Category: X Rating

Our Grade – X

This service has been closed for some time and its only lasting web presence is what you can find on review sites.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

SARA Agency was an Instagram growth service modeled after Instagress. It was a SaaS dashboard allowing you to use infinite accounts and take infinite actions. It was likely shut down by Instagram as this type of service is in violation of their terms.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	Dashboard SaaS
Quality of Service	High
Business Registry / Location	506 S Spring St #13308 Los Angeles, CA 90013
Traceable Team	Likely single owner
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	< 1 year
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	No
External Sites	None
Dashboard / Account Management	Yes
Offsite Testimonies	No
Forthcoming About Password Handling	No

Pricing

SARA.Agency’s services were priced competitively.

Service Details

For a bot service using traditional follow/un-follow methods, this was a decent choice. However, the claims are a bit silly. 20x faster, 40x faster, 50x faster? Faster than… what?

You can only take so many actions in a day, so even as you target by location, gender, and hashtag, it’s hard to tell how your actions would actually be magnified. From a software perspective, it’d cost nothing more to provide.

Integrity & Reputation

This provider was upfront about being a bot service. They did offer an affiliate program, which is why you might see some shining testimonies on certain sites that were active during this era. Though the team isn’t identifiable and their social media accounts were poorly maintained, this was an incredible value for the price, since you could run unlimited accounts.

Conclusion

It is kind of crazy that you were able to run unlimited accounts using this software for such a cheap price. It’s not clear why SARA.agency shut down but it’s likely because they didn’t develop their software in-house and thus were suffered from service outages. It is also possible that the “agency” was shut down directly by Instagram, similar to Instagress.

Our Grade – X

A previously well-known service that is no longer operating.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Social Captain was a popular Instagram growth service that operated from 2018 to 2020. They claimed to grow your account “automagically,” promising “organic, real, and targeted growth.”

At least one of us had used the service when it was still around, and it worked pretty well. Ultimately, it was a basic managed SaaS service, but was among the best values in its era.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	SaaS
Quality of Service	Medium
Business Registry / Location	Unknown
Traceable Team	No
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	2 Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	No
External Sites	No
Dashboard / Account Management	Unknown
Offsite Testimonies	No
Forthcoming About Password Handling	No

Pricing

Social Captain had great prices. They offered a 7-day plan for $15, a monthly plan for $39, and a “turbo” plan for $99 per month. The $39/month plan existed at a very competitive price point and was a great value.

Service Details

Social Captain was a typical SaaS service that engaged “real” users on Instagram by liking their photos, following them, and occasionally leaving comments. The idea behind this “follow/un-follow” growth model is that, if your content is high quality, some proportion of the people you interact with automatically will follow you back.

The success of this method is proportional to the amount of actions you can take per day, which, in 2021 terms, is not that many. Because the results are worse, many traditional SaaS providers have shuttered.

Integrity & Reputation

Social Captain did maintain several social media profiles while it was active. There was not an overwhelming amount of positive reviews (from what we can remember), but this was a high-volume service that certainly had many satisfied customers.

The service shut down before Trustpilot really gained traction, so there aren’t any reviews there.

What Happened to Social Captain?

We aren’t completely sure what happened to Social Captain, but it’s likely that they weren’t getting the results for customers that they once were. Unfortunately, when you have such large customer volume, if you have a prolonged service interruption (1+ weeks), you can get shut down fairly easily if many of those customers dispute their payments within a short time frame.

There is no official statement from Social Captain regarding why they shut down.

Conclusion

Social Captain was a viable service that several of us have used. If it was still around, it would be a top-five managed SaaS provider.

Our Grade – X

FanBump shut down voluntarily and the website still exists.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

FanBump was a successful and respected Instagram growth service that had thousands of concurrent customers at its peak. I will say it’s a bit ironic that the self-proclaimed “safest” service ended up shutting down for “safety reasons.”

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	SaaS
Quality of Service	High
Business Registry / Location	Florida
Traceable Team	Yes
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	Nov 2017 – Nov 2019
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	False
External Sites	Yes, CEO’s
Dashboard / Account Management	Yes
Offsite Testimonies	Yes
Forthcoming About Password Handling	Yes

Pricing

FanBump’s main plan professional cost $99 per month.

Service Details

FanBump was an organic Instagram growth service using software automation methods that were widely accepted at the time

Integrity & Reputation

This was a reputable service run by a highly-visible CEO. Though there were a fair number of bad reviews, most were responded to be the owner himself and his replies were convincing

Conclusion

This was a good service at the time, though a bit expensive compared to others that were growing accounts in the same way.

Our Grade – X

This service has been closed since some point in 2019.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

This was a small Instagram growth provider that operated for a short time. Head Copilot claimed to help users get more followers while being 100% compliant with Instagram’s rules. They were unique in that they did some promotion on Reddit via an official Reddit account.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	“AI” SaaS
Quality of Service	Low
Business Registry / Location	Unknown, likely India
Traceable Team	No
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	1 year total
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	False
External Sites	Reddit
Dashboard / Account Management	No
Offsite Testimonies	No
Forthcoming About Password Handling	No

Pricing

We are unsure of this service’s pricing structure.

Service Details

This was likely a SaaS service, but it is also possible that Head Copilot was a desktop automation service.

We have very little to investigate, but based on the language used on Reddit, it is likely that this service was maintained by someone in India.

Integrity & Reputation

There are few traces of this company remaining on the internet. Most notably is a customer complain shared on Reddit, where the company’s Reddit account responds and makes quite clear that customer relations is not their strong suit.

Conclusion

This service was most likely a scam and it likely shut down due to a large amount of chargebacks from customers. We are happy that this service is no longer operating.

If you had an experience with Head Copilot while it was operating, leave a comment below!

Our Grade – X

This service no longer exists.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

A short-lived one-man operation. The owner did not have a technical background, so it’s likely he was running the accounts in Jarvee or something.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	Managed “White label” SaaS
Quality of Service	Low
Business Registry / Location	New York
Traceable Team	Yes, single owner
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	About one year
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	False
Active Blog	No
External Sites	No
Dashboard / Account Management	No
Offsite Testimonies	No
Forthcoming About Password Handling	No

Pricing

This was a very expensive service considering how rudimentary the implementation was. Who would have paid for something like this? Your guess is as good as mine.

Service Details

This service had fairly meaningless premium offerings.

Integrity & Reputation

When an owner names his service after himself, you should at least look up the owner. In this case, the owner was a college kid studying finance. Does that give you confidence in him being able to grow your Instagram account or him knowing anything about how to integrate a software service with Instagram?

Thankfully, that is a question we no longer have to answer.

Conclusion

Edstagram was a service that only operated for about a year. Way back then, it was easy to get clients growth, even if you had no idea what you were doing. We hope that Ed has moved on to greener pastures and more honest business ventures.

Our Grade – X

Service no longer exists.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Nixx Marketing was an extremely-short-lived generic SaaS growth service with very little remaining web presence.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	Managed SaaS
Quality of Service	Low
Business Registry / Location	N/A
Traceable Team	No
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	Several months, ending in 2019
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	No
External Sites	Facebook
Dashboard / Account Management	No
Offsite Testimonies	One or two awful reviews
Forthcoming About Password Handling	No

Pricing

We don’t know the prices of this service.

Service Details

This was likely a generic SaaS operation.

Integrity & Reputation

The only two reviews of this service are both bad. Pretty much in line with what you’d expect from a one-man growth service.

Conclusion

A one-man operation that didn’t last very long but probably scammed a few people while it was operating

Our Grade – X

This service has been closed for years.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Falcon Social was a classic SaaS service that claims everything is real while, in actuality, everything is fake.

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	Managed SaaS
Quality of Service	N/A
Business Registry / Location	N/A
Traceable Team	No
Functioning Phone	No
Longevity	2018 – 2019
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	No
External Sites	No
Dashboard / Account Management	No
Offsite Testimonies	No
Forthcoming About Password Handling	N/A

Pricing

Pricing is unknown as that page was never cached, however, I believe this was positioned as a premium “by hand” service.

Service Details

200-3,000+ real followers per week is a bold claim, even by 2018 standards. And a pretty wide range, at that.

Integrity & Reputation

This was a short-lived SaaS business that only lives on through a few obscure blog posts.

Conclusion

Probably wasn’t great when it was around. At least they’re not still around to lie to potential customers.

Our Grade – X

This service shut down circa February 2020. Their website is still operating, but performs poorly in Google search

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

This service is closed, though we speculate that this was a simple SaaS offering. They claimed to guarantee thousands of followers in their main header, which always rubbed me the wrong way. To give them some credit, the website is gorgeous!

Business Analysis

Item	Result
Growth Type	Unknown
Quality of Service	N/A
Business Registry / Location	Los Angeles, CA
Traceable Team	Nope – I found one former writer but don’t see the value in identifying her
Functioning Phone	Maybe
Longevity	2+ years
Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding	True
Active Blog	Not since 2019
External Sites	Yes, Facebook and Linkedin, but both are inactive
Dashboard / Account Management	N/A
Offsite Testimonies	One review on Trustpilot
Forthcoming About Password Handling	N/A

Pricing

Boostly is closed and pricing is no longer displayed

Service Details

We do not know how exactly the service operated.

Integrity & Reputation

There is very little lasting web presence and only one review on Trustpilot, calling the business “a complete scam.” There are also mentions in the other Boostly company’s blog post suggesting that angry customers were desperately searching for an outlet to get refunds.

Conclusion

Boostly has closed, and, not to be harsh, but the Instagram growth service space is probably better for it.