Free Shadowban Checker
How do I know if I'm shadowbanned? A shadowban is when a platform quietly cuts your reach without telling you, so posts stop showing in hashtag feeds, search, and the For You page. No tool can confirm it for certain, but this free Shadowban Checker scores your engagement, reach, and hashtag-visibility signals to flag the likely signs.
Enter your account stats
How it works: We analyze your engagement rate, reach-to-follower ratio, reach trends, and hashtag visibility against Instagram benchmarks to estimate shadowban risk.
Check for shadowban
Enter your account stats and we'll analyze engagement, reach, and visibility signals to determine if you might be shadowbanned.
What is a shadowban?
A shadowban is when a platform silently reduces your content's visibility without notifying you. Your posts still appear on your profile, but they stop showing up in hashtag feeds, search results, and the Explore/For You page. Your followers may also see less of your content in their feeds.
Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X/Twitter use content suppression to penalize accounts that violate community guidelines or use spammy tactics. The term “shadowban” is unofficial: most platforms deny it exists while openly acknowledging “reduced distribution.”
Common triggers include using banned hashtags, rapid follow/unfollow behavior, automation tools, posting duplicate content, and receiving many reports. Track your engagement health with our engagement rate calculator.
Signs you might be shadowbanned
Sudden reach drop
Your posts go from reaching thousands to reaching hundreds overnight, with no change in content quality.
Posts invisible in hashtags
Search for a hashtag you used. If your post doesn't appear (even for small hashtags), you may be suppressed.
Only followers see your content
Your content stops reaching non-followers entirely. Check your insights for the follower vs non-follower split.
Engagement rate crashed
If your engagement rate dropped below platform benchmarks overnight, distribution may be limited.
Search suppression
Your account doesn't appear when people search your exact username. This is the most severe form of suppression.
How shadowbans look on each platform
The signs of suppression differ from one platform to the next. Here is what we look at for the three most-searched platforms, and how to spot the same patterns in your own analytics.
Instagram's suppression usually shows up first in hashtag visibility: your post stops appearing in the Recent or Top tabs of hashtags you used, even niche ones. The second signal is the non-follower reach split in Insights collapsing toward zero. Reels stop hitting Explore, and the “recommend on other accounts” toggle silently flips off. To recover: remove banned hashtags, drop automation, and post original Reels and carousels. See how the Instagram algorithm works.
What we measure
Engagement rate vs 3% benchmark, reach rate vs followers, hashtag visibility self-report.
TikTok
The clearest TikTok signal is For You page ineligibility: view counts plateau between 100 and 300 across multiple videos in a row, regardless of content quality. Watermarks from other apps (CapCut export aside), duplicate audio across accounts, and copyrighted music are the most common triggers. Check the “Not eligible for the FYP” banner in Creator tools, and look at Analytics for a sudden drop in average watch time. More detail in our TikTok algorithm guide.
What we measure
Engagement rate vs 6% benchmark, view-to-follower ratio, recent view trend, search visibility.
X (Twitter)
X officially calls it visibility filtering and openly documents three flavours: search suggestion ban (your handle stops auto-completing), search ban (your posts disappear from search entirely), and reply deboost (your replies sink below “Show more replies”). Triggers include rapid posting, link-heavy threads, and reported posts. Check by searching your username from a logged-out window and looking at impression counts in Analytics. See our X algorithm breakdown.
What we measure
Engagement rate vs 2% benchmark, impression-to-follower ratio, search visibility self-report.
What this tool can, and can't, tell you
Honest answer: no third-party tool can definitively confirm a shadowban. None of the major platforms expose this information through an API, and most officially deny that “shadowbans” exist in the consumer sense at all. Anyone selling you a guaranteed yes/no is overselling.
What this checker does is measure observable signals: your engagement rate against platform benchmarks, your reach-to-follower ratio, recent reach trends, and your own report of hashtag visibility. When several signals look suppressed at the same time, reduced distribution is the most likely explanation, but it could also be a content quality issue, an audience mismatch, or a platform-wide algorithm change. Use the score as a diagnostic prompt, not a verdict.
For ground-truth checks, the only reliable methods are manual: ask a non-follower to search for your account, post with a small hashtag and check from a second account whether it appears, and compare your insights week-over-week.
Recover your reach with consistent, quality content
The best way to recover from a shadowban is posting high-quality, original content consistently at optimal times. Use PostEverywhere to plan and schedule your recovery strategy across Instagram, TikTok, X and all top platforms, with cross-posting from one composer. Generate fresh content with our AI content generator, and stop using suppressed tags with our banned hashtag checker. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial: $0 due today, cancel anytime.
How to Use the Shadowban Checker
Select your platform
Choose from Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Enter your account metrics
Input your follower count, average views, likes, and comments per post.
Answer behavioral questions
Tell us about recent reach changes and hashtag visibility.
Get your shadowban risk score
See your overall risk score with a signal-by-signal breakdown and recovery steps.
Shadowban Checker FAQ
What is a shadowban?
A shadowban is when a platform quietly reduces how widely your content is distributed without telling you or banning the account outright. Your posts still appear on your profile, but they stop showing up in hashtag feeds, search results, the Explore page, or the For You feed. Most platforms deny the term but openly acknowledge "reduced distribution" or "visibility filtering" for content that breaks their guidelines.
Can I tell for sure if I am shadowbanned?
No third-party tool can definitively confirm a shadowban. Platforms do not expose this information through any API, and they regularly deny the concept exists. What you can do is measure observable signals: sudden reach drops, hashtag invisibility, missing search suggestions, comment suppression; and infer the likelihood. That is exactly what this checker does. Treat any "yes/no" answer from any tool with healthy scepticism.
How long does an Instagram shadowban last?
Most Instagram shadowbans clear in 14 to 30 days if you stop the behaviour that triggered them. Lighter restrictions can lift in 24 to 72 hours. Repeat violations stretch the penalty longer, and severe cases can persist indefinitely. The fastest path back is to remove any banned hashtags, pause automation tools, take a short posting break, and resume with original, on-policy content.
Do I have to delete my account to recover from a shadowban?
No. Deleting and recreating your account is almost never necessary and often loses you ranking signals you have built up. Shadowbans are tied to behaviour, not the account itself in most cases. Stop the triggering activity, clean up your recent posts, take a 24 to 48 hour break, and post fresh original content. Most accounts recover without nuking anything.
Does scheduling posts cause shadowbans?
No. Scheduling through an officially partnered tool that uses the platform APIs does not cause shadowbans. Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn and the others all explicitly support third-party scheduling. What does cause problems is browser automation, fake-engagement bots, and copy-paste posting across many accounts. If a tool uses the proper API like PostEverywhere does, scheduling is safe.
How accurate is this shadowban checker?
It is a heuristic check, not a guarantee. We compare your engagement rate, reach-to-follower ratio, recent reach trend, and hashtag visibility against platform benchmarks. A high risk score means several signals look suppressed at once, which usually indicates reduced distribution. A low score means your numbers look normal, but it cannot rule out very mild suppression. Use it as one data point alongside your own platform analytics.
What triggers a shadowban?
Common triggers include using banned or restricted hashtags, rapid follow/unfollow behaviour, automation or bot tools that simulate human activity, posting identical content across many accounts, receiving multiple community reports, and platform-specific violations such as posting copyrighted music on TikTok or unverified medical claims on Instagram. Watermarks from other platforms also reduce distribution on TikTok and Reels.
Is this shadowban checker free?
Yes. It is completely free, no signup required, and you can check across Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn as many times as you like. We built it as a free tool to help creators diagnose visibility issues. PostEverywhere makes its money from the scheduling product, not the tools.