Here's a mistake I see agencies make constantly: a new client signs on, everyone's excited, and someone posts five times on day one from a brand-new account. Two weeks later the account is shadow-limited and the client is asking questions nobody wants to answer.

Instagram treats new accounts like strangers. You have to earn trust before you act like you own the place. This is the 30-day warmup checklist I run for every new client account. Print it, stick it on the wall, follow it.

Before day 1: the setup (don't skip this)

  • One isolated profile per account. I create a dedicated browser profile for the new client in BeastBrowser — own fingerprint, own cookies, own storage. Never warm up a client account in a browser you've used for other clients.
  • Proxy matched to the client's city. A new account logging in from a different country on day one is an instant flag. Residential proxy, client's city, set before the first login.
  • Timezone and locale match. Set the profile timezone to the client's location. Ten seconds of work, kills a whole category of suspicion.
  • Complete the profile first. Photo, bio, link, contact buttons — a blank profile doing actions looks like a bot. Fill everything before day 1.

Days 1–7: Be a lurker

The account is new. Act new. Real users don't create an account and immediately post ten times.

  • Day 1–2: Scroll the feed. Watch Stories. Like 5–10 posts a day, slowly, with reading time between them.
  • Day 3–4: Follow 5–10 relevant accounts per day — competitors, local businesses, industry pages. Not 200. Five to ten.
  • Day 5–7: Start leaving genuine comments (2–3 per day). Reply to Stories with reactions. Save a few posts.
  • Post count this week: zero. I know it's tempting. Zero.

Days 8–14: First posts, low volume

  • Publish 2–3 posts this week, spaced days apart. Not carousels of ten slides — simple, single posts.
  • Increase likes to 15–20 per day, follows to 10–15 per day.
  • Post your first Story. Then a second one two days later.
  • Reply to every comment you get — early engagement signals are gold.

Days 15–21: Normal human pace

  • Posting 4–5 times this week is fine now. Mix feed posts and Stories.
  • Likes up to 30–40 per day, follows 15–20 per day. Still with human pauses — nobody likes 40 posts in 90 seconds.
  • Start using hashtags (3–5 per post, rotated).
  • If the client runs ads, this is the earliest I'd connect the ad account — and it goes in the same isolated profile, never a shared browser.

Days 22–30: Full operation

  • Normal posting cadence begins — whatever the content calendar says.
  • All engagement limits can go to normal agency levels.
  • Hand the profile to whoever runs the account day-to-day. Because it's an isolated profile, handover means sharing the profile — not the password. (I wrote the full VA handover SOP here.)

The three warmup killers

I've seen accounts die in warmup for exactly three reasons: wrong IP geography (account created in one country, operated from another), speed (day-one posting sprees), and shared fingerprints (warming up five client accounts in the same browser). Fix those three and the checklist does the rest.

Warmup is boring. That's the point. Thirty boring days now saves you a dead account and an awkward client call later. Set it up right with isolated profiles per client, follow the checklist, and move on.

Warmup isn't just for organic accounts

Quick aside for the media buyers: ad accounts need warming up too, and the rules rhyme. Don't launch a $500/day campaign from a fresh ad account on day one — start at $10–$20/day, let it spend cleanly for a week, then scale gradually. And run it all inside the same isolated profile as the client's organic account. The fastest way to burn a new ad account is aggressive scaling from a shared browser fingerprint; the platform reads it as exactly what it looks like. Patient money beats fast money in month one, every time.

Save this one

Copy this checklist into your agency SOP doc — you'll hand it to every new hire who touches client accounts. And if you've got a warmup horror story (we all have one), share it in the comments. Misery loves company.