Planning calculators

Where the numbers come from

The benchmark bands are commonly cited planning ranges for the Canadian and US market, rounded, and each calculator prints the exact figures it uses next to its output. They are deliberately wide, because the real drivers of cost, niche, format, usage rights and exclusivity, move a number more than follower count does. The ranges are not what we charge and not what any individual creator will accept. What a creator is paid on a job we commission is a fee we offer them in writing, and it is already inside the fixed price we quote a brand.

Three of the tools compute rather than estimate. An engagement rate is arithmetic on the numbers you enter. Effective CPM, cost per engagement and cost per click divide what you actually spent by what actually happened. Those outputs are only as good as your inputs, but they are not benchmarks, and they are the figures worth putting in a report.

What the calculators are not

• Not a quote. A quote from us is one fixed price for a defined scope, and it comes from a brief. The estimator gives you the range that scope will probably land in.
• Not a social media value calculator in the marketing sense. The earned media value tool puts a dollar figure on attention, and its page explains why that figure is soft and which outputs to trust instead. It does not tell you what a follower is worth, because nobody can.
• Not a verdict on a creator. Engagement rate is the first filter. The other eight things we check are on the verification page, and most of them cannot be calculated.
• Not stored. The calculations run in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere unless you use the estimate request form under a tool, which emails us your inputs and the result so a person can turn them into a real number.

What a social media value calculator measures

A social media value calculator, sometimes called an earned media value or EMV calculator, estimates what the attention a post earned would have cost as paid advertising. It takes the reach or impressions a campaign produced, applies a CPM benchmark, and returns a dollar figure. Ours is the earned media value calculator. Use it after a campaign rather than before, and treat the output as a comparison figure rather than money in the bank: the same reach valued at two different CPMs gives two different answers, which is why the tool shows both methods side by side. The three outputs worth reporting are the ones that are not estimates: effective CPM, cost per engagement and cost per click, each of which divides what you actually spent by what actually happened. To price a social video before you commission it, use the video production cost calculator; to price creator posts, the influencer budget estimator.

From a range to a number

Use the estimator to decide whether a campaign is worth a conversation, the engagement calculator to sanity-check anyone you are already talking to, and the earned media tool after a campaign to judge it honestly. When you want a number rather than a range, send a brief. A person reads it and comes back with named creators and one fixed price, at no cost. The pricing page lists the published packages, from $1,250 for six assets, so you can compare the estimator's range with a real price before you write anything.

Guides that go with them

The budget estimator pairs with what influencer marketing costs in Canada, which explains each line the tool adds up. The engagement calculator pairs with how to find micro-influencers, which covers the vetting the rate cannot do. The video estimator pairs with what drives video production cost and how to brief a video agency. The rate card builder pairs with how to build a creator rate card.