IGDetective vs Peekd: an honest comparison

The short answer

• Pick Peekd if you want to know when a public account follows or unfollows someone, get an alert when it happens, and use it on your phone as well as in a browser. You can do that for one account without paying.
• Pick IGDetective if likes, comments, an AI chatbot and interaction timelines between two people matter more to you than alerts or an app, and you are fine paying for follow tracking.

For most people who type “igdetective” into Google, the real job is “tell me who they followed.” That is exactly what Peekd is built for.

IGDetective vs Peekd at a glance

What Peekd does that IGDetective doesn’t

Follow tracking without paying first

This is the biggest practical difference. IGDetective’s free account gives you one profile, anonymous stories, a manual story archive and a one-time check of any public account. Its own FAQ says Premium is what adds recent follows, followers and unfollows. Peekd’s free plan tracks one public account with dated new follows and unfollows from day one, no card needed. If your question is “who did my ex just follow?”, you can get the answer from Peekd before spending anything.

You hear about changes instead of checking

IGDetective refreshes paid profiles once every 24 hours and you open the dashboard to see what changed. Its site does not mention push or email alerts. Peekd sends a real-time alert when a tracked account changes, so the news finds you. Say your partner’s account follows someone new on a Tuesday afternoon. With Peekd you get a notification once the change is detected. With a dashboard-only tool you find out whenever you next remember to log in.

An app on your phone

IGDetective describes itself as web-based, and we found no IGDetective app on the US App Store or Google Play. Peekd works in the browser and as a native iPhone and Android app, with the same account and the same tracked list on each.

Limits written down

Both tools refuse private accounts, which is the honest position. IGDetective says some “very large lists” can’t be tracked but gives no number. Peekd publishes its limits: public accounts up to 10,000 followers, no verified accounts, nothing from before tracking started. See how Peekd works for the full list.

Who doesn’t follow back

Peekd shows which accounts a tracked profile follows that don’t follow it back. You can also run our free not-following-back checker in the browser without signing up.

Where IGDetective is better

IGDetective does several things Peekd deliberately does not claim to do:

• Likes and comments. It shows public likes and comments on a tracked profile’s posts and builds features on them (Admirers Analysis, DeepSearch, one-on-one timelines between two users). Peekd does not track likes or comments.
• Story archive. Paid accounts save a tracked profile’s stories automatically before they expire. Peekd lets you view current public stories anonymously, not archive them.
• AI extras. Gossip Chat, a personality “archetype” and song picks. Some people love them, others never open them.
• Five profiles on one plan, with on-demand refreshes on top of the daily one.

If your interest is engagement patterns rather than follows, IGDetective covers more ground. Read our guide on seeing what someone likes on Instagram for what any tool can and can’t show there.

Is IGDetective safe? Login, data and privacy

IGDetective’s FAQ says you never log in with Instagram and it never asks for your password. That is the right setup, and Peekd works the same way. You enter a public username, nothing more. Neither tool can see private accounts or DMs.

Two details from IGDetective’s privacy policy are worth knowing. It keeps your personal data (email, name, usage data such as IP address) “indefinitely or until you request its deletion,” and deletion works by emailing support. Its deletion section also mentions “Instagram connection data” and connecting through Facebook Login, which sits oddly next to the FAQ’s no-login promise. We are reporting what the policy says, not guessing at the reason. Read it yourself before you sign up.

General advice for any tracker, ours included: never type your Instagram password into a third-party site, use a payment method you can dispute, and be wary of anything that promises private accounts. Our guide to Instagram stalker apps lists the red flags.

IGDetective pricing and refunds

As shown to a US visitor on October 12, 2026:

• Free: $0, one profile, anonymous stories, manual story archive, limited Gossip Chat. No follow tracking.
• Premium: advertised as “from $1/day.” The pricing page offers weekly and monthly billing, and the monthly plan is displayed at $30/month. Up to 5 profiles.
• Refunds: the pricing page lists a “7-day refund.” Its terms of service have no refund section. You can cancel from the dashboard, and access runs to the end of the paid period.

Prices can differ by region and change often, so check the live pricing page. On Trustpilot, IGDetective has 17 reviews and a TrustScore of 3.5 out of 5 as of October 2026. Several low-star reviews mention refund or billing trouble and data that didn’t match, while positive ones praise fast support.

Peekd’s free plan tracks one public account with alerts and needs no card. Paid plans add more accounts.

Who should use which

• You want to know who one person follows and unfollows: Peekd, free.
• You want a ping on your phone when it happens: Peekd.
• You want to compare an account against itself over weeks: either works. Both date changes from the day they are first seen, so neither can show follows from before you started. Our guide on how to see who someone recently followed explains why.
• You want likes, comments and saved stories for up to five people, on a laptop: IGDetective.