Key takeaways
- Instagram’s following list has no dates, no search by date and, since September 2026, no meaningful order, so reading it for changes means comparing it against an earlier copy.
- IGDetective ranks first because it keeps that earlier copy for you: each new entry on a public account’s following and follower lists is dated by the day it was first seen, with unfollows verified.
- DolphinRadar and FollowSpy are the quickest free looks; UnfollowersTrack and Snoopreport cover narrower questions at low prices.
An Instagram following list is a plain list of names. It tells you what a public account follows right now and nothing about when any of it happened or what has changed since you last looked. A following list viewer is a tool that adds the missing layer: dates, changes, sometimes the reverse list of followers. This guide compares five of them for anyone who wants to read a public account’s list rather than scroll it. It covers public accounts only; no legitimate tool can read a private account’s lists.
Each tool was judged on how it dates an entry, whether it shows changes rather than a static list, what is free, accounts per plan and the published price, from what each provider states on its own site as of October 23, 2026. IGDetective comes first because it turns the list into a dated record from the day you start, with a free check before you pay; to see what it shows for a username, learn more on its follower tracker page.
Why the list is hard to read
Three things make the raw list unreadable for anyone trying to spot a change. It has no dates. It cannot be sorted or filtered by date in the app. And since September 2026 Instagram returns it in an order that no longer reflects when each follow happened, so the top of the list is not the newest. The only reliable reading is a comparison: this list today against this list earlier. Instagram keeps no earlier copy for you. The tools below do, from the day you start them.
Comparison
| Tool | What it shows | How an entry is dated | Free part | Accounts per plan | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IGDetective | New follows, new followers, verified unfollows, dated | Day first seen, daily refresh | Free account check | 5 | About $1 a day, US price |
| DolphinRadar | Follows, unfollows, likes, Stories in a weekly report | Report period | Free search | 1 | From $2.75 a month, annual |
| FollowSpy | Recent follows and followers | Provider says live list | Free to start | 2 or unlimited | From $12 a week |
| UnfollowersTrack | Not following back, unfollowers, recent follow lookup | Per completed scan | Free sampled preview | Own account plus lookups | $4.99 a week or $39.99 a year |
| Snoopreport | Own follows, unfollows, likes in reports | Report period | None stated | 2 to 100 | From $4.99 a month |
1. IGDetective
IGDetective is a web tool, so it runs in the browser on a phone or a laptop with nothing to install. It starts with a free check: type a public username and it shows what can be revealed for that account before you pay anything. No Instagram login is asked for, and the account you look up is never notified.
On the paid plan, each new entry on the account’s following list is shown with the day it was first seen, and the follower list is treated the same way. Unfollows are tracked in both directions and each is verified before it is shown, dated by day. Tracked accounts refresh every day, you can refresh on demand, and one subscription covers up to five accounts. An anonymous Story viewer and a Story Archive are included. Plans cost about $1 a day at the US price, billed monthly or weekly, with no free trial.
A date is the day an entry was first seen, not a timestamp from Instagram, and a new follow can take a few days to appear. The record starts the day you add the account; the list as it stood before that is the baseline, not history.
Limits: public accounts only. Very large lists cannot be tracked, and the free check says so before you pay.
2. DolphinRadar
DolphinRadar’s main subscription covers one public account with weekly reports on follows, unfollows, likes and Stories plus AI summaries, by its own description. The pricing page lists $2.75 a month on the annual plan up to $4.49 month to month, with no free trial on those plans, and the account search is free. Its help text says the times shown are when DolphinRadar first found an account. It is the broadest weekly digest at the lowest annual price.
3. FollowSpy
FollowSpy, at followspy.ai, says you enter a public username and instantly see who the account recently followed and who followed it, with an anonymous Story viewer and no Instagram login. Its plans page lists Starter at $12 a week for two accounts and Premium at $14 a week for unlimited accounts, shown against struck-through higher prices. The instant and live wording is the provider’s claim; it is a lookup rather than a kept record.
4. UnfollowersTrack
UnfollowersTrack is a web tool with a companion app called Lurke. Its site describes who unfollowed you, who does not follow you back and your top engagers, from public data with no password, plus a recent follow lookup for public profiles. There is a free sampled preview, then $4.99 a week or $39.99 a year, with a $0.99 three-day trial. The site says supported profiles have no more than 20,000 followers or following.
5. Snoopreport
Snoopreport reports on what a public account itself does, the accounts it follows and unfollows and the posts it likes, in weekly or monthly reports with CSV export. Plans run from $4.99 a month for two accounts to $44.99 for a hundred, advertised as $0.99 a week. Its site says it does not list who follows the tracked account, and that a report captures up to 75 percent of public actions.
Three steps
- Confirm the account is public by opening the profile while logged out.
- Use the free part: IGDetective’s account check, DolphinRadar’s search, FollowSpy’s free start, UnfollowersTrack’s sample.
- Start tracking the day you decide. The Following tab that once showed this activity inside Instagram was removed in 2019, and nothing in the app has replaced it; with about half of American adults on Instagram, per Pew Research Center, that gap is why these tools exist.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sort someone’s following list by date? Not in Instagram. A tracker dates each new entry from the day it first saw it, which gives you a dated list from that day forward.
Does the top of the list mean the newest follow? Not since September 2026. Treat the order as unknown and rely on a dated record.
Will the account know I looked at its list? No. None of these tools connects your Instagram account.
Can I read a private account’s following list? No, and no legitimate tool can.
Verdict
IGDetective for a dated, kept record of a public account’s following and follower lists across up to five accounts, with unfollows verified and a free check first. DolphinRadar for the widest weekly digest at the lowest annual price, FollowSpy for an instant lookup, UnfollowersTrack for a not-following-back check, and Snoopreport for the cheapest reports on what an account itself does.
Details about other providers reflect their own websites as of October 23, 2026 and may have changed.
