Engagement rate calculator

How the engagement rate is calculated

The calculator divides average interactions per post by followers: (likes + comments, plus saves or shares if you enter them) ÷ followers × 100. That is the standard follower-based formula, the one most brands, agencies and creator databases quote, which is why it is the quickest sanity check on whether an audience is real and paying attention. It is also the first thing we compute during creator verification, before a person reads the account.

What to enter

• Followers or subscribers as shown on the profile today.
• Average likes and comments per post across the last 10 to 12 posts. Exclude giveaways, collaborations with much larger accounts, and any post that went viral, because one outlier can double the average and the rate will flatter.
• Saves or shares if the creator can show them from their own analytics. They are optional because they are not visible from outside the account, and a rate that includes them is not comparable with one that does not. Whichever you choose, use the same formula for every creator you compare.

How to read the output

The large figure is the rate. Under it, the tier is the follower band the account sits in: nano under 10,000, micro 10,000 to 100,000, mid-tier 100,000 to 500,000, macro 500,000 to a million. The bars show which of four commonly cited bands the rate falls into: under 1% low, 1 to 3% average, 3 to 6% good, over 6% excellent. The interactions-per-post figure is there because a rate on its own hides scale: 5% of 2,000 followers is a hundred interactions, and that is the number a brand is actually buying.

Read the bands against the tier, not as a flat threshold. Smaller accounts almost always post higher rates because a larger share of their followers still see each post; rates fall as accounts grow and tend to bottom out in the mid-tier. A 2% rate on a 300,000-follower account can be strong. The same 2% on a 5,000-follower account is a question worth asking.

A worked example, illustrative

A creator with 25,000 followers averages 900 likes and 45 comments across recent posts, with no saves data. That is 945 interactions ÷ 25,000 = 3.78%, which lands in the "good" band for a micro account. If the same creator had a single giveaway post with 6,000 likes in the sample, the average would jump to roughly 1,400 likes and the rate to about 5.8%, which is why outliers come out before you divide.

Average likes and views per post: how to work them out

Average likes per post is the total likes across a set of recent posts divided by the number of posts. Take the last ten to twelve, leave out giveaways and any post that went unusually viral, add up the likes, and divide. Do the same for comments, and for saves or shares if the platform shows them. Average views per post works the same way for short video: add the view counts on the last ten to twelve videos and divide by the number of videos. On Instagram use the views shown on Reels; on TikTok and YouTube use the count under each video. If the numbers are very uneven, use the median instead, which is the middle value when the posts are sorted from lowest to highest, because a single outlier can double an average. The calculator takes the averages you enter, so this step decides how honest the result is.

What it does not tell you

Nothing about who the audience is: location, age, whether they can buy the product. Nothing about whether comments are substantive or generic. Nothing about how much engagement is reciprocal from other creators in a pod, which is the most common way a healthy-looking rate is manufactured. And nothing about video: a TikTok or Reels account can have low follower engagement and high view counts, because those platforms distribute on interest rather than follows.

Treat the rate as the first filter, then look at four things a calculator cannot: comment quality across the last fifty comments, follower growth for vertical jumps that match no post, the audience geography screenshot from the creator's own analytics, and past branded posts, including whether they were disclosed.

Reach-based alternatives

Platforms increasingly show reach and views rather than followers, and for video-first accounts engagement per reach (interactions ÷ reach) or engagement per view is the fairer measure. It needs numbers only the creator can see, so ask for a screenshot. When we vet creators for a plan we use both: the follower-based rate because it is comparable across everyone, and the reach-based one because it is closer to what a brand actually gets.

Common mistakes

• Using a creator's own claimed rate rather than computing it from visible posts.
• Comparing a rate that includes saves with one that does not.
• Applying one threshold to every tier and every platform.
• Rejecting a large account for a low rate without checking views.
• Accepting a high rate on a small account without reading the comments.