically, a slice of those users will check out and potentially follow your profile.

Reposting viral content: Some services automatically repost recent viral and trending Instagram photos and videos, tagging the original creators. If the viral post already has tons of likes, the hope is that visibility carries over to your repost too.

These methods form the core set of actions that almost all Instagram growth services rely on in some form. Advanced providers claim to go further using AI and machine learning to interact deeper with priority users and target influencers in your niche.

But behind the tech buzzwords hides a simple truth: these services focus overwhelmingly on automation and bot accounts to execute key Instagram actions at superhuman scale. 50, 100, or 500+ times the follow/unfollow and engagement volume any human could do per day.

And therein lies the first enormous risk.

Risk #1: Getting Banned For Terms Violations

Buried in Instagram‘s Terms of Service exists the following clause (section 4.3):

We prohibit crawling, scraping, caching or otherwise accessing any content on the Service via automated means, including but not limited to, user profiles and photos.

In other words: Instagram explicitly forbids ANY form of automation interacting with user profiles and photos. Yet that is precisely most Instagram growth services entire business model!

Make no mistake: it is impossible for any service blasting thousands of automated actions per day across Instagram to stay within official guidelines. It doesn‘t matter what quality guarantees or refund policies they offer: these services inherently violate Instagram‘s automation rules.

And in recent years Instagram has ramped up detection efforts, regularly flagging and shutting down accounts caught using third-party growth services and bots.

Worse still, Instagram maintains linked personal profiles as culpable accessories, banning both business accounts as well as the owners personal profiles in one swoop. For social media entrepreneurs who rely on Instagram for both business and keeping in touch with personal connections, getting banned can be devastating.

Now, it‘s important we walk through this objectively. Not ALL automation services get ALL clients banned. The risk varies based on detection algorithms and how aggressively each company skirts the rules. Some automate slowly enough to fly under the radar for awhile.

But there are countless tales across social media of users getting banned after using agencies that promised safe growth, only to have to start entirely new accounts from scratch. Even prominent celebrities like Florence Pugh saw her Instagram disabled citing automation abuse after working with a major growth agency.

While services point to their successes, ask yourself: is the risk really worth potential account termination?

Analyzing Major Players: Can Any Service Be Trusted?

Let‘s analyze a few of the top providers in more detail:

Instoo

Launched in 2018, Instoo promotes themselves as an artificial intelligence assistant, claiming advanced machine learning that can automatically engage best with your ideal followers.

In reality, Instoo appears very similar to early follow/unfollow bots, relying on mass automation from bot accounts and circumventing limits using IP rotation and proxies to mask activity. User reporting tools have flagged Instoo has participating heavily in comment spamming and inauthentic behavior as well.

Instoo starts at $7 per month for up to 3 connected profiles, but hides specific details about included targets and interaction limits. Support channels appear limited as well compared to rivals.

While Instoo hasn‘t sparked quite as many banning complaints as some services, with opaque practices and reliance on high-risk growth tactics that violate policies, we still recommend clients treat use with extreme caution.

Verdict: ⚠️ Use At Your Own Risk

Ascend Viral

A fast-growing agency registering 25,000+ new users monthly, Ascend Viral pitches "lightning growth using artificial intelligence." However, reviews detail banning issues and their website and social channels showcase little concrete detail about their internal practices.

Ascend Viral has responded to some criticism citing improvements in recent algorithm versions to better respect limits. However with bans still actively being reported and a lack of transparency, we advise clients to steer clear for now.

At $50+/month, Ascend Viral sits at the premium end of pricing tiers while offering surprisingly little account management or analytics compared to competitors. For the high monthly fee, you could instead hire an entire social media expert.

Verdict: ❌ Avoid For Now

Growthsilo

On the more transparent end, Growthsilo explains their service combines automation with manual account management: “Our AI algorithms drive 85% of the growth, while our Growth Experts deliver the remaining 15% completely hands-free”.

Starting at $49/month for targeting 500 daily interactions, Growthsilo does better at segmenting client goals for Followers vs Engagement vs Reach. Support options appear stronger as well with direct messaging channels into their growth teams.

However with the majority of actions still executed automatically & policy risks that brings, Growthsilo ultimately plays in the same legally-dubious territory regarding automation rules. Users must decide whether the 85/15 hybrid approach genuinely reduces ban likelihood.

Verdict: ⚠️ Use At Your Own Risk

Instagram‘s Evolving Detection Efforts

Part of whyInstagram growth services exploded initially is that Instagram took awhile to clamp down, only recently stepping up capabilities detecting automation and spam.

They now analyze account behavior across matrices like:

• Actions per daily/weekly thresholds unlikely from manual human effort
• Usage patterns like clockwork ON/OFF timing unusual for humans
• Linkages across accounts with correlated behavior indicative of third party bot networks
• Signals like duplicated comments and bot-like responses hinting at text regurgitation

Instagram also receives user reporting flags on accounts acting spammy or bots, supplementing internal analytics. With over 2 billion highly engaged users, problematic accounts get flagged quickly for inspection.

And with Facebook‘s security infrastructure supporting analysis, Instagram now combats suspicious behavior algorithmically in real-time as its happening rather than just retroactive banning. This allows stopping suspicious behavior earlier before it impacts too many real users.

Recent quotes from Instagram Head Adam Mosseri emphasized this long-term, ever-escalating philosophy:

"We have to get better and faster at detecting and removing fake accounts, spammers, et cetera… Rrapidly improving on integrity work is going to be very, very important."

So while even just 2 years ago moderately aggressive automation slipped by easier – those loopholes are rapidly disappearing today. Instagram growth services themselves caution newly-minted tactics work for awhile, then require new methods once old approaches get flagged.

But in the cat and mouse game of circumventing platform policy, is playing at all worth the risk?

Horror Stories: When Growth Bots Fail

Across social channels and blogs, tales abound of Instagram automation gone wrong:

"I paid over $500+ for a popular Instagram Growth Service promising me thousands of real followers a month. Two weeks in I was banned permanently with no warning, losing my 500k business account and all my contacts on it. Stay away from these services – it‘s just not worth the risk!"

• Brian S., Digital Agency Founder

"I knew the growth service I used was a bit sketchy, but thought I could cancel anytime and avoided behavior that seemed too spammy. 8 months in Instagram suddenly disabled my account for "inauthentic activity." Turns out they banned me for old actions from months earlier that I thought already stopped. Absolutely crushing as I used Instagram to promote my small shop."

• Sam W., Boutique Owner

The takeaway is clear: Instagram is ready to disable accounts at the first strong signals of suspicious activity – even if banned behavior happened months prior or has since stopped. The door to push limits further closes stronger every day.

Sustainable Growth: Education Over Automation

Instagram growth can feel overwhelming and futile without shortcuts, especially for newly launched accounts with zero following.

But sustainable Instagram growth stems from mastering platform best practices and understanding the Instagram algorithm favoring high-quality content and engaged communities.

Rather than risky bots and shady agencies, here are a few legitimate ways to accelerate Instagram growth:

Influential Partnerships: Create win-win partnerships with relevant microinfluencers in your niche to cross-promote content to new audiences.

Instagram Ads: Use Instagram‘s own advertising platform to promote posts and target feeds of users likely to engage. Cost per follower is exceptionally low.

Unique Value: Obsess over consistently delivering content only YOU can provide to attract visitors and social sharing.

Authentic Engagement: Reply to all comments, ask questions in captions, jump into related conversations. Nothing beats human connection.

At best, automation provides hollow vanity metrics. But engagement is given by people to people. Long-term success requires embracing Instagram‘s community values.

The allure of overnight growth blinds people to unsustainable tactics. Stay patient, stay original, stay in integrity with users, and compound results come over time.

What growth methods have you used successfully on Instagram? Share your expertise in the comments below!