Our Grade – C-
There are many layers of deception behind this service and nobody is raving about the results.
At a Glance
Upleap is a popular Instagram growth service. “Popular” in that the firm has an affiliate program and has been ranked highly by many of the shill bloggers.
Upleap’s claim is that you’ll grow faster with a dedicated account manager. The reality is that their single “dedicated account manager” is a fake persona. They’re just running a bot on your account, and don’t seem to be very good at it.
Business Analysis
| Item | Result |
| Growth Type | “Dedicated account manager” — basic follow/unfollow bot |
| Quality of Service | Low |
| Business Registry / Location | MKN Media Ltd. / Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia |
| Traceable Team | Single owner hiding behind fake personas |
| Functioning Phone | No |
| Longevity | 2+ years |
| Doesn’t Misuse IG Branding | True |
| Active Blog | Yes |
| External Sites | No |
| Dashboard / Account Management | No |
| Offsite Testimonies | Trustpilot |
| Forthcoming About Password Handling | No |
Pricing
If Upleap actually was growing accounts by hand using dedicated account managers, these prices would be somewhat decent. Considering it’s just another bot service, I don’t think it’s worth paying for.
Service Details
Upleap is forthcoming about the methods they use to grow accounts. Though they never reveal that they’re just using bots. They also claim that you get a dedicated account manager, but that’s just the persona they use whenever people file support tickets.
Integrity & Reputation
The owner of Upleap went really far to try to create fake personas. Let’s start with the “account manager” Kate Fernandez.
This is obviously a fake profile. If I was a clueless person not from America, this is how I’d try to create a fake American. Pick the 10th largest city in Ohio and set that as the location, say I went to Ohio State, and claim to have worked for Amazon as a generic “account manager” for two years after studying “Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services.”
Yeah, it’s highly unlikely an American would use this wording to describe their business on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any matches for this photo of “Kate Fernandez,” but I also couldn’t find any records of her actually being a real person. This is just the start.
Next, we have the figurehead of Upleap, “Emily Trevino.”
There are shallow social media personas on several popular platforms all using this picture of an attractive woman who seems to be of mixed heritage. Five minutes spent actually reading what little content there is reveals that Emily is a figment of someone’s imagination. But… whose imagination?
Well, if Upleap is to be believed, the company has an association with MKN Media, based at in a foreign place I’ve never even heard of:
Now, if we scroll farther down that page …
Who is Ahmad Khan?
This is the owner of Upleap. If all else fails, how do you identify the owner of a shady social media service? They’ll brag on LinkedIn about how much money they make! If that’s not enough, I will highlight the fact that “Ahmad Khan” does contain the same letters used in the MKN Media acronym, appearing in the same order.
Anyway, anyway, anyway, this service has something to hide. The fact of the matter is that they don’t seem to get clients very good results and their Trustpilot does nothing to inspire confidence. They respond to very few negative reviews and Ahmad seems to have given up as of late.
Conclusion
This service went farther than most others to establish fake personas, though the single-owners’ bragging about the amount of money he makes allowed us to positively identify him.
This service has awful Trustpilot reviews and we see no reason to use this service versus competitors.