Engagement rate
What is engagement rate?
Engagement rate is the share of an audience that interacts with a post. The common formula on Instagram and TikTok is likes plus comments (sometimes plus shares and saves) on a post, divided by the account’s followers, times 100. Averaging it over recent posts gives the account’s engagement rate.
Some people divide by views or reach instead of followers, which gives a higher number; always check which method a figure uses before comparing. On YouTube, where likes are less visible, average views divided by subscribers is a useful stand-in.
Why engagement rate matters
Followers can be bought or be long gone; interactions are harder to fake at scale. A creator with fewer followers and a higher engagement rate often delivers more attention than a bigger account whose posts get little response.
Engagement rate is also an early warning for fake followers: a large account with almost no likes or comments deserves a closer look.
How to calculate engagement rate
- Take the creator’s last 10 to 30 posts.
- For each, add likes and comments (and shares if the platform shows them).
- Average that across the posts.
- Divide the average by the follower count and multiply by 100.
- Compare creators of a similar size on the same platform: rates naturally fall as accounts grow.
Engagement rate example
A creator with 20,000 followers averages 700 likes and 50 comments per post. Engagement rate = (700 + 50) ÷ 20,000 × 100 = 3.75%.
Engagement rate FAQ
What is a good engagement rate?
There is no single number: it depends on the platform, the niche and the account size, and smaller accounts usually have higher rates. Compare a creator with others of a similar size in the same niche rather than with a universal benchmark.
Should engagement rate use followers or views?
Both are used. By followers is the most common and makes accounts easy to compare; by views tells you how engaging each post is for the people who actually saw it. Use one method consistently.
Related marketing terms
Reach is the number of unique people who saw a piece of content or a campaign at least once, as opposed to impressions, which count views.
Impressions count how many times content was shown on screen, including repeat views by the same person, unlike reach, which counts people.
A micro influencer is a creator with a mid-sized following, usually between about 10,000 and 100,000 followers, in a focused niche.
Fake followersBlack hat
Fake followers are bot or inactive accounts that inflate a profile’s follower count without being real people interested in the content.
A follower audit checks whether a creator’s audience is real and engaged, looking for bought followers, bots and suspicious growth.
Cost per engagement is what you pay for each like, comment, share or save a sponsored post or ad receives: total cost divided by engagements.