The 100 biggest Instagram creators, with no celebrities

What this list is

Every list of the biggest Instagram accounts is topped by footballers, pop stars and brands. That is accurate and useless if you make content for a living, because none of those people got their audience the way you are trying to get yours.

This list applies one rule: in if they became known because of content they made for the internet, out if they were famous first. So actors, musicians, athletes, television personalities and brand accounts are all excluded, and what is left is 100 people who started with nothing and built an audience by posting.

Where the numbers come from

Every follower count below was read live from Instagram itself on 16 September 2026, taken from each profile's own page data rather than copied from another list. 260 candidate accounts were checked and these are the 100 largest that pass the rule.

The candidate pool was drawn from several published rankings and deliberately spread across the United States, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, France and the Philippines, because an English-language pool would have produced an English-language answer.

The judgement calls, so you can argue with them

• Excluded Joe Rogan and Theo Von. Both were on television before the podcasts.
• Excluded JoJo Siwa, who was on Dance Moms first.
• Excluded 5-Minute Crafts, Tasty and NatGeo Your Shot. Media companies, not people.
• Included Gary Vaynerchuk, Alex Hormozi and Andrew Huberman. Business and science people who became famous through content, which is the test.
• Included Salt Bae and CZN Burak. Chefs who became famous entirely through Instagram video.

The 100

Twelve of them are broken down Reel by Reel

For some of these creators we have gone further and analysed their best-performing Reels: the opening line of each, the view count, the hook type, and the structure underneath. Those breakdowns are linked below.

• MrBeast: /learn/mrbeast-instagram-reels
• Khaby Lame: /learn/khaby-lame-instagram-reels
• Virginia Fonseca: /learn/virginia-fonseca-instagram-reels
• Huda Kattan: /learn/huda-kattan-instagram-reels
• IShowSpeed: /learn/ishowspeed-instagram-reels
• Whindersson Nunes: /learn/whindersson-nunes-instagram-reels
• Lele Pons: /learn/lele-pons-instagram-reels
• CZN Burak: /learn/czn-burak-instagram-reels
• Salt Bae: /learn/salt-bae-instagram-reels
• Atta Halilintar: /learn/atta-halilintar-instagram-reels
• Kimberly Loaiza: /learn/kimberly-loaiza-instagram-reels
• Ria Ricis: /learn/ria-ricis-instagram-reels

What the list says once you read it

• Comedy is a quarter of it. 26 of the 100 are comedy or skit accounts, more than gaming, beauty and fitness put together.
• The ceiling for a creator is about 89 million. MrBeast tops this list. On a list that includes celebrities he is 45th.
• It is not an American list. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and France are all represented in the top 50.
• The accounts that travel furthest often have no dialogue at all. Khaby Lame built the second biggest creator account on Instagram without speaking.

Questions people ask

Who is the biggest creator on Instagram?

MrBeast, with 89,364,336 followers read on 16 September 2026. He is the largest Instagram account belonging to someone who became famous from their own content rather than from acting, music, sport or a brand.

Why are Cristiano Ronaldo and Selena Gomez not on this list?

Because they were famous before Instagram existed. A footballer and a pop star did not build their audience by posting, so their follower counts tell you nothing you can copy. This list is restricted to people who did.

How were the follower counts measured?

Each one was read live from the creator's own Instagram profile on 16 September 2026, from the page data Instagram itself serves. None of them is copied from another published list.

Which creators here post the best Reels?

That is a different question from who has the most followers, and it is the one the breakdowns above answer. IShowSpeed's four analysed Reels hold 621 million views between them, more than the other eleven creators' analysed Reels combined.