Competitor Analysis

Where to find it

Open Competitors in the menu and pick the period at the top (7, 30 or 90 days). The Competitors block on Home shows your account next to up to three of them, and the Accounts tab of Performance has a link to this page.

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What you need

Instagram only lets one kind of connection read other accounts, so the comparison depends on how your account is connected:

• An Instagram Business or Creator account connected through Facebook Login. An account connected with Instagram Login cannot read other accounts. The Instagram guide compares the two connect methods.
• The permission for it. An account connected before PostRite asked for it has to be reconnected in Connected accounts.
• The Editor role or above to add, refresh or remove a competitor. Every member can see the comparison.

Adding a competitor

1. Open Competitors in the menu.
2. Type the competitor's Instagram handle and click Add.
3. PostRite reads the account right away and adds a row for it. After that, the numbers refresh once a day.

You can track up to 10 competitors per organization. Removing one deletes its stored history and changes nothing on Instagram.

What is compared

• The numbers: followers and their change over the last 30 days, posts per week, average likes, comments and views, and engagement per follower (average likes plus comments, divided by followers). The trend chart shows one of these over time for the competitor you pick.
• Measured the same way on both sides: your own account is read with the same request as each competitor, over the last 25 posts of each, so the averages cover comparable posts.
• One read a day: the numbers are as of the date shown. The trend chart needs two days of data, and Refresh now is available once an hour per competitor.
• Only public numbers: PostRite stores counts, never captions.

What to expect

• Business and Creator accounts only. Instagram returns data only for professional accounts. A handle that does not exist, a renamed or deleted account and a personal account all come back as Not found, and Instagram withholds some accounts, such as age-restricted ones. Nothing is added unless Instagram answers for the handle.
• A missing number is a dash, never a zero. An account that hides its like counts has no average likes or engagement per follower, and when the last 25 posts end before 30 days back, the post count is a minimum and posts per week is calculated over the days actually covered.
• When Add is disabled, the reason is written beside it. Only an Editor can add; Instagram is not connected through Facebook; PostRite is not requesting the permission right now (reconnecting changes nothing); the account has not granted the permission (reconnect it in Connected accounts); or you already track 10 competitors.
• When a competitor cannot be read, its row says why, with Instagram's code. If the Instagram account that reads it is gone, reconnect Instagram in Connected accounts; if the reads were held back by Instagram's limits or by PostRite's own safeguard, the next daily read tries again. A competitor left without a reading account for 90 days is removed, along with its stored days.
• A pause leaves a gap. While the organization's subscription is restricted, competitors are not read. The history keeps a gap for those days and continues when access returns. Everything already collected stays visible.

Before you have any competitor

An empty Competitors page says what the comparison shows and why you cannot add anyone yet, when that is the case: no Instagram account is connected, or the account has not granted the permission (a button takes you to Connected accounts), or PostRite is not requesting the permission right now (nothing to do on your side). A Viewer sees that adding needs the Editor role.

AI assistants

If you have connected an AI assistant through MCP, it can read the same comparison with the get_competitor_snapshots tool: the Instagram competitors you track, with your own account measured the same way, or one competitor's daily history. Adding and removing competitors stays in the app. See Connect AI Assistants.

Common questions