What Is the Fair Participation Limit in Instagram Giveaways?

How Are Comments Counted in a Giveaway?

If it is allowed, a user can enter the same giveaway more than once by making more than one comment. An account that posts 5 comments counts as entering the giveaway 5 times.

• Comment: The comment written to enter the giveaway.
• Participant: The account that wrote the comment. How many times the person entered the giveaway depends on how many comments they wrote.
• Odds of winning: As the number of times a person enters a giveaway grows, their odds of winning grow too. A person who entered the giveaway 5 times has an edge over a person who entered once.

A user who posts 200 comments enters the giveaway 200 times, and if one person makes far too many comments and no "entry limit" is set for that person in that giveaway, the other participants' odds of winning can drop a lot. Since every comment is retrieved in full, in cases like this you meet a warning before you start the giveaway.

What Does the Fair Participation Limit Do?

The Fair Participation Limit sets the maximum number of times each participant can be included in the giveaway. Set the field to 100 and a user who made thousands of comments takes part with 100 comments at most.

Comments above the limit are not deleted, they are only left out of the participation. This way the other participants keep their chance of winning alongside heavy commenters.

How Is the Fair Participation Limit Set?

The Fair Participation Limit is set on the rules step while the user creates the giveaway.

• Open the Fair Participation Limit field: After you paste the post link, you turn on the Set Fair Participation Limit option on the rules screen.
• Set the Fair Participation Limit: Set how many times a person can enter at most.

If most of the entries come from a few accounts a low limit can fit better, and if the entries are spread evenly a high fair participation limit can.

When Does Setting a Fair Participation Limit Help?

There are three fields on the rules screen that look alike:

• Fair Participation Limit: It sets how many times a user can enter the giveaway at most. It limits the advantage of a heavy commenter without banning the account from the giveaway.
• Get Unique Users: However many comments a user makes, they count as entering the giveaway once. While this rule is on, the Fair Participation Limit field is hidden.

  

• Count Identical Comments Once: Comments from a user carrying the same tags are counted once. Comments tagging different people keep being counted separately.

  

If you want to give everyone equal odds you can turn on Get Unique Users, and if you want to leave heavy commenters a limited advantage you can set the Fair Participation Limit.

The Excessive Entry Warning on the Draw Step

Once all the comments are retrieved, if the entries of some accounts are noticeably higher than the rest, a warning appears on the giveaway start screen.

When you set the fair participation limit in the field inside the warning and press the "Apply Limit" button, the limit is applied right away. The comments do not need to be retrieved again.

After that you can set the Countdown Timer and pick the winner. You can look at the comment giveaway guide for all of the steps.

Common Mistakes

Most of the confusion around the fair participation limit comes from misreading what the rule does.

• Taking the limit for a single entry: The Fair Participation Limit does not cut entries down to one. If you want one entry each, you turn on Get Unique Users.