I’m working on a new Instagram account and organic growth has been pretty slow so far. I’ve been thinking about buying a small number of followers just to give the account some initial social proof. Has anyone here tried this recently? Does it actually help when you’re starting from zero, or is it better to focus entirely on organic growth?
How is this even a question? The answer is no, it's not worth it. I don't care if it's Insta, FB, or TikTok - it's all the same. 100 real, engaged users are better than 1 million fake ones. C'mon, you already know that. AND... you will piss real users off if they think you're a big account, but your likes and views are low even though it shows you have millions of followers. P.S. I hope you're not clickbaiting to sell fake users to someone.
They probably are... but lets suppose for a second that they're real - you are better to build up some good content and then advertise your best post and let people follow you that way. But it depends on your goal. Why do you need followers? Does your content justify having a high follower account (be brutally honest, most of us post for people we actually know).
Only if you're just getting going and you want to start with 500-1000 followers for the perspective that you're already gaining a following. There's no point in paying for artificial followers besides that. They aren't going to do anything but hurt your account and metrics.
Buying followers also makes it harder to learn what is actually working. Your engagement rate, audience demographics, and content tests become mixed with accounts that will never buy or even read the posts. A better starting boost is to publish 6–10 useful posts first, then put a small budget behind the strongest one or collaborate with a few small creators whose audience matches the niche. Track profile visits, saves, link clicks, and conversations rather than follower count. That gives you real data you can use for the next month.
Agreeing with the consensus here, the practical downsides outweigh the "quick social proof" appeal, especially for a brand new account. A couple of things to add on top of what's already been said: The algorithm problem is the real killer, not just optics. Instagram's ranking heavily weights engagement rate (likes/saves/comments relative to follower count), not raw follower count. The moment you buy followers, your engagement rate craters, and the algorithm reads that as "this content isn't resonating", so it actually suppresses your organic reach on the Explore page and in non-follower feeds going forward. You're not just wasting money; you're actively training the algorithm to deprioritize you. Talekh's point about data contamination is underrated. Even setting aside bans/shadowbans, once fake followers are mixed in, your analytics (audience demographics, best posting times, which content resonates) become noise. You lose the ability to make good decisions about what's actually working, right at the stage when you most need that signal. If the actual problem is "zero followers looks bad to new visitors," there are lower-risk ways to solve that specific optics issue without touching paid followers: Get genuinely interested friends/family/colleagues to follow as a real starting base (even 20-30 real people is enough to not show "0 followers") Cross-post your first few pieces of content to a platform where you already have an audience (Twitter/X, LinkedIn, a newsletter) and funnel them over Run a small, legitimate paid ad (Instagram's own ad product) pointing to your best post; this gets you real, Instagram-approved followers who came because they liked something, not fake ones To Sarah's question, I think that's the right one to actually answer before anything else: what's the account for? If it's a business/brand account, follower count matters way less than conversion/engagement to whoever's judging your "credibility" (customers can usually smell a fake-follower account anyway; low engagement relative to follower count is an obvious tell to anyone who looks). If it's personal, the only people whose opinion matters are the ones who actually know you, and they don't care about the number. Slow organic growth isn't fun, but it's the only kind that actually compounds.
For me buying followers is only a vanity metric, since most of not all followers are bots and this can work negatively to your IG page because they won't interact with your posts.
Buying Instagram followers hurts your engagement rate and damages your algorithm reach, making it much better to focus entirely on organic growth from day zero.
I went through the same slow start on a new account, and what finally moved the needle was boring stuff. First, pick one narrow topic and post the same format 4-5 times a week for a month, so people instantly know why to follow you. Second, spend 15 minutes a day leaving real comments on bigger accounts in your niche, since that brought me more actual followers than my own posts did early on. Also check which Reels get saves and shares, not likes, and make more of those. Slow at the start is normal, it usually takes a couple of months before it compounds.