No. For the Follower Change Breakdown, Metricool shows the values the network itself provides. For the Net Follower Change, Metricool calculates the net change from the network's own follower totals. Either way, differences come from how each platform counts movements, not from a data error.
How the Follower Balance works across social networks
Updated 2 months ago
The Follower Balance shows how your audience changed day by day within a selected date range, so you can see which days brought in or lost the most followers. Metricool shows it in one of two formats — the Follower Change Breakdown, or the Net Follower Change — depending on the network.
Two formats for the Follower Balance
Which format you see depends on the network. Metricool updates this format over time as it starts using more granular data for a network, so it can also depend on the date range you select: a network may show the Net Follower Change for older periods and the Follower Change Breakdown for more recent ones.
A network and your Metricool account can group the same follower movement under different days if they use different time zones.
Follower Change Breakdown
Three summary cards show the period's totals: Acquired, Lost, and the content published — labeled Posts or Total content depending on the network. The chart plots followers acquired and followers lost as two separate daily series, alongside bars showing how much content was published each day. This lets you compare a spike or drop in followers against what you posted that day. Where this format is available, the Acquired and Lost values come directly from the network — Metricool doesn't calculate them.
Net Follower Change
One summary card shows the period's total: the difference between your follower count on the last day of the selected period and your follower count on the day before the period started. The chart shows a separate calculation — one bar per day, rising or falling based on the difference between that day's follower count and the previous day's.
The network doesn't provide gained and lost as separate values for this format, so Metricool can't show them separately either. You can still see which days had a net loss, though: those are the days where the bar drops below the previous day's total.
On both formats, if someone unfollows you and follows you again on a different day, that counts as two separate movements.
Follower Balance by network
The table below shows which format each network uses. Open a network's own metrics article for its full breakdown.
Google Business Profile doesn't have a Follower Balance, since the network doesn't have a follower model.
Notes and limitations
Instagram date range and audience: The Follower Change Breakdown only applies to periods starting January 1, 2026 or later, and only to accounts with 100 or more followers — Meta's own API doesn't provide this data for smaller accounts. If either condition isn't met, Metricool falls back to the Net Follower Change.
TikTok date range and audience: The Follower Change Breakdown only applies to TikTok Business accounts, for periods starting September 29, 2025 or later. Personal accounts and earlier periods show the Net Follower Change instead.
Deleted or restricted accounts: Whether these movements count toward the balance depends on the network. Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn personal profile, LinkedIn company page, and Pinterest include them. X (Twitter) excludes them.
Individual follower lists (X, Bluesky): Neither format identifies individual accounts, but X and Bluesky offer a separate Acquisition section listing the specific accounts that followed or unfollowed you during the period, sorted from most to least recent, including whether each account follows you back.
Post-level attribution (X): X also shows a timeline of follows and unfollows generated by each published post, on top of the Follower Change Breakdown.
Large account removals (TikTok): TikTok may remove fake or inactive accounts. These removals don't always appear in the daily Lost value, so your total follower count can change by more than the sum of the daily Acquired and Lost numbers.
Blocked accounts (Bluesky): Bluesky doesn't remove blocked accounts from its own follower count, but Metricool's balance is based on real accounts, so the two numbers may not match.
FAQs
Does a difference between Metricool and the social network mean Metricool's data is wrong?
Can I see who followed or unfollowed me?
Not within the Follower Balance itself, on any network. X and Bluesky offer a separate Acquisition section that lists the specific accounts gained or lost during the period.
Why does Threads show the Net Follower Change while Instagram shows the Follower Change Breakdown?
Threads' own API only returns a total follower count, with no daily gained or lost values. Because that data isn't available from Threads, Metricool shows the Net Follower Change, the same way Instagram did before January 1, 2026.
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