Best Instagram competitor analysis tools in 2026 (compared)

On Instagram, seeing that a competitor posted a Reel with 300,000 views tells you nothing until you know what that account usually gets. For one account it’s a record; for another, an ordinary week. Instagram competitor analysis tools collect the posts of the accounts you watch, and the most useful ones measure each Reel against the account’s own norm. This comparison reviews seven tools you can use in 2026, with their prices and their Instagram-specific limits: hidden likes, professional accounts required, partial history.

At a glance#

What to look for in an Instagram competitor analysis tool#

Four criteria separate a useful tracking tool from a simple view counter.

Every Reel compared with its account’s norm. Follower count isn’t enough to judge a Reel, and an account’s average gets pulled up by a few exceptional videos, as the example below shows. The median of recent videos gives a stable benchmark: a Reel that clearly beats it struck a chord, whatever the size of the account.

Hidden likes handled as hidden. Instagram lets anyone hide the like and view counts on their posts. A tool that counts those likes as zero skews the account’s engagement; at the very least, it should flag the posts involved.

Engagement calculated on a stated basis. Some tools divide interactions by views, others by followers, because competitors’ reach isn’t available to them. The two numbers can’t be compared, so check the formula before drawing conclusions. Our article on the average engagement rate on TikTok and Instagram walks through the calculation methods.

Access to accounts you don’t manage. According to Meta’s help center, insights in Meta Business Suite only open for a Page or Instagram profile you have permissions on. Third-party tools therefore read competitors’ public data, each with its own conditions: professional account required, history pulled when you add the account, collection schedule, alerts or none.

How we chose#

The tools on this list track competing Instagram accounts in a structured way, except Meta Business Suite, included as a free, official complement to benchmark your own results. We left out ad libraries, which show a brand’s ads without tracking its organic posts. Prices are as of November 2026. Creadar is our product: we rated it with the same criteria as the other tools, and its limits are listed in its card.

The best Instagram competitor analysis tools#

01Creadar

Reels at 3x the account’s median, flagged daily

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube Shorts
• Starting price €18/month

Creadar tracks the Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts accounts you add to a watchlist and flags the videos that stand out every day. A Reel is flagged as an outlier when its views or engagement reach 3 times the median of the creator’s last 20 eligible videos, so the threshold follows each account’s own norm, small or large.

Best for Creators, coaches and social media managers who already have a list of competing Instagram accounts and want to know which Reels beat each account’s norm, without running the numbers themselves

Strengths

• Every Reel compared with the median of its account’s last 20 videos, for views and engagement
• Engagement calculated on views: (likes + comments) ÷ views × 100
• Hidden likes flagged as such: engagement is marked “hidden” instead of counting as zero, and available views and comments stay visible
• Flags pinned Reels and paid partnerships marked by Instagram, since they can inflate performance
• An outliers-only filter in the video feed and a dashboard of the best videos, to find standout Reels without scrolling every account
• Read-only connector to query your tracked accounts from Claude or ChatGPT (Creator and Pro plans)

Limitations

• No keyword search and no account discovery: Creadar only analyzes the accounts you add to a watchlist
• No AI scripts and no AI explanation of why a Reel worked: the tool spots the signal, you write the content
• Data is collected once a day
• On YouTube, only Shorts are tracked
• New product, with less of a public track record than older players

Pricing Starter at €18/month or €180/year (1 watchlist, 10 tracked creators), Creator at €35/month or €348/year (2 watchlists, 30 creators, Claude and ChatGPT connector), Pro at €95/month or €948/year (unlimited watchlists, 100 creators). One-time free preview of 3 accounts, no credit card required. Public pricing, November 2026

The first three Reels in this list, from a demo watchlist of French-speaking coaching accounts, all come from the same account, @mavicbright: 22.9x, 11.8x and 8.2x her median views. Her creator page shows why the comparison uses the median.

Over the last 30 days, her average views (92.9K) are nearly 2.5 times her median views (37.4K): a few Reels far above the rest are enough to inflate the average. A new Reel with 80,000 views would still sit below that average, even though it’s more than double the median. The score shown to the right of each video is calculated on the median of the account’s last 20 videos.

02Sandcastles

Outliers by niche and scripts from Reels

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Starting price $49/month ($39/month billed yearly)

Sandcastles tracks Instagram, TikTok and YouTube channels, spots their outlier videos, explains why they worked and offers to turn them into a script for your own account.

Best for Creators who want to go from a competitor’s Reel that worked to a script for their own account, in the same tool

Strengths

• Up to 150 competitors tracked per workspace on the Pro plan, with 3 workspaces
• Discovery of top-performing channels by niche, beyond the accounts you already know
• Breakdowns of why a video worked, plus a script generator
• MCP connector for AI assistants included starting with the Pro plan
• Connecting your own accounts is optional

Limitations

• 100 credits a month on the Pro plan, shared between video analyses, scripts and reports, and lost if unused by the end of the month
• No refunds on subscriptions, according to its FAQ

Pricing Pro at $49/month ($39/month billed yearly, 100 credits a month), Visionary at $99/month ($79/month billed yearly, 250 credits), Titan at $499/month ($399/month billed yearly, 1,500 credits). Public pricing, November 2026

03Virlo

Research agents on a niche’s Reels

• Instagram (Reels)
• TikTok
• YouTube Shorts
• Starting price $49/month ($34/month billed yearly)

Virlo runs agents that look for outlier videos in a niche on TikTok, Instagram (Reels) and YouTube Shorts, break down their hooks, formats and scripts, and track accounts to tell you when one of their videos breaks out. It also covers Meta ads.

Best for Agencies and social media managers who follow several niches and want agents that keep looking for outperforming Reels

Strengths

• Account tracking (competitors, clients, your own accounts) included in every plan
• Research agents that keep searching after you close the tab
• CTA, script, format and hook analysis
• Excel, CSV and JSON exports
• 7-day free trial

Limitations

• No refunds once the 7-day trial is over
• Credits are used by every action: a research agent costs 100 credits per run, out of 2,000 credits a month on Starter

Pricing Starter at $49/month ($34/month billed yearly, or $408/year, 2,000 credits a month), Pro at $199/month ($139/month billed yearly, 12,000 credits), Enterprise from $499/month (20,000 credits). Public pricing, November 2026

04Iconosquare

Instagram analytics and competitor tracking

• Multi-platform
• Starting price €69/month billed yearly (Scale plan)

Iconosquare combines analytics, publishing and listening for social media. Its Competitors section tracks Instagram Business accounts: follower growth, posting habits, average likes and comments, and most engaging posts.

Best for Brands and small teams that want detailed Instagram analytics, publishing and a benchmark of a few competitors per profile in one tool

Strengths

• Instagram competitor tracking: followers, posting habits and density, average likes and comments, most engaging posts
• Industry benchmark included in the Scale plan
• Reels analytics for your own accounts, even on the free plan
• 14-day free trial, no credit card required

Limitations

• Competitor analysis only on the Scale plan, with 5 competitors per profile
• Only Instagram Business accounts can be added as competitors, and your own account must be one too
• Likes unavailable on posts that hide them
• No outlier detection against an account’s median

Pricing Free plan (2 profiles, no competitor analysis), Starter from €9/month billed yearly (€11 billed monthly), Launch from €33/month billed yearly (€39 billed monthly), Scale from €69/month billed yearly (€83 billed monthly) for 5 profiles, with competitor analysis, Custom from €116/month billed yearly (€139 billed monthly). Public pricing, November 2026

05Metricool

Scheduling and competitor profile comparison

• Multi-platform
• Starting price Free / $20/month

Metricool combines scheduling, analytics and a Competitors module. On Instagram, it compares your metrics with those of competing professional accounts (followers, likes, interactions, engagement) and shows their posts.

Best for Social media managers who already schedule their posts and want to compare a few competing Instagram accounts in the same tool, starting for free

Strengths

• Free-forever plan with 5 competitors per network
• Up to 100 competitors per network on paid plans
• On paid plans, up to 300 posts of a competitor’s history, on request to support

Limitations

• Instagram competitors must be professional accounts, and your own Instagram account must be linked through Facebook
• Competitor engagement is calculated on followers, since their reach isn’t available
• Followers and likes are only tracked from the day you add the competitor
• No outlier detection against an account’s median

Pricing Free-forever plan (1 brand, 5 competitors analyzed), Starter from $20/month billed yearly ($25/month billed monthly, up to 100 competitors analyzed), Advanced from $53/month billed yearly ($67/month billed monthly), Custom on request. Prices exclude VAT. Public pricing, November 2026

06Agorapulse

Multi-platform management with a Competitors report

• Multi-platform
• Starting price $79/user/month

Agorapulse is mainly built to publish, reply to messages and report across several networks. Its Competitors report compares your followers, posts by format and engagement with those of competing accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

Best for Teams that publish and handle messages from one tool and want a regular report on their Instagram and Facebook competitors

Strengths

• Competitors report that separates Instagram formats: Reels, carousels, videos and photos
• Competitors’ top posts ranked by likes, comments or total engagement
• 6 competitors on the Advanced plan, more as an add-on
• 30-day free trial, no payment method required

Limitations

• A single competitor on the Standard and Professional plans
• Professional accounts only; followers tracked from the day you add them, posts pulled from the previous 30 days
• Per-user pricing, which adds up quickly for a team
• No outlier detection against an account’s median

Pricing Standard at $79/user/month billed yearly ($99 billed monthly), Professional at $119/user/month billed yearly ($149 billed monthly), Advanced at $149/user/month billed yearly ($199 billed monthly), Custom pricing on request. Extra competitors available as an add-on, on request. Public pricing, November 2026

07Meta Business Suite

Official benchmark by category, free

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Starting price Free

Meta Business Suite is Meta’s free tool to manage a Facebook Page and an Instagram professional account. Its Benchmarking tab compares your business with other businesses in the same category that have a similar organic 28-day reach.

Best for Seeing, for free, how your own Instagram results compare with similar businesses, alongside a tool that tracks competitor accounts

Strengths

• Free on desktop and in the mobile app
• Data straight from Meta
• Your Facebook Page and Instagram profile insights in one place

Limitations

• Insights only for the Pages and profiles you have permissions on
• Compares you with a category of businesses, with no alerts and no detection of outperforming Reels
• Benchmarking is one of the tabs that Insights “may include”, so it doesn’t necessarily show up on every account
• Requires a business portfolio

Pricing Free.

How to choose#

You already have your list of Instagram competitors and want to know which Reels stand out: Creadar, which compares every Reel with its account’s median and flags the ones that outperform.

You want to discover accounts by niche and turn their Reels into scripts: Sandcastles for a creator, Virlo for an agency following several niches; both are priced in dollars.

You already manage publishing for your accounts and want to keep an eye on a few competitors: Metricool on a tight budget, Agorapulse if your team already handles its messages there, Iconosquare for detailed Instagram analytics and an industry benchmark.

You want to benchmark your own results without paying: Meta Business Suite and its Benchmarking tab, paired with an account-tracking tool.

You want to test before you pay: Creadar’s free 3-account preview, with no credit card, or the free trials from Virlo (7 days), Iconosquare (14 days) and Agorapulse (30 days).

If your competitors also post on TikTok, our comparison of TikTok competitor analysis tools applies the same criteria to that platform. To understand what makes a Reel spread, read our guide to the Instagram algorithm; to set up your tracking step by step, see our social media competitive analysis method.