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Having a massive follower count on Instagram can really enhance your chances of making a life out of the content you create. The platform holds millions of creators around the world that have managed to make profit out of the content they create and share with their audiences.
However not everything is as real as it seems. The platform is estimated to have 95 million bot accounts, accounting for about 4.75% of its total user base. This translates into approximately 15% of fake followers among an influencer’s audience base.
Fake followers or bots may be the reason you want to remove followers from your account in order to protect your engagement rate and marketing efforts. So, how do you remove mass followers on Instagram? You can manually remove them by clicking on Instagram’s built-in “Remove” button or “Flagged for Review” feature and you can also rely on online tools like SpamGuard, Influencer Hero, ArGrow, Creator Hero or Ghost Followers to scan, flag and delete fake followers in bulk.
In this article we’ll explore both ways, manually and automated, so you can pick your preference and clean your account to keep your audience safe. Let’s dive in!
Keeping an eye on your audience is a good move to keep your followers engaged and your account safe.
There are different ways you can use to remove Instagram followers. If you don’t have a really large audience or you prefer to take your time to examine each profile in detail, removing followers manually one by one is your best option.
The most secure way to remove your unwanted followers is to do it directly from Instagram. Just go to your Profile, and click on your Followers list. Then, you can remove each bot or ghost account simply by clicking on ‘Remove’.
However, there's a downside: you have to manually remove every follower you want gone, one by one. This task can take a lot of time out of your day but in the end is going to be worth it.
Think of it as an investment in your account: the more authentic your audience is, the more monetization opportunities.
If you struggle to find the time to work on this and you want to go with the manual removal, you can always hire a virtual assistant. There are lots of candidates with flexible hour rates that can really help you out. You can also find online tools to spot fake followers on Instagram and deal with them in a faster way!
If you hold a really big audience and can’t take the time to go one follower at a time in order to remove the ones you don’t want to, there are ways to delete multiple followers at once.
You can either remove mass followers:
If you have a public account, Instagram is already helping you keep your community safe. The platform has a “Flagged for Review” feature that basically sums up a list of suspicious accounts for you to check and decide if you want to remove them or not.
Here’s how it works:
Log into your account and go to your profile and tap on followers.
If you have flagged accounts, you’ll see a section called "Flagged for review”
You can remove all to delete all the flagged followers at once. If you prefer to have a more detailed look, you can go one by one to remove each account individually.
If you see an account that has been flagged by mistake, you can go to Options and tap on “not spam or irrelevant” to restore it.
When you remove a flagged account it won’t show up in your follower count anymore. The users won’t be notified when removed and if they try to follow you again, they’ll go to a special folder labeled “follow requests” even though you have a public account.
If you want to remove unwanted followers in a faster way, you can also explore different apps and tools for bulk follower management.
Manually removing fake followers can be time consuming so here are top 5 tools you can use to detect suspicious behavior, flag ghost accounts and bulk remove fake followers on Instagram.
An influencer marketing platform built for brands and agencies. One of its features is a fake follower detection tool, which helps brands evaluate the authenticity of influencers before investing time and money in partnerships. Pricing starts at $349 a month.
A standout feature is its Fake Follower Tool that uses advanced machine learning to analyze engagement patterns, follower authenticity and activity metrics. Once the tool process the audience, followers are categorized into different groups:
This meticulous audience classification not only uncovers fake followers, but also helps determine the quality of the audience.
Best for: Agencies and marketing teams looking for partners.
Creator Hero offers a fake follower free tool that helps both influencers and brands detect inauthentic followers. This platform also offers a Pro Plan with the possibility to create your own storefront for $19 a month.
This fake follower checker includes a detailed breakdown:
While Creator Hero does not automatically remove fake followers for you, it’s a fast way to understand your audience composition and decide whether you should clean it up or not.
Best for: Influencers looking for quick scans and added monetization features.
A tool that can identify and remove ghost followers, spam accounts and bots from your Instagram. It offers several paid plans, starting at $6.99.
Best for: Brands and creators looking for a safe, user friendly tool.
Air Grow is a full management suite that includes fake followers filter and bulk removal (among other features). It is designed to support safe long-term account growth.
Best for: Agencies and pros managing multiple accounts.
Ghost Follower is a tool created to spot ghost followers, those who follow you but never engage. It’s free, with the possibility of in-app purchases.
Best for: Personal accounts doing regular cleanups.
Whenever you are searching for the best Instagram marketing tools make sure you pick one that complies with Instagram’s API rules to avoid action blocks, shadowbans, or account restrictions.
Removing followers from your audience can protect your account from low-value followers.
Instagram has different kinds of users that may follow your account but never engage with any content you create and share. Here’s a breakdown of the different types of not engaging followers:
Bots are automated accounts created by software. They often follow multiple accounts at the same time, like random posts or leave generic comments like “Nice pic” or “Go check my profile”.
Their purpose is to inflate follower counts artificially. However, bots are easily flagged by the platform. In order to keep your account safe, you need to learn how to identify and remove bots from your profile to protect your brand’s credibility and avoid violating Instagram’s terms of service.
Ghosts can be real or bot accounts that follow you but never interact with your content. They never like, comment, share or send you messages. They are silent all the time.
They drag down your engagement rate (ER), making it harder for your content to reach real, active users.
Fake followers are non-genuine accounts. This term can include both bots and ghosts profiles; they may seem real but they are mainly created for spam or automation.
The thing with fake followers is that they not only do nothing for your brand but can also mess with your metrics and credibility among other brands, clients, influencers or collaborators. If you’re uncertain about your audience quality, you can use tools like fake follower scanners to spot red flags and keep your follower base clean.
Sometimes removing followers is the best move to keep your account safe, your engagement going and your maintaining your brand credibility. Bulk followers removal can make a real difference by:
Instagram algorithm favors content that receives consistent interaction. Likes, comments and shares are all good for you and your account. Having a large portion of your audience inactive or fake can drag down your engagement rate.
Having a bad engagement rate on Instagram turns your content less likely to be seen, even by real followers. So in order to protect your content and be able to be seen by the right real followers, sometimes you must remove the fake ones to increase visibility and overall post performance.
You can try out our Free Engagement Rate Calculator to automatically check your ER!
The more real your followers are, the more insights you can get of what they want. If you have a clean follower base you can actually see how users react to your content and see what works best.
Removing fake followers or bots can help you create more targeted content and build a genuine connection with the people who truly care, and interact, with you and your brand.
An account with too many bots or suspicious activity may raise concerns with the Instagram moderation system. In worst-case scenarios, this can lead to reduced reach, shadowbanning, or even account suspension.
This is why, regularly reviewing and removing suspicious followers helps keep your account in good standing.
When a huge portion of your followers are fake or bots, they won’t engage. Your posts won’t have as many impressions as if you were dealing only with real people interested in your content so Instagram algorithm won’t see the value in your posts and stop recommending you. Even worse? If it keeps happening, Instagram may stop showing your content altogether.
When you discover poor quality followers or bots in your Instagram audience it is really tempting to remove all of them at once to be over it in just a few taps. However, it’s important to understand how Instagram's algorithm can interpret this behavior in order to avoid any restrictions.
Removing multiple followers in a short period of time can get you “shadowbanned” which means that Instagram will limit the visibility of your posts, without notifying you, as a penalty for behavior that appears spammy or could violate Instagram’s community guidelines.
Sometimes, bulk actions like unfollowing plenty of users, liking lots or posts or mass removing followers can trigger automated systems designed to detect suspicious activity in order to keep the platform safe.
Any activity that happens fast or repeatedly in a short period of time is detected as bot-like or unnatural behavior. This is why, removing a large number of followers in a short window can look like something automated or a spammy tactic which could:
If you pay attention and take into consideration how Instagram’s algorithm works, there’s no need to be afraid while removing unwanted followers. To minimize risks, always consider these tips:
There are some things you can do to work on your audience. A healthy follower base is not just about growth, it’s also about protection. You can follow these instructions to keep your account and real audience clean and trustworthy:
Regularly monitoring your overall performance is always recommended. If your account is growing fast, you can always double check your followers count to ensure your profile remains clean and authentic.
Learning how to remove followers on Instagram is not just about cleaning your numbers, it’s about protecting your brand integrity, boosting your engagement and improving the accuracy of your analytics.
Taking the time to identify and remove fake or unwanted followers is essential to build a loyal engaged community that delivers real value.
A good engagement rate varies by follower count, but in 2025, anything between 1.5% and 3.5% is considered average, while 4% or higher is excellent—especially for micro-influencers. You can calculate yours with our Engagement Rate Calculator.
Some of the top tools in 2025 include Later, Metricool, Not Just Analytics, and Influencer Hero. These platforms help with analytics, scheduling, content optimization, and tracking audience authenticity. See our breakdown of the best Instagram marketing tools.
Brands can use influencer vetting tools like HypeAuditor or Modash to analyze an account’s audience, engagement patterns, and follower quality. Requesting detailed media kits and engagement reports is also key.
Unfortunately, yes—but it’s a risky move. Purchased followers are often bots or inactive accounts, which hurt engagement and credibility. Most brands now have tools to detect this and avoid influencers with suspicious metrics.
Named entities are specific people, places, or brands mentioned in content. Including them in your Instagram captions or blog posts helps improve discoverability on search engines and reinforces content authority—especially when paired with related topics and semantic keywords.
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