The best Social Buddy alternatives, now that Social Buddy has closed
Is Social Buddy legit? It was a genuine managed Instagram growth service, run from Philadelphia for years, and it has closed that service. Read on 7 September 2026, socialbuddy.com sells an "Instagram Growth Blueprint" course and a members' community; the old sign-up page shows a waitlist with no price, and the pricing page returns a 404. Its Trustpilot profile, claimed December 2018, shows 3.6 from 62 reviews, none newer than 2023, and its old service page still promises "real, targeted followers". There is simply no plan left to buy, so the ranked list below covers the services still running, with Virallized first.
The Social Buddy alternatives, ranked by real reviews
The closest like-for-like replacement is a managed service that works the same way, through your own account, with real people choosing to follow you: Virallized, first on the ranked list below on the same public record. The rest of the list is every live growth service we track, ranked the same way, for anyone who arrived here looking for the service Social Buddy used to run.
Ordered by each service's public Trustpilot score, a number none of us control, including us. We only call an alternative worth considering when its own customers rate it 4.0★ or better, and most of this market does not clear that bar. Three of the biggest names currently have no rating at all — Trustpilot suspended them in August 2026 after removing fake reviews — so they sit last, unranked. Every score here was re-read by hand on the profile itself on the date above; no scraping, no cached feed. The full ranking shows the methodology and every service we track.
Worth considering, rated 4.0★ or better by their own customers
- Virallized (that's us) — Managed growth — Trustpilot 4.8★ from 93 reviews
- Social Boost — Managed growth — Trustpilot 4.0★ from 393 reviews
The rest, with their public record, listed for honest comparison rather than recommended
- Gainsty — Managed growth — Trustpilot 3.6★ from 80 reviews
- Social Sensei — Managed growth — Trustpilot 3.1★ from 92 reviews
- AiGrow — Managed growth — Trustpilot 2.5★ from 377 reviews
- Ampfluence — Managed growth — Trustpilot 2.4★ from 6 reviews
- Kicksta — Managed growth — Trustpilot 1.9★ from 628 reviews
Software tools, a different product
You operate these yourself rather than having the account grown for you, so they are listed with their full scores but not ranked against the services above.
Rating suspended by Trustpilot
Each of these profiles shows "This company's rating is unavailable due to a breach of our guidelines", with Trustpilot's reason quoted on each row. Listed unranked — a service without a score cannot hold a position.
- Path Social — Managed growth — no current rating; Trustpilot's notice: "We've removed a number of fake reviews for this company." 82% of the 1311 reviews still visible are 1-star
- Plixi — Managed growth — no current rating; Trustpilot's notice: "We've removed a number of fake reviews for this company." 94% of the 354 reviews still visible are 1-star
- UpGrow — Follower packages — no current rating; Trustpilot's notice: "We've removed a number of fake reviews for this company." 45% of the 3298 reviews still visible are 1-star
What Social Buddy sells — and the record to weigh
Every fact below was read by hand on 7 September 2026, on the company's own site and its Trustpilot page, and is quoted so you can check it in place.
What socialbuddy.com says today
- The old growth sign-up page, in its own words: "Currently due to high volume, we are temporarily placing our Instagram growth services on a waitlist. Please fill out your info below and we will email you when a spot opens up." No price is shown anywhere on the site; socialbuddy.com/pricing returns "Page not found".
- What the homepage sells instead: the "Instagram Growth Blueprint" ("4 hours of expert video tutorials"), "Threads Mastery & Monetization", and a members' community, beside a blog of Instagram how-to posts. The growth-service section still reads "real, targeted followers, no fake followers or bots", which is what the service was.
- Trustpilot's company description, provided by external sources: "Social Buddy is one of the best apps to grow Instagram followers and engagement for your social media content. Our clients increase 150-500 followers per week."
The record to weigh
- Trustpilot, 7 September 2026: 3.6 ("Average") from 62 reviews, profile claimed December 2018, the newest reviews on the page dated June 2023, March 2021 and October 2020, and the platform's note: "No recent history of asking for reviews." The record of a service that has stopped, not of one that went wrong: the reviews describe targeted, real followers and a warm-up period, the ordinary shape of managed growth.
- The growth service is closed. There is no plan to buy and no price published; the waitlist notice is the last trace of it. Anyone quoting Social Buddy's pricing in 2026 is quoting a page that no longer exists.
- One of our own Trustpilot reviews, carried verbatim on our reviews page, is from a client who came to us from Social Buddy and grew from around 100 followers to more than 3,000 in their niche. It is one account's experience, named and linked; read it as that.
The market-wide receipts — every seller's public record in one place, and the full audit of removals, pivots and redirects.
How to choose between them
Three checks separate the credible services from the rest. Check the live Trustpilot score, not the rating badge on the provider's own site: the two disagree surprisingly often, and only one of them is written by customers. Check the refund terms: a service confident in its results states a money-back window in plain words on the pricing page. Check what the price includes: growth only, or the content you will need to convert the new visitors too.
Then match the mechanism to your tolerance: automation tools are cheaper and riskier, human-run services cost more and hold up better, and follower vendors are a different product entirely, a number, not an audience. The comparison hub puts every service side by side, and the rankings keep the whole market in one sourced table.
Common questions
Is Social Buddy legit?
Yes, as a service it was genuine: Social Buddy ran managed Instagram growth from Philadelphia for years, and its old service page still promises "real, targeted followers" rather than bought ones. Its Trustpilot profile shows 3.6 from 62 reviews (read 7 September 2026). It has since closed its growth service. The site now sells courses and a community, and the old sign-up page shows a waitlist notice with no price.
Is Social Buddy still running?
No. Its growth service has closed: the old sign-up page shows a waitlist notice with no price, the pricing page returns a 404, the site sells courses instead, and its Trustpilot profile (3.6 from 62) shows no review newer than 2023. The courses and community are what remain.
What is the best Social Buddy alternative?
Virallized is the closest like-for-like: a managed service that works the same way, through your own account, with targeting by accounts you choose and real people choosing to follow you, from $99 a month with a 7-day money-back guarantee, a personal manager from Pro and Virallized AI included. It sits first on the ranked list above on the same public record; one of our named clients came to us from Social Buddy.
What did Social Buddy do?
Managed organic Instagram growth: it engaged from a client's account with targeted audiences so that real people chose to follow, and its Trustpilot description promised 150 to 500 new followers a week. That is the same model the live services on this page use, and the model Virallized runs today.