If you’re looking to make a little extra cash, consider selling your Instagram account! Nowadays viral Instagram accounts can go for a decent chunk of change, especially if you have a lot of followers. Companies in your industry are willing to pay for an already established Instagram account, rather than putting in the effort and time to grow one from scratch. If you’re not personally attached to your account and your followers, it could be worth your time to look into selling it and making a profit off your hard work. But how much is an Instagram account really worth and how do you find a buyer? Here’s everything you need to know about selling an Instagram account.
Why Sell an Instagram Handle?
The short answer here is to make a profit. If you’ve built up a large following but have no monetization strategy, or don’t plan to monetize it in the traditional ways, why not sell it? There’s not much purpose to growing a following for a simple, personal account so you may as well get something out of your hard work.
You might also consider selling your account if the Instagram handle you used was for a business that went under. Rather than letting the account die with all of its followers, sell it to a company that may benefit from it.
How Much Do They Go For?
There is no typical going rate for an Instagram account as there are many factors that need to be considered. Expect anywhere from fifty bucks to upwards of ten grand.
Quality Handle
Your account needs a quality Instagram handle in order to be considered. Accounts with simpler names tend to do better. If your handle has your name with a bunch of numbers after it, that doesn’t come across as very professional. The shorter and simpler, the better! Although Instagram names can be changed, it can confuse the current followers and you risk losing them, which is why buyers prefer to keep the original handle.
Following
Obviously the number of followers you have directly correlates with how much someone is willing to pay for your account. The minimum amount of followers you should have before even considering selling your account is a few thousand. Although you’ll do much better once you’re at the 50k level and higher. You also should check to make sure you don’t have a ton of fake followers as this will lower your account’s value.
Engagement
If you have a large following, but no one’s liking or commenting on your posts, the followers aren’t very valuable. You should aim to have around 10% of your followers engaging in order to consider selling. For example, if you have 100k followers, a combination of 10k likes and comments is what you should see per post.
Industry
The niche your account falls in also plays a large part in how much someone is willing to pay. Accounts in niches like fitness, travel, fashion, and food can easily be sold to a gym, airline, retail store, or recipe blog. If your account doesn’t seem to have a specific goal or theme, it will be harder to monetize, meaning it’s not as valuable and won’t go for as high a price.
How to Sell an Instagram Account
In most cases, a buyer will approach you directly if they find your account of interest. You’ll work directly with them on pricing to come to an agreement that’s fair. In the case that you weren’t approached and are proactively trying to sell your account, you don’t want to announce that it’s for sale because Instagram doesn’t necessarily condone the selling of accounts and may even shut down your account if they catch you listing it.
The easiest way is to sell it to an Instagram trader. These websites shop your account around to potential buyers and once a match is made they handle the trade. You can check out websites such as SocialTradia which allow you to fill out information about your account so they can find the perfect match. Always be sure to receive your payment before handing over your login credentials to avoid getting scammed!
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