Instagram growth services have been around since early in the platform’s launch, and in this Kicksta review, we’re going to focus on one of the leading services that you can use to get real followers.
Here, we’re going to cover what Kicksta is, how it works, its pricing, and its safety. We’ll also compare its pros and cons so you can get a good idea of where it shines, and where it falls flat.
Finally, we’ll give our overall rating for the platform. By the end of this review, you’ll have a good understanding of what Kicksta can offer you and a solid idea as to whether it may be a good fit for your business.
What Is Kicksta?
Kicksta is an Instagram growth service, which is a type of service that aims to build up an Instagram’s follower count. It was founded in 2015, and is headquartered in San Diego. Since then, Kicksta has helped over 10,000 brands and influencers grow their accounts, and puts an emphasis on ensuring that users only get real followers — not fake ones.
There are two main kinds of Instagram growth services available: automated ones and manual or traditional ones.
An automated Instagram growth service does exactly what the name implies: it uses automation technologies to put your Instagram growth on autopilot. There is generally minimal, if any, human oversight over the process. You set some starting parameters, and then let the service work its magic.
A manual or traditional growth service functions basically like an agency: you pay for the service, and a team of professionals gets to work on growing your Instagram following. The process is generally entirely driven by human effort, with automation taking a backseat in this case.
Kicksta falls into the former camp — it’s completely automated.
How Does Kicksta Work?
The Kicksta process is simple but effective. In a nutshell, Kicksta engages with users that are following accounts similar to yours in the hopes that once you engage with them, they’ll check out your profile and give you a follow.
But let’s get a bit more nuanced. When you sign up for Kicksta, the first thing you’ll need to do is link your Instagram account. After that, you’ll select a number of accounts to target. If you sign up for the standard plan, you’ll input up to 10 targets. If you sign up for the premium plan, you’ll get up to 40 targets.
These targets are Instagram accounts that are similar to yours. Once you have those set up, Kicksta will look through your target accounts’ follower lists and engage with their followers. Typically, this means liking one or two of their followers’ photos.
When those people get notifications that someone liked one or two of their photos, they’re likely to check out the account that engaged with them. Since your account is (ideally) similar to an account they already follow (the target account) there’s a relatively high likelihood that they’ll follow you — assuming your content is good enough, at least.
Overall, the process plays off of people’s curiosity: when you engage with people, they’re likely to check out your profile, and if they check out your profile and see it’s similar to other profiles they like, there’s a good chance they’ll follow you.
In short, Kicksta can help you get your foot in the door, but you’ll still need good content and the right targets to actually turn those engagements into follows.
Pricing
There are two Kicksta plans available: Standard and Premium. The Standard plan costs $49 per month, and the Premium plan costs $99 per month.
Both plans have two things in common: video onboarding and the same general Kicksta growth strategy.
The main differences lie in the number of accounts you can target, whether you can utilize advanced targeting, and how much support you get.
With the Standard plan, you can target up to 10 accounts. This allows for a fairly moderate growth speed. However, with the Premium plan, you can target up to 40 accounts. As you can expect, this can make your growth speed faster — as long as you’re using itl right, of course. Plus, the Premium also comes with advanced targeting features, which are absent from the Standard Plan.
Additionally, Premium subscribers can make use of VIP email support and live chat support. Standard subscribers, on the other hand, can only use regular email support.
The final difference between the two is that Premium subscribers can blacklist accounts.
Is Kicksta Safe to Use?
Kicksta offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can give the platform a whirl pretty much risk free and see for yourself.
However, you’ll still have to connect your Instagram to Kicksta for it to work, so you need to make sure that’s something you’re comfortable with. Many very reputable and well-known tools, like Hootsuite, Later, and Sprout Social, require access to your Instagram, so this is not a problem in itself. That said, it’s generally a good idea to reach out to any company that requires access to your account to ask about their security policies.
Although Kicksta is meant to get real followers, there is always a risk that it will get you some fake followers as well — but this is a risk that comes with using Instagram at all, growth service or not. When Kicksta advertises that it gets you real followers, it means that you’re not simply buying fake followers like you would from another company. So, you do have to be prepared that some of the accounts that Kicksta engages with may turn out to be fake, and you’ll get some fake followers along with real followers.
Kicksta limits its engagements to one to two posts per account to avoid throttling from Instagram. However, there is always a risk that Instagram could become suspicious of your activity on Instagram or your login attempts and penalize your account.
Kicksta Pros and Cons
Now that we’ve gotten pretty deep into this Kicksta review, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of the platform.
Pros
- Kicksta offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. This allows you to try out the tool without committing any money.
- Kicksta’s growth formula is aimed at racking up real followers, not fakes. Although some fake followers are unavoidable no matter what you do, you aren’t paying for a bunch of fakes that could damage your reputation when you use Kicksta.
- Kicksta engages through likes, not comments. Likes are preferable because automated comments are much less likely to be relevant and come across as spammy.
- When you sign up for Kicksta, you pay on a month-by-month basis. There are no long-term contracts to sign, so you can stop at any time.
Cons
- Although Kicksta does its best to ensure your engagements don’t come across as spam, there’s always a risk that Instagram could find your account’s activity suspicious.
- It’s possible to use Kicksta without seeing any growth at all. Although Kicksta’s growth strategy makes sense, you still need to have engaging content to get followers. This isn’t so much a con as it is a disclaimer: no growth service can guarantee growth. If they can, it’s because they’re a scam selling fake followers.
- Kicksta’s support options for the Standard tier could be improved. For $49 per month, it would be nice to have some more support.
- Unfortunately, there isn’t much information on how Kicksta keeps your account data safe and secure.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
To close out this Kicksta review, we’re going to give the tool a 4-out-of-5 star rating.
As far as Instagram growth services go, Kicksta is near the top of its game. While many other growth services promise authentic growth, all they really do is buy you a large number of fake followers. Unfortunately, this has the opposite effect: fake followers do nothing but damage your profile’s reputation.
Kicksta, on the other hand, uses simple targeting and engagement strategies to get you in front of people who are likely to be interested in your account. If your content is good, and you’re targeting the right accounts, there’s a solid chance that some of those visitors will give you a follow.
On the downside, Kicksta requires access to your Instagram account to work and doesn’t provide too much information on how it keeps your data safe. Plus, you always run the risk that Instagram could find either your behaviors on Instagram or your login attempts suspicious and penalize you.
Overall, no Instagram growth service can guarantee that it will work. However, Kicksta offers a well-thought out service that can help you build your account if you use it skillfully.