In short
Fourteen days to an unrestricted Instagram account. Follow limits start at 5–15/day and rise to 40–60 by day 8. The most common cause of shadow-banning is DM volume in the first fortnight, not follows. Keep DMs to accounts that already follow you until day 8.
Bans versus throttling
Instagram enforcement is mostly invisible. A throttled account still logs in, still posts, and gets 3% of the reach it should. Operators often keep feeding a dead account for weeks because nothing announced itself.
The curve
| Day | Follows | Likes | DMs | Posts | Session time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5–10 | 0–5 | 0 | 0 | 5–10 min |
| 2–3 | 5–15 | 10–20 | 0 | 0 | 10–20 min |
| 4 | 10–15 | 15–25 | 0 | 1 + 1 story | 15–25 min |
| 5–7 | 15–25 | 20–40 | Replies only | 1/day | 20–35 min |
| 8–14 | 40–60 | 40–80 | < 20/day | 1–2/day | 25–45 min |
| 15+ | 60–100 | 80–150 | < 40/day | 1–3/day | 30–60 min |
The four mistakes
- DMs too early. The single biggest cause of throttling in our data. Before day 8, message only accounts that follow you.
- Gallery uploads. An image with no EXIF, or EXIF from a different device, reads as reposted content. Use camera injection.
- Perfectly regular posting. Every day at 14:00 exactly is not human. Add ±90 minutes of jitter.
- Bio links on day one. Wait until day 10 minimum, day 21 if the link is a redirect or a link-in-bio service.