Instagram, the popular photo-sharing and social media app has shown steady growth in popularity over the years, and by the end of 2020, it had more than 1 billion users.
In the same year, it featured in the list of top five most-downloaded apps on Google Play and App Store. In fact, in the second quarter of 2020, Instagram had more than 13 million downloads.
There has been a tough crackdown on Instagram bots a few years ago, and Archie was one of the services that faced the ax. After being out of business for more than a year, it got back up on its feet again, only to be closed down once more, on Instagram’s request.
So what really happened to the service? Was it a scam?
Now, there are thousands of companies offering Instagram growth services these days and it’s quite tough to survive in such a competitive market.
Additionally, Instagram keeps tweaking its rules and regulations so growth services have to keep an eye on this as well. Let us try and find out what Archie was all about, why it got closed down, and if it was a legit service.
Here, we shall look into the various aspects of the service to try to reach an unbiased conclusion.
What is Archie?
Archie is a social media growth service provider that promotes the social media accounts of its clients and helps businesses expand their customer base. However, it seems they function as a cheap bot service since Instagram has banned them. It makes us wonder how they managed to go up and running again.
On the official website of Archie, it is mentioned that they don’t accept new clients anymore. Nevertheless, existing members can still log in to enjoy the services. As mentioned before, this company failed to adapt itself to the new Instagram policies, and as a result, they got shut down.
The vendor claims that organizations like United Nations Foundation, Shopify, and Uber trust their services. But since they are not taking in new members, we have our doubts regarding the veracity of these claims.
We can only assume that the first time Archei got shut down in 2017, their services were being provided in such an aggressive way that the Instagram algorithm picked up on it.
Lately, Instagram has been waging a war against automated tools such as Archie, and after it managed to get back up on its feet after a hiatus of one year, it was soon closed down again. There are several user reviews that tell us that the company failed to live up to its promises during this time.
How Does Archie Function?
Since Archie is no accepting new clients, it is very difficult to find out how it performs currently for the existing users. While it was active, Archie helped you identify a target demographic and likes the posts of users that belonged to that demographic.
This app also provided analytics features, using which you could see various performance parameters related to your social media handle.
It used to be a simple app with not many advanced features. It could be that Archie’s method was too simple and it ultimately spelled doom for the company. Most people used their service in tandem with others, and this tells you that it wasn’t possible for them to grow their profiles just with Archie.
While the service is no longer functional, the domain and website are still active. This might indicate that Archie might try to re-enter the world of Instagram marketing after some time. But as of now, there are no signs that indicate its comeback.
Other Popular Instagram Growth Tools
| Service | Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Growthoid | 4.75 | Check Price |
| Growthsilo | 4.2 | Check Price |
What Features Does Archie Offer?
Many social media growth service providers stick to the basics to avoid being banned, it seems Archie is one of them. But their plan seems to have backfired since they got banned anyway.
Let us take a look at the main features offered by the service.
Targeting Options
After registering with the service, you first had to identify your target audience. Archie asked you to provide things like account names on Instagram, geographical tags, hashtags, etc.
It should be mentioned that most Instagram growth service providers ask for these details so it’s nothing extraordinary.
Archie did not have any measures in place that allowed it to detect illegitimate accounts. There are several malicious profiles on Instagram, and most service providers use certain filters so that posts from these profiles were not liked or commented on.
Since Archie had no such filters, it would often like posts that were deemed inappropriate, and this could be the reason why it lost its reputation and had to be shut down.
Automated Likes
After choosing to target a specific demographic, you just needed to sit back and let the app do its job. Archie would then automatically send likes from your profile to the posts made by the members of your target audience. This is a very basic approach that many bot companies follow, and it might have worked for some time, but there were certain risks that came with it.
If the user reviews are anything to go by, Archie used to send these likes at an aggressive pace due to which the Instagram algorithm picked up on its actions.
This led to the accounts getting banned or suspended, and naturally, the users were not pleased. This is definitely one of the principal reasons why Instagram chose to ban Archie.
Even if we assume that Archie took a safe and innocuous approach, it is not possible to grow your account these days solely by liking the posts of others.
This is a narrow approach in a day and age where growth companies use specialized techniques and take care to deliver the likes at a more relaxed pace so that the algorithm is not able to detect it. The targeting method used by Archie was not very clear-cut, and as time went on, it further lost its effectiveness.
Tags
With Archie, you could select multiple tags related to your content and the bot would then proceed to like the content of other users that had the same tags.
This was done so that these accounts would follow your profile back. Of course, there is some adult content present on the Instagram platform, and Archie had a filter that you could select to protect your reputation.
But while its services were active, many users complained about getting inappropriate messages from dubious-looking profiles. Moreover, it seems Archie liked all posts related to the hashtags you provided, without considering things like the number of followers, number of likes per post, etc.
With Archie’s Business package, you could get access to the geotagging feature. But considering the fact that it was expensive and that it had no filters in place for identifying followers per profiles or likes per post, many users thought it wasn’t worth it.
Locations
If you provided Archie with a location, it used to like the posts from users who lived in that particular area. This was a useful feature for businesses that were centered in a particular locality and were looking to expand their customer base.
Analytics
Archie had an activity log where you could see the app’s activity in a graphical format. So you always knew what kinds of posts were liked from your profile. From the graph, you also got to know how your follower count increased or decreased over time.
This was one of the few good features of Archie since it allowed you to check whether the growth campaign was working or not. You had the option of changing the settings until you received satisfactory results.
Pricing
Unfortunately, there is no pricing information available for Archie since they shut down their operations. However, by checking some user reviews from the past, you can get an idea about the pricing plans. A monthly subscription to Archie cost you $29 per month, and in exchange, you got about 750-800 followers.
Thus, on a yearly basis, you could acquire approximately 9000 followers for $377 or so. The pricing plans reportedly ranged from $19 to $209, which is not really cheap, compared to the other growth services out there.
It should also be noted that Archie did not reveal its prices until you were signed up with them, which raises some questions about their legitimacy.
Is Archie a Legitimate Service?
Archie used to follow a low-key approach for improving your Instagram statistics. While other companies followed more aggressive tactics, it limited itself to engaging with people who were likely to follow you back.
On the surface, it seems unlikely that a company using such an approach would be getting banned.
When you interact with other individuals’ content, it tells them that you are genuinely interested in what they are sharing. Thus, they are inclined to view your content and engage with them. But there is more to it than meets the eye.
Although Archie automatically delivered likes, it sometimes liked certain posts that were unrelated to your content. Since the likes were delivered based on hashtags, the software often made the occasional slip-up. However, this was all before the 2017 fiasco that led to Instagram banning Archie.
Post-2017, Archie managed to get back up on its feet and continued to operate, apparently while violating Instagram policies. During this period, many users complained about the services not delivering the expected results.
Eventually, they were shut down by Instagram again, and right now it cannot be considered as a legit service provider.
Is Archie Safe to Use?
Archie used to be a safe service, despite making the occasional mistake. But after it reopened, it no longer remained so, since several users had their profiles suspended or blocked for using its services.
Review Conclusion
Even before Instagram shut it down for the first time, Archie’s services were nothing exceptional. It seems unlikely that they would try to make a comeback again, but even if they do, we recommend that you look for better options.
Right now, using the services of Archie is highly risky, since your profile is likely to get banned by Instagram.
These days, you need more than likes in order to grow your profile in a meaningful way, and there are several other services that offer better long-term results at much more affordable prices compared to Archie.
