Works on any public Instagram account
Drop in any public handle. We map every account sharing its audience, rank them by overlap, and filter the results down to the ones actually in the niche.
The short answer
To find Instagram accounts similar to any creator, look at who shares their audience - not at accounts posting similar content. Two accounts can post identical content and reach completely different people; two can post very differently and reach the exact same audience. The right definition of “similar” is audience overlap. SocialToolsAI does this on any public Instagram profile: enter a handle and you get back the accounts that share its audience, ranked by how much of that audience they share and AI-filtered down to the ones in the same niche. Public profiles only, no Instagram login needed.
What people use it for
The same scan answers a lot of different questions. These are the most common.
Find every account already reaching the people you want to reach. Each result comes with engagement metrics, so you can prioritize who's worth pitching first.
Drop in a competitor's handle. See the full ecosystem of accounts sharing their audience - not just direct competitors, but every adjacent creator competing for the same people.
Onboarding a new client? One map gives you the picture of who's already in their niche, ranked by overlap and filtered to relevance. No more guessing at the landscape.
Find creators whose audience matches a known performer. Useful for building creator portfolios that diversify reach without diluting it.
Pick any creator you wish you were. Map every account sharing their audience. You're looking at the accounts they actually compete with for attention.
Thinking about pivoting to a new niche? Scan the top accounts in it. The map of similar accounts is the map of who you'd be competing with.
How we define “similar”
Topic tools match keywords and hashtags. We match audiences. Here's the difference in four steps.
The account you want to find similar accounts to. Yours, a competitor's, a creator you're researching, anyone public.
Results are based on the people actually paying attention to that account, which is why they beat a search for accounts that merely post about the same thing.
Accounts that share the most of the same audience are the strongest matches. That overlap is what ranks the list.
Off-topic accounts (Instagram itself, mega-celebrities, brands everyone follows) get filtered out so the ranked list is genuinely niche-relevant.
Honest comparison
Different tools define “similar” differently. Here's what each actually does.
| Tool | How it defines “similar” | Honest take |
|---|---|---|
| SocialToolsAI | Accounts that share followers, likers and commenters with the account you scan. AI-filtered to niche-relevant results. | Best fit when “similar” means “reaches the same people.” |
| Instagram's built-in suggestions | Mutual follows plus topic signals. Surfaces 3–6 accounts directly from a profile page. | Free, instant, but tiny. Good for a first impression. Not enough for actual research. |
| trendHERO | Pulls a list of up to ~300 accounts from a single influencer profile report, weighted by Instagram's own recommendation signals. | Larger than Instagram's native list, still relies on Instagram's signals rather than audience-side analysis. |
| influencers.club | Combines bio keywords, hashtag patterns, audience demographics, and engagement to suggest similar accounts. | Strong if you want bio/keyword-driven matching. Less precise on the audience-overlap question. |
| Storyclash | AI search across creator content - find creators posting similar visual content to a reference. | Brand-side tool, content-similarity focused. Different question than audience overlap. |
| Inflact | Keyword and hashtag search, plus a bundle of Instagram utilities. | Topic-based discovery. Useful if you already know the keywords; less so when you don't. |
| Kicksta | Growth-engagement service that targets similar accounts to drive follows. | Different category - it acts on similar accounts rather than surfacing them as research. |
If “similar” for you means topic similarity, a keyword tool is fine. If “similar” means “reaches the same people,” you need audience-side analysis - and almost no one in the space actually does it that way.
How much of the seed account's audience this result shares. Higher means tighter overlap.
How many likes and comments their posts typically pull - computed across recent non-pinned posts so the number isn't gamed by viral outliers.
A 0–100 score that adjusts for account size, so a smaller niche-relevant account can outrank a giant generalist.
AI classification: direct competitor, adjacent niche, loosely related, or off-topic. Off-topic gets filtered out by default.
The content actually pulling the engagement - clickable through to Instagram. Useful when you want to study what's working in the niche.
Every scan generates a tokenized public URL. Send it to a client or a teammate; they can open it without signing up.
Three real scans generated from public Instagram accounts. Open them up and look at the similar-account lists, the engagement metrics, the top posts.
Rival Scout builds the same Competitor Map, then layers an AI strategist on top: a fresh content plan, trending-topic surfacing, posting-time recommendations, and a side-by-side benchmark - every two weeks, automatically.
First month free, then $24.99/month. Includes the Competitor Map · New report every two weeks · No Instagram login required
Any public account. You don't have to own the handle you scan. Researchers, agencies, marketers, and creators all use this on accounts they don't own - competitors, prospects, creators they admire, brands they're studying. The person whose account you scan is never notified.
Instagram's native feature suggests 3–6 accounts based on mutual follows and topic signals. It's surface-level and limited. SocialToolsAI maps the full picture: hundreds of accounts sharing your seed account's audience, ranked by overlap percentage, with engagement metrics on each. You also get the option to filter, sort, and share the results - none of which Instagram's UI offers.
Audience overlap, not topic similarity. Two accounts can post identical content but reach completely different people; two can post different content and reach the exact same audience. We measure the second: how much of the same audience each account reaches. AI then filters out off-niche accounts (Instagram itself, mega-celebrities, brands everyone follows) so what you see is the relevant set.
No. You never connect an Instagram account or hand over credentials. You do need a SocialToolsAI account and a plan to run a scan, and every Rival Scout report includes a Competitor Map. Sample scans linked on this page can be viewed without any account at all.
Yes. The methodology is identical for any public account - solo creators, brands, media outlets, ecommerce shops, agencies. The data quality is highest on accounts with meaningful follower engagement, so very small or very dormant accounts will return thinner results.
Median engagement (likes + comments) is computed across the most recent non-pinned posts of each account in the results. The numbers are snapshots at scan time, not historical averages. Re-running a scan gives you fresh numbers.
Yes. Every scan can generate a public share link - a random-token URL anyone can open in a browser. Useful for sending shortlists to clients, teammates, or co-founders without making them sign up.
Same product, different angle. This page is framed around finding similar accounts to any seed - useful for research and outreach on accounts you don't own. The audience-discovery page is framed around understanding your own audience and finding your real competitive set. Both run the same underlying scan.
First month free, then $24.99/month. Your Competitor Map comes with every Rival Scout report. No Instagram login.
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