If you’re reading this article, that means you’re probably considering selling your Instagram account. Buying and selling viral social media properties became a very popular scene in the past two years, so people are flocking to see how much are their properties are worth. Webmasters, business, brands, 
and internet marketers all around the world want to lay their hands on potential traffic generating sources, and they’re willing to shell out money for them. Viral Instagram accounts can do just that, bring large volumes of targeted traffic that can help a business grow. But just how much is your account worth? How to find a seller? How do you hand over the account? We will go over these questions to help you make the right decision.
So, how much is your Instagram account worth?
This is probably the most tricky part, as there is no set price chart you could use to gauge your accounts value. Follower count, activity, niche and perceived personal value are all factors that affect the bottom line. As with any transaction, there are two parties involved, a buyer and a seller. In this scenario, the seller (you), will most likely have a personal attachment to their account. You created that account, you’ve interacted with the fans and had fun sharing your photos with so many people. This is your baby, and you won’t sell it cheap. Unfortunately for you, not everyone will agree with that logic. To a potential buyer, personal value means nothing, it’s all about cold hard data.
Buyers mainly look for the following things:
Good account name
Instagram accounts with shorter names are generally worth more, especially something ‘brandable’ that marketers can work with. One word, short, and to the point @names with a large following are considered desirable. On the other hand, long names, copyright trademarks, or pretending to be an official account of a celebrity or business cripples the value by a huge margin. Accounts that pretend to be an official account of someone famous might get deleted, and very few buyers will want to take that risk.
Account activity
This factor should be a given. Accounts that have many followers / likes / comments and shares bring the value up. Buyers are still willing to purchase inactive accounts, just for a lot less.
Account niche
Your account theme / niche is also an important factor that affects the price. Overused topics like funny pictures, amazing things, and memes are worth less than accounts with more usefulness. Fitness, fashion, cars, and general accounts that represent tangible products are worth more, as it makes marketing products much easier.
General rule of thumb
Considering what we mentioned, it is hard to price out a property without actually looking at some insights or statistics. But a general rule of thumb is:
0.50 – 3.00 USD per 1k US / UK / AU / CA based followers.
This means that your 500k follower Instagram account could be worth anywhere from 250 to 1500$ USD. Have accounts sold for more? Sure, but those are rare cases where the seller found a perfect buyer for their property. This is nearly impossible without extensive research, cold calls and lots of luck. In short, unless you own a @CocaCola and you’re directly selling to that company don’t expect to get rich from selling your Instagram account. Remember, you don’t even truly own that account, it may be taken away from you at any time. Instagram can ban / suspend any account without notice, they can go bankrupt or your account may get hacked the next day. The vulnerable nature of these properties makes them high-risk purchases to marketers, that is why they will never sell for as much as something more tangible like a personal website. With websites you have full control over the data, you can move it, store it, shut it down and re-open it again without anyone telling you what to do. Instagram accounts, however, are in reality something you lease/borrow for free, and if you ever break their rules (even unknowingly) they may take it all away from you. Your cries will fall on deaf ears, as big companies like Instagram rarely take the time to work with you, due to lack of manpower.
How to find a buyer?
The most likely scenario is that a buyer has already found you, that is why you ended up here. In 99% of cases, most Instagram account holders aren’t even aware that people want to buy these things. The most important factor to remember is never to list your account as for sale in an open to the public website. Don’t put your link out there for people to see, because Instagram may ban your account if they find that listing (they often do). Deal privately, behind closed doors and away from the public eye. The second thing to remember is that buying and selling virtual properties such as Instagram accounts comes with an inherited risk of being scammed. We can safely say that 90% of the potential ‘buyers’ out there never intend to pay you a dime. It is sad, but this is the reality. People feel there is no harm done cheating a person out of their social property, as it is virtual so no one will care. The law does not come into play here, you cannot sue a person for cheating you out of your Instagram account, as even Instagram does not allow the sale of your account. So how to you stay protected? Paypal policies can’t protect you, as they don’t cover virtual items. Escrow services have a hard time proving a virtual item has been delivered, so that is a no go. As far as we’re aware, the only company in the world that provides a virtual item escrow service (ViralAccounts.com). So, before selling your property to someone else give us a chance. We will quickly give you a free appraisal and offer.
Things to remember during a transaction.
- Never hand over your account before a payment is made, ever. Unless you’re dealing with a real company that you’ve personally checked, we don’t recommend doing so.
- Offer is unusually high and too good to pass up? High offers are the bait scammers use to lure in their potential victims. The hopes of a large payday clouds the mind with “what if this works”, “so many thing I could buy”, “ill take a shot” thoughts, that will affect your logic and judgment. Remember all the things we covered in this article? Put that knowledge to use and remember, if it’s too good to be true it most likely is. If all else fails and you still decide to give it a shot use our escrow service so you stay protected.
- Handing over the account is quite easy, you just give up your login credentials.
You may need to hand over the email account associated with that account. This is to protect the buyer from potential account recovery attempts. In most cases, buyers will want to keep the email tied to the Instagram account. Some companies (including us) will work with you so you don’t have to do that. - Try to get as much of information about the person you’re dealing with as you can. Remember, scammers don’t like to reveal themselves. Especially their phone numbers and/or addresses. Get to know the person before you take the plunge.
If you have any more questions you can use the comment section below.