The 5 best social handle checkers for founders

Every handle checker works roughly the same way. It builds the profile URL for your name on each platform, requests it, and decides from the response whether an account exists.

That works on some platforms and quietly fails on others. Instagram, TikTok and X often serve a login wall or a blank page whether the account exists or not. A deactivated account looks the same as one that never existed, and a deactivated handle usually can't be claimed. So "available" from any of these tools means "we didn't find a profile", not "you can have it".

The useful question is which tools are honest about that. Here are five that are still working. Several well-known ones, including KnowEm, Namecheckr and CheckUserNames, were down or no longer working when we checked in October 2026.

How we ranked them: by how trustworthy the answer is on the major platforms, then breadth of coverage, price and ease of use. Disclosure: we make BrandScreen, which is on this list. It's the most careful on the platforms it covers, but it covers eight, not a hundred, and it's ranked accordingly.

1. Instant Username Search

What it is: Free checker that shows results as you type.

Platforms: Over 100, grouped into social, video, professional, gaming, developer, music and messaging.

Price: Free, supported by affiliate links.

Instant Username Search is the fastest first pass. It's also more honest than most: a platform it can't read comes back as "Unknown" rather than a false "Available", and it marks a handle as invalid when it breaks a platform's rules, such as X's 15-character limit. It covers developer registries like npm and PyPI too.

Limitation: Its own FAQ says reserved, deleted or blocked names can show as available, and results can be cached for up to eight hours.

Best for: A quick sweep across social, developer and gaming platforms in one screen.

2. BrandScreen

What it is: Brand-name screening. Social handles are one of five checks.

Platforms: 8: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, GitHub, Threads and Bluesky.

Price: Full reports are free. Brand Protect is $49/mo.

A BrandScreen report checks your exact handle on all eight platforms and gives each one of three answers: taken, likely available, or unknown. It never says plain "available", because no outside check can prove a handle is registrable. Where a platform can't tell a missing account from a deactivated one, which is the case on TikTok and X, it says unknown rather than guessing. Every result links to the profile so you can check it yourself.

After launch, Protect re-checks your handles weekly and tells you when one opens up or gets claimed by someone else.

Limitation: Eight platforms, not a hundred. If you need Twitch, Reddit or Steam, use one of the tools below as well.

Best for: An answer you can trust on the platforms that matter most, checked alongside trademarks, domains and entities.

3. WhatsMyName

What it is: Open, community-maintained dataset for finding where a username is in use, with a free web interface.

Platforms: Over 700.

Price: Free and open data.

WhatsMyName comes from the security research world and is built to find accounts, not to confirm a name is free. That makes it a good due-diligence tool: run your name and see everyone already using it, across far more sites than any other checker. Every detection rule is public on GitHub, and results export to CSV.

Limitation: It only lists sites where it found a profile. A site missing from the results means "not detected", not "available", and login-walled sites can't be checked at all.

Best for: Seeing who's already using your name, and where, before you commit to it.

4. Namechk

What it is: Long-running username and domain checker.

Platforms: Says 90 to 100+ social sites and over 30 domain extensions.

Price: Free.

Namechk is the best-known tool here and checks domains and handles in a single search.

Limitation: It doesn't explain how it decides a handle is available, so you can't tell where login walls might be giving false results. Each search sits behind a CAPTCHA.

Best for: A familiar tool with a domain check alongside the handles.

5. Sherlock

What it is: Open-source command-line tool that searches social networks for a username.

Platforms: Over 400.

Price: Free and open source.

Sherlock is scriptable, so you can check a whole shortlist of names in one run and export the results to a spreadsheet. It's very actively maintained, and you can read exactly how each site is checked.

Limitation: It needs a terminal. Many of its checks rely on the HTTP status code, which can't tell a missing account from a deactivated one or a login wall.

Best for: Technical founders checking a long shortlist in bulk.

How BrandScreen is different

The other four are good at breadth. BrandScreen is built for a different job: deciding whether to commit to a name.

It tells you how sure it is. Most checkers turn every platform into a green tick or a red cross. BrandScreen separates taken, likely available and unknown, and explains why when it can't tell. A wrong "available" on Instagram is worse than no answer, because you plan around it. Here's why "available" is murkier than it looks.

It checks what matters more than handles. Handles are the cheapest signal to check and the least consequential to get wrong. You can always add "hq" to a handle. You can't add it to a registered trademark. BrandScreen checks your handles alongside the USPTO register, domains, business entities and search competition, and the Brand Score weighs them together.

It keeps checking. Every other tool here is a snapshot. Handles get freed and re-taken constantly, and a released handle is often only open for hours. Protect re-checks every week and tells you when one moves.

If you need a hundred platforms, run Instant Username Search or WhatsMyName as well. For the decision itself, start with BrandScreen.

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