Lurk Follow Index · Updated August 17, 2026
What is the average Instagram following count?
The short answer
The median Instagram account follows 399 accounts, while the mean is 727 — pulled higher by a minority of power-users who follow many thousands. The 90th-percentile account follows 1,702. Most people follow a few hundred accounts; the "average" is skewed upward by the long tail (updated August 17, 2026).
Instagram following-count distribution (public accounts)
| Statistic | Accounts followed |
|---|---|
| Median (typical account) | 399 |
| Mean (average) | 727 |
| 90th percentile | 1,702 |
The median is the better “typical” figure; the mean is inflated by accounts that follow many thousands.
How this is measured
These figures come from Lurk's anonymized analysis of the following counts of public Instagram accounts. The median (399) represents a typical account; the mean (727) is higher because a minority of accounts follow many thousands, dragging the average up. Only public, aggregate data is used — no login, no private data, and no individual account is exposed.
Cite this
“What is the average Instagram following count?”, The Lurk Instagram Follow Index, August 17, 2026. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to getlurk.app/data/average-instagram-following-count.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average Instagram following count?
The median Instagram account follows 399 accounts; the mean (average) is 727, which is higher because a small number of accounts follow many thousands (updated August 17, 2026).
Is the median or the mean a better measure?
The median (399) better represents a typical account, because the mean (727) is skewed upward by power-users who follow thousands of accounts.
How many accounts do most people follow on Instagram?
Most accounts follow a few hundred — the median is 399 and the 90th percentile follows 1,702, so roughly 9 in 10 accounts follow fewer than that.
Related
- The Lurk Instagram Follow Index (full dataset)
- The State of Instagram Following 2026
- Best Instagram follow trackers (2026)
See who anyone really follows on Instagram
Lurk tracks public Instagram accounts and shows who they recently followed — anonymously, with no login.
Instagram never tells them their following list was viewed.