We analyzed 1,865,490 Instagram creators to find the average Instagram engagement rate at each follower count.
Brands use these numbers to tell whether a creator they want to work with gets a normal response for their size.
The median engagement rate is 2.71% for creators with under five thousand followers.
It falls to about 1% once creators pass ten thousand.
Engagement rate here is average likes plus average comments, divided by followers. We took both averages across each creator's recent posts.
Most figures are medians, so half the creators in a band are above the number.
Instagram engagement rate benchmarks at a glance
Source: our database of Instagram creators, sampled in November 2026.
Here is a summary of our key findings:
- About 81% of the Instagram creators we analyzed have under ten thousand followers.
- The median Instagram engagement rate falls by more than half between the two smallest bands. Above ten thousand followers, it stays close to 1%.
- Creators with 100K-500K followers have a higher median engagement rate than creators with 50K-100K.
- Creators with a detected sponsored post have a higher median engagement rate at all seven sizes. From ten thousand to a million followers, their median is close to double.
- Bigger Instagram accounts get far fewer comments for each like. Above a million followers, the ratio of median likes to median comments is about six times what it is under five thousand.
- A median creator in India has about three times the engagement rate of one in Indonesia, so the bar depends on the country. This covers the creators whose country we know.
- About one creator in twenty under five thousand followers lists a public email, against one in three above a million.
Benchmark each Instagram creator against others their size
More than two thirds of the creators we analyzed have under five thousand followers.
Only about one in 700 has a million or more.
Share of Instagram creators by follower count
Key takeaway: Check a 30K creator against the 10K-50K row, not against million-follower accounts.
Expect a good engagement rate on Instagram of about 2.7% under 5K followers and 1% above 10K
Nano creators here have 1,000 to 10,000 followers, micro creators 10,000 to 100,000, and macro creators 100,000 to a million.
The median creator with under five thousand followers has an engagement rate of 2.71%.
For creators with five to ten thousand followers, the median is less than half that, at 1.29%.
From ten thousand followers up, it stays close to 1%.
Creators of the same size differ a lot.
From ten to fifty thousand followers, the top quarter are above 4.13%, more than four times the band's median.
Key takeaway: Treat a creator in the top quarter of their band as strong. From ten to fifty thousand followers, that means above 4.13%.
Shortlist 100K-500K creators beside 50K-100K ones
The median engagement rate is 0.79% for creators with 50,000 to 100,000 followers.
Creators with 100,000 to 500,000 followers do better, at 1.06%.
Past ten thousand followers, a bigger account doesn't mean a less engaged one.
Key takeaway: Add creators with 100,000 to 500,000 followers to any list you build for the 50K-100K range.
Shortlist creators who have done sponsored posts
We split each band into creators with at least one detected sponsored post and creators without one.
Creators with a detected sponsored post have the higher median in all seven bands.
From fifty to a hundred thousand followers, their median is 1.67%, more than double the rest.
Some sponsored posts go undetected, so the sponsored group is a lower bound.
The gap is small among creators under five thousand followers and widest from ten thousand to a million.
Key takeaway: Set the sponsored posts filter before you search. From ten thousand to a million followers, that group's median is close to double the rest.
Check the ratio of likes to comments
Comments grow much more slowly than likes as accounts get bigger.
Under five thousand followers, the median creator gets 46 likes a post. Divide that by the median comment count and you get about 12 likes for each comment.
Above a million followers, the same ratio of the two medians is about 70.
Key takeaway: When a creator gets far more likes per comment than their band, ask to see the comments on their last few posts.
Set a country before you judge a creator's engagement
We compared the ten countries with the most creators, using the one creator in five whose country we know.
India has the highest median, at 3.73%, followed by France, Spain and the United States.
Indonesia is lowest, at 1.18%.
The gap between the United States and Indonesia holds for creators of the same size.
From ten to fifty thousand followers, a US creator has about twice the median of an Indonesian one.
Key takeaway: Compare a creator with the median for their country and band. A rate that is strong in Indonesia can be average in India.
Set the has email filter, since few small Instagram creators list one
Only 4.8% of creators under five thousand followers list a public email.
The share climbs with size, to about a third of creators past half a million.
Share of Instagram creators listing a public email, by follower count
Key takeaway: Turn on the has email filter before you search. Otherwise most small creators on your list will have no address to write to.
Find Instagram creators at the size and country you want, with sponsorships
Find similar accounts and Search by topic let you set your filters before you search. They cover followers, average likes and comments, follower growth over 90 days, sponsored posts, country and has email. You get back only creators at the size you set who have worked with brands before. You can sign up for free to try them. If you are buying on TikTok too, see our TikTok engagement benchmarks.
Full data
The exact values behind the findings above. The 25th and 75th percentiles are across the creators in each band.
Creators by follower band
| Follower band | Creators | Share of all creators |
|---|---|---|
| 1K-5K | 1,278,216 | 68.5% |
| 5K-10K | 240,549 | 12.9% |
| 10K-50K | 270,113 | 14.5% |
| 50K-100K | 42,430 | 2.3% |
| 100K-500K | 28,073 | 1.5% |
| 500K-1M | 3,440 | 0.2% |
| 1M+ | 2,669 | 0.1% |
| All sizes | 1,865,490 | 100% |
Engagement rate by follower band
A creator above the 75th percentile for their band is in the top quarter.
| Follower band | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1K-5K | 0.95% | 2.71% | 6.91% |
| 5K-10K | 0.37% | 1.29% | 4.38% |
| 10K-50K | 0.22% | 0.94% | 4.13% |
| 50K-100K | 0.15% | 0.79% | 4.01% |
| 100K-500K | 0.23% | 1.06% | 4.53% |
| 500K-1M | 0.22% | 1.00% | 3.65% |
| 1M+ | 0.19% | 0.80% | 2.70% |
Likes and comments by follower band
The last column divides the two medians, so it describes the band, not any one creator.
| Follower band | Median of average likes | Median of average comments | Median likes ÷ median comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1K-5K | 46 | 4 | 11.5 |
| 5K-10K | 79 | 6 | 13.2 |
| 10K-50K | 154 | 9 | 17.1 |
| 50K-100K | 500 | 20 | 25.0 |
| 100K-500K | 1,817 | 51 | 35.6 |
| 500K-1M | 6,510.5 | 114 | 57.1 |
| 1M+ | 15,651 | 225 | 69.6 |
Sponsored and not sponsored creators by follower band
| Follower band | Sponsored creators | Median engagement rate, sponsored | Median engagement rate, not sponsored | Share sponsored |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1K-5K | 5,723 | 2.86% | 2.71% | 0.4% |
| 5K-10K | 1,875 | 1.99% | 1.28% | 0.8% |
| 10K-50K | 3,780 | 1.76% | 0.93% | 1.4% |
| 50K-100K | 1,033 | 1.67% | 0.77% | 2.4% |
| 100K-500K | 1,370 | 1.87% | 1.01% | 4.9% |
| 500K-1M | 231 | 1.74% | 0.95% | 6.7% |
| 1M+ | 202 | 1.06% | 0.78% | 7.6% |
Public email by follower band
| Follower band | Share listing a public email |
|---|---|
| 1K-5K | 4.8% |
| 5K-10K | 7.2% |
| 10K-50K | 9.9% |
| 50K-100K | 14.4% |
| 100K-500K | 27.3% |
| 500K-1M | 32.5% |
| 1M+ | 34.2% |
Engagement rate by country
The country figures cover creators of all sizes together.
| Country | Creators | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| India | 32,250 | 0.97% | 3.73% | 13.59% |
| France | 8,630 | 0.88% | 2.70% | 6.82% |
| Spain | 8,319 | 0.78% | 2.44% | 6.25% |
| United States | 84,633 | 0.78% | 2.40% | 6.90% |
| Canada | 7,387 | 0.73% | 2.19% | 6.25% |
| Italy | 8,121 | 0.64% | 2.08% | 5.53% |
| Mexico | 7,916 | 0.57% | 2.02% | 6.07% |
| United Kingdom | 13,280 | 0.63% | 1.94% | 5.33% |
| Brazil | 39,860 | 0.49% | 1.64% | 4.68% |
| Indonesia | 13,461 | 0.27% | 1.18% | 4.58% |
Median engagement rate by country and follower band
| Country | 1K-5K | 5K-10K | 10K-50K | 50K-100K | 100K-500K | 500K-1M | 1M+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| India | 4.93% | 2.74% | 2.18% | 1.63% | 2.10% | 1.42% | 1.23% |
| France | 3.64% | 2.26% | 1.54% | 1.65% | 1.51% | 0.70% | 1.22% |
| Spain | 3.32% | 2.13% | 1.53% | 1.05% | 1.30% | 1.26% | 1.13% |
| United States | 3.13% | 1.85% | 1.34% | 1.14% | 1.28% | 1.15% | 0.79% |
| Canada | 2.89% | 1.68% | 1.15% | 1.25% | 1.57% | 1.09% | 1.04% |
| Italy | 2.95% | 1.72% | 1.23% | 0.84% | 1.17% | 1.32% | 0.55% |
| Mexico | 2.86% | 1.86% | 1.14% | 0.72% | 1.08% | 0.51% | 0.79% |
| United Kingdom | 2.56% | 1.73% | 1.30% | 1.01% | 1.00% | 0.68% | 0.66% |
| Brazil | 2.71% | 1.44% | 0.78% | 0.54% | 0.71% | 0.83% | 0.51% |
| Indonesia | 1.74% | 1.00% | 0.63% | 0.62% | 0.75% | 1.00% | 0.40% |
Method and limits
Our database of Instagram creators gave us a repeatable 5% sample: 1,865,490 creators with at least 1,000 followers and a public account who posted since 6 August 2026. They are sorted into seven bands by follower count.
Engagement rate is a creator's average likes plus average comments, divided by their followers. Both averages come from their recent posts.
It is a per-follower measure that leaves out saves and shares, so tables that count those or use averages instead of medians are not directly comparable with these.
A creator counts as sponsored if we detected a sponsored post at least once. The sponsored counts are a lower bound, since some sponsored posts go undetected.
A public email is one the creator lists publicly on their profile. Country is known for 18.8% of the sample, so the country figures describe that group only.
Like any comparison between creators, these show what goes together rather than cause.
FAQ
Is 7% engagement rate good on Instagram?
Yes. In our data 7% is in the top quarter for creators of all seven sizes. The closest call is under five thousand followers, where the top quarter starts at 6.91%.
How to calculate engagement rate by followers?
Add a creator's average likes and average comments per post, divide by their follower count, and multiply by 100. A creator with 10,000 followers who averages 90 likes and 10 comments has an engagement rate of 1%.
Is 12% engagement on Instagram good?
Yes. It is well inside the top quarter for creators of all seven sizes in our data, where the top quarter starts at 6.91% or lower. Among creators whose country we know, only India's top quarter starts higher, at 13.59%.
Is a 4.2 engagement rate good on Instagram?
It is above the median at all seven sizes, so it is good. It reaches the top quarter for creators with 10,000 followers or more, except from 100,000 to 500,000, where that line is 4.53%. Under ten thousand followers the top quarter starts higher.
