Instagram Follower Growth Rate Calculation Formula

Do you ever stare at your Instagram follower count and wonder: “Am I growing fast enough? Am I doing something wrong?” You’re not alone. Knowing how quickly you’re gaining followers isn’t just about vanity—it’s a powerful insight into your content’s resonance, strategy effectiveness, and brand momentum.

In this article, I’ll walk you through exactly how to calculate your follower growth rate, benchmarks to aim for, pitfalls to watch out for, and actionable tips to accelerate your growth. Because when you understand the numbers, you make smarter choices. By the end, you’ll have what you need to benchmark your progress and plot your Instagram strategy with confidence.

What top competitors are teaching (and what they miss)

Before diving in, I researched how 5 top-ranking articles present this topic. Key takeaways:

My goal: combine the clarity of these with deeper insights, realistic examples, and also consider what many leave out (unfollows, platform shifts, competitor comparisons). Also weave in how tools like analytics or platforms such as Lunavistahub (which aggregates content, shows analytics) can help inform your growth rate.

What is Follower Growth Rate (and Why It Matters)

Follower Growth Rate measures how fast your Instagram account gains (or loses) followers over a set period relative to how many followers you started with.

Why it matters:

• It shows momentum: Are you really growing, or mostly just plateauing?

• It validates your content & strategy: If your growth rate spikes after trying something new, you know you’re onto something.

• It helps set realistic goals & benchmarks.

• It gives you signals for change: If growth stalls or declines, it’s time to tweak content, hashtags, posting frequency, or engagement tactics.

The Formula: How to Calculate Instagram Follower Growth Rate

Here’s the formula almost everyone uses (and the same ones used by top competitors):

Follower Growth Rate (%)=Ending Follower Count−Beginning Follower CountBeginning Follower Count×100\text{Follower Growth Rate (\%)} = \frac{\text{Ending Follower Count} – \text{Beginning Follower Count}}{\text{Beginning Follower Count}} \times 100Follower Growth Rate (%)=Beginning Follower CountEnding Follower Count−Beginning Follower Count​×100

But to get more precise and actionable, break that down:

• Beginning Follower Count: Number of followers at the start of the period (e.g. start of month, week, or campaign).

• Ending Follower Count: Number at end of period.

• Net New Followers = Ending − Beginning (this already includes subtractions if people unfollowed).

• Multiply by 100 to get percentage.

Example

Let’s say you start May with 2,000 followers. By the end of May, you have 2,300. But during May, you lost 50 followers. So:

• Beginning: 2,000

• Ending: 2,300

• Net new: 2,300 − 2,000 = 300 (this already factors in net loss)

Growth rate = (300 ÷ 2,000) × 100 = 15% growth for the month.

If you ignored unfollows, you might wrongly think growth was higher (depending on your metrics), so always base it on net.

Variations & Useful Tweaks in the Formula

To tailor this metric for deeper insight, consider these tweaks:

• Shorter timeframes: Weekly, biweekly, campaigns. Helps detect seasonal spikes.

• Longer ones: Quarterly, yearly – good for seeing sustained trends.

• Daily growth tracking: Helpful when you run promotions or collaborations; can spot spikes.

• Adjusting for unfollows: Always subtract unfollows; net growth gives truer picture.

• Cohort-based growth: E.g. followers gained via a specific campaign vs general growth.

Benchmarks: What Growth Rate Should You Aim For?

Let’s be realistic: what’s “good” depends heavily on your niche, follower base size, and how consistently you post / engage.

Here are benchmarks from research & competitor articles:

Also, many sources say that 6–8% per month is strong for accounts doing regular, high-engagement content. Socialinsider+1

Step-by-Step: How You Calculate & Track Your Growth Rate

Here’s a practical path you can walk, with real-world tips:

1. Choose your time period
   Decide whether you’ll measure weekly, monthly, or around a specific campaign.

2. Record starting follower count
   Use Instagram Insights or an analytics tool. Make sure you capture net followers (not inflated by bots or big spikes that may fade).

3. Track ending follower count at the end of your period. Also note how many followers were lost (unfollows) if possible.

4. Calculate net new followers = [new followers gained] − [lost followers in that time].

5. Plug into formula = (Net New Followers ÷ Starting Followers) × 100

6. Interpret results

   • Is the rate increasing or decreasing over time?

   • Are there big spikes (e.g. after collaborations or promotions)?

   • How does it compare to your niche & competitor benchmarks?

7. Use tools for tracking

   • Instagram Insights (native)

   • Third-party dashboards (e.g., NapoleonCat)

   • Analytics features inside platforms like Lunavistahub, which aggregate content & show growth trends.

Real‐World Scenarios: From Good to Great

Here are two stories to show how different strategies affected growth:

• Case A – The micro brand: A small handmade skincare brand started with 1,500 followers. They posted three times a week, used niche hashtags, collaborated with small Instagram creators, and emphasized user-generated content (UGC). After 2 months: Follower count rose to 2,000. Net gain = 500. Growth rate ≈ (500 / 1,500) × 100 ≈ 33% over two months, or ~16% per month. Because base was small and content resonated.

• Case B – The established influencer: Someone with 40,000 followers who tried a giveaway. Suppose they start with 40,000, gain 2,000 new followers from the giveaway campaign, but lose 500 during the period. Net gain = 1,500. Growth rate = (1,500 / 40,000) × 100 = 3.75% for the month. That’s good at that scale—but much harder to get double digits as follower base grows.

From these, you see: smaller accounts can more easily hit high % growth, bigger ones often measure success in consistent single-digit percent gains.

Common Challenges & How to Address Them

While the formula is simple, real world is messier. Here are issues people often run into—and how to work around them.

How Growth Rate Ties Into Broader Strategy (Especially for Brands)

If you’re managing an Instagram presence for business, or helping brands use their social content as marketing assets (like what we do at Luna Vista Hub), growth rate is only one piece. But it’s foundational.

• Combined with engagement rate: If your growth is high but engagement is falling, it’s a warning sign.

• Content strategy feedback: Growth rate spikes often follow content changes—e.g. moving to video, using more UGC. Track what you changed.

• Campaign evaluation: If you run “follow to enter” giveaways or influencer collabs, measure their impact via growth rate.

• Analytics and tools: Platforms that aggregate content, show widget performance, pull analytics across channels (like Luna Vista Hub) help you see growth along with content that’s driving it. That data becomes marketing assets: testimonials, social proof, trust markers.

Tools & Metrics to Make It Easier

You don’t have to do all of this manually. Here are tools & metrics to help:

• Native Instagram Insights: gives follower count over time.

• Platforms like NapoleonCat, Vaizle, UpGrow: track follower growth daily / weekly; allow competitor comparisons. NapoleonCat+2Vaizle+2

• Benchmark reports (e.g. Social Status, Dataflo) to know what’s “good” in your industry. Social Status+2dataflo.io+2

• Analytics dashboards that integrate with your content-widgets, or UGC tools, that show content reach, performance, so you see what causes growth.

Putting It All Together: From Data to Growth Action Plan

Here’s how you can turn the growth rate metric into a strategy you actually act on:

1. Baseline measurement: Calculate your growth rate for the last month (or period of your choice).

2. Benchmarking: Compare with similar accounts / your past months. Are you improving? Lagging?

3. Correlate with content & campaigns: What content posted just before / during growth? What promotions or changes?

4. Experiment & optimize: Try small changes—posting time, content format, captions, hashtags. Measure impact.

5. Monitor continually: Growth isn’t linear. Weekly or monthly tracking will help you catch when things go off track.

6. Adjust expectations: As follower base grows, growth rates often slow. That’s normal. Shift goals from % to absolute numbers + engagement + conversion.

FAQs

Q: What’s the difference between follower growth and follower growth rate?
A: Follower growth = number of new followers (minus unfollows) over a period. Growth rate = that growth expressed as a percentage relative to how many followers you started with.

Q: How often should I calculate growth rate?
A: Depends on your strategy. For small accounts or active campaigns, weekly works. For more stable content strategies, monthly is common. Quarterly gives a longer-term trend view.

Q: How big impact do unfollows have?
A: They matter. If you get many new followers but also lose many, net growth (which includes unfollows) gives truer picture. Always try to track unfollows if possible.

Q: Does follower size affect what a “good” growth rate is?
A: Yes. As your follower count gets larger, achieving high growth % becomes harder. A 10% growth on 1,000 followers is just 100 new; 10% on 100,000 is 10,000 new. Most brands see lower % growth once they reach tens of thousands.

Q: Can growth rate be negative?
A: Absolutely. If lost followers (or unfollows) outnumber new ones during the measurement period, your growth rate will drop below zero. That’s a signal—not a failure necessarily, but something to investigate (content issues, spam/unhealthy followers, posting frequency, etc.).