How to Find Influencers on Instagram (Free and Paid Ways)

What’s the fastest free way to find influencers on Instagram?

Search like a customer, not like a marketer. Type the words your buyers would use, like “apartment plants,” “toddler lunch ideas” or “budget travel NYC,” into Instagram search, then switch to the Reels and Accounts tabs. Instagram’s search now leans heavily on keywords in captions and bios, so plain-English phrases work better than hashtags alone.

A trick that works better than it should: once you find one creator who’s a perfect fit, open their profile and tap the arrow next to Follow. Instagram shows similar accounts, and those often lead to five or six more good options.

Free search is slow, but it’s how you learn what good looks like in your niche. INFLUENCE does this kind of digging on every campaign, then layers in audience and performance data so you’re not judging creators on looks alone.

How to find influencers who already know your brand

Before you search for strangers, check who’s already talking about you. These creators are the easiest yes you’ll ever get, because they already like the product.

Where to look:

• Your tagged posts and mentions. Go to your brand profile’s tagged tab and your notifications. Anyone who posted about you unprompted is worth a look.

• Your own followers. Sort through recent followers for accounts with real audiences. Some of your customers are creators.

• Your customer list. Ask in your next order email: “Do you make content? We’d love to hear from you.”

• Competitors’ tagged posts. Creators who’ve posted about a similar product already know the category and have an audience that buys it. Check their past posts for exclusivity first.

• The comments of bigger creators in your niche. Smaller creators often hang out in the comments of the big ones, and their profiles are a click away.

Customers who already post about you are gold, but they’re easy to lose track of. On an INFLUENCE campaign, creators who already know your product can sit right alongside new ones on the same shortlist for you to approve.

How does Instagram’s Creator Marketplace work?

Creator Marketplace is Instagram’s own free tool for brands to find and contact creators. You reach it through Meta Business Suite (or the Instagram app on a business account), search and filter creators, and message them in a separate inbox so your note doesn’t get buried in their DM requests.

What it lets you do, according to Instagram’s announcement covered by Search Engine Land:

• Get recommendations of creators based on Instagram’s own data.

• Search and filter by creator and audience attributes.

• See creators who’ve shown interest in your brand and browse their portfolios.

• Send project details, including rates, to several creators at once.

• Turn agreed posts into partnership ads in Ads Manager. (Search Engine Land)

Creators have to opt in, be at least 18 and have a professional (Creator or Business) account, and there’s no official minimum follower count. Instagram first tested it in the U.S. in 2022, and it’s now available in more than 18 countries. (inro) The pool skews toward creators actively looking for brand deals, which is good for reply rates but not a full picture of who’s out there.

It’s a strong free starting point, and you still have to vet, negotiate, contract and pay everyone yourself. INFLUENCE picks up from the shortlist onward, handling the deals and payouts while you approve the creators.

What are the paid ways to find Instagram influencers?

Paid options buy you speed and data. They make the most sense once you need more than 10 or 15 creators, or once free search starts eating a full day a week.

Instagram is still the platform most brands book. On Collabstr’s marketplace, Instagram made up 40% of creator campaigns in 2025, ahead of UGC at 35% and TikTok at 21%. (Collabstr) So whichever tool you pick, it should be strong on Instagram data, especially audience location and Reel views.

One honest note on databases: the data is only as good as its last refresh. Treat any number from a tool as a starting point and confirm it with the creator’s own insights before you pay.

Tools find names; someone still has to turn names into posts. INFLUENCE works more like a managed platform: you choose the most you’ll pay per 1,000 views, cap the total, and get billed only for views that actually happen (how that works).

How to tell if an Instagram creator is worth contacting

Give each one a five-minute check before they make your shortlist. You’ll cut most of your list here, and that’s the point.

1. Look at the last 10–15 Reels. Are views steady, or did one video go viral and nothing since?

2. Read the comments. Real questions and conversations are a good sign. Walls of emojis and “nice pic 🔥” aren’t.

3. Check who they’re talking to. Do the comments, captions and locations sound like your customers?

4. Find a past sponsored post. Did it still sound like them, and did they disclose it?

5. Picture your product in their feed. If you can’t imagine where it would naturally show up, move on.

The creators who pass get the deeper checks covered in how to vet an influencer before you pay them. When you’re ready to reach out, here’s how to contact influencers on Instagram, with DM templates.

Doing this check across 50 or 100 profiles is where most teams run out of patience. INFLUENCE screens every creator on recent views, audience and fit before they reach your approval list, and Instagram campaigns are a big part of what we run (see how).

Finding influencers on Instagram doesn’t need a big budget. Start free with keyword search, your own tagged posts and Creator Marketplace, then add paid tools when the volume outgrows your afternoons. The finding is the easy part; the real work is picking the creators whose views and audiences actually match your customers. INFLUENCE does that picking for brands every week, and a shortlist from us arrives already checked.

Search like a customer, judge on views, and keep the five-minute check.