Following more than 7,500 users on Instagram

Wondering why you cannot follow more than 7500 users on Instagram? It’s because Instagram placed that limit on all accounts. If you’re stuck at 7,500, and try to follow more people, you will receive an error that states you cannot follow any more people and your organic Instagram growth will be affected.

How Can I Remove the Instagram 7,500 Following Limit

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to bypass this limit. The policy was introduced by Instagram a long time ago and it was intended to prevent aggressive following of accounts. Though, we certainly feel it’s a silly policy given that most new Instagram users will receive no visibility whatsoever and actually prefer to follow many accounts to uncover interesting photos, stories, and discussions. Sadly, when a platform gets as big as Instagram, it’s motives are primarily focused on reducing fake / spam / bot accounts, and advertising revenue, regardless of whether such a policy impacts rule-abiding users negatively.

You can look for some magical workaround, but you won’t find any that does not violate Instagram’s terms of service. Instagram prohibits users from following more than 7,500 users. This helps ensure that users do not violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines.

You can refer to this support doc on Instagram that confirms the following limit.

I’m getting the message, “Error: You can’t follow any more people.”

source: https://help.instagram.com/408167069251249

Why Can Some Accounts Go Beyond the 7,500 Following Limit

As stated in Instagram’s support doc above, if an account had already been following greater than 7,500 before the policy change, it can continue to follow as many people as it wants. However, any existing (or new) account that had less than 7,500 following will be capped upon reaching that number.

Throughout the dark web, there are shady folks selling a ‘hack’ or ‘workaround’ to bypass this limit, but I recommend you never attempt such solutions. Stay safe and do not risk your account.

What To Do After You’ve Hit the 7,500 Following Limit

It’s a good time to reconsider your growth strategy. Below are just a few of the steps you can take after you reached your maximum Instagram limits.

Unfollow Ghost Following – Once maxed out, you have to unfollow a user before you can begin following a new one. Therefore, it’s makes sense to identify all inactive, un-engaged, or irrelevant accounts that you’re following. To do this, get a data dump of all your Following and sift through all the accounts to identify and unfollow the least valuable. It’s a cumbersome exercise, but typically results in 20 – 40% of purge allowing you follow more relevant accounts again.

NOTE: Our team at Ampfluence does this for all our clients on a regular basis.

Focus on Content – Create better content! Take better photos, create better stories, and publish only the best grams. People will notice.

Focus on Engagement – Since you cannot follow, focus on your existing followers and following to get them to engage with your content. A detailed explanation on what you can do would requires a few chapters, but try to engage with their content by liking and commenting on photos, take time to understand your followers and build a relationship with them. Over time, these authentic gestures will result in more engagement.

Cross Your Fingers – Let’s all just pray that Instagram comes to their senses and removes this limit.

Your Instagram account isn’t as fun once you’ve hit the 7,500 following limit, but try to make the most of it and focus on other activities.