Engagement Rate Calculator
Calculate any Instagram, TikTok or YouTube creator's engagement rate in seconds — and see how it stacks up against 2026 benchmarks for their size.
Christina Rivera
•Marketing DirectorChristina leads influencer marketing strategy at Janney AI with 8+ years of experience in creator partnerships and social commerce.
Engagement rate = (average likes + average comments) ÷ followers × 100. A good rate is roughly 3%+ on Instagram, 5%+ on TikTok, and 2%+ on YouTube — but smaller creators run much higher, so always compare like-for-like by follower tier (table below).
Calculate engagement rate
Good engagement rate by platform & size (2026)
Engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a "good" rate depends on follower tier. Use these 2026 benchmarks to judge a creator against peers of similar size.
| Follower tier | TikTok | YouTube | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nano (1K-10K) | 4-7% | 9-15% | 2-5% |
| Micro (10K-100K) | 1.5-4% | 5-9% | 1.5-3% |
| Mid (100K-500K) | 1-2% | 4-7% | 1-2% |
| Macro (500K-1M) | 0.8-1.5% | 3-5% | 0.7-1.5% |
| Mega (1M+) | 0.5-1% | 2-4% | 0.5-1% |
Engagement rate = (avg likes + avg comments) ÷ followers × 100. Nano/micro creators run well above larger accounts on every platform. TikTok is often quoted higher because it's measured per-view — see the real per-follower medians below.
What creators actually get: real medians from 2.4M+ creators
The ranges above are the commonly-cited “good” targets. Here's the reality across our own database — the median engagement rate for ~2.4 million creators with an engagement snapshot, using the same (likes + comments) ÷ followers formula. Half of all creators fall below these numbers, so they run lower than the optimistic industry ranges — and they're the honest bar a creator has to beat.
| Follower tier | TikTok | YouTube | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nano (under 10K) | 2.17% | 2.9% | 2.35% |
| Micro (10K–100K) | 1.71% | 0.8% | 2.85% |
| Mid (100K–500K) | 1.45% | 0.4% | 3.04% |
| Macro (500K–1M) | 1.22% | 0.31% | 3.29% |
| Mega (1M+) | 0.92% | 0.3% | 2.91% |
On Instagram the median drops cleanly with size (2.17% → 0.92%). TikTok is shown per-follower here for consistency (it's often quoted per-view, which runs higher). YouTube stays flat-to-rising (2.85–3.29%) because engagement-per-subscriber behaves differently from feed platforms.
Engagement varies as much by niche as by size: on Instagram, cars (2.8%), fitness (2.7%) and comedy (2.6%) run above the median, while skincare (0.7%), finance (0.8%) and home decor (0.9%) run below; on TikTok, beauty (4.4%), fashion (4.1%) and car (4.9%) clear 4%. Source: Janney AI creator database, July 2026 (aggregated & anonymized).
How to calculate engagement rate
- Take a creator's last 6–12 posts and average the likes and the comments.
- Add the average likes and average comments together.
- Divide by the creator's follower count.
- Multiply by 100 — that's the engagement rate as a percentage.
A high rate isn't automatically good: check that comments are real (not just emojis or pods), that the audience matches your market, and that the creator actually posts about your niche. For that, you need follower authenticity and audience data, not just the raw number.
Skip the manual math
Janney AI surfaces real engagement rates, fake-follower scores and audience data for 180M+ creators — so you can shortlist genuinely engaged, on-topic creators in minutes. Browse verified creators by niche, or start free.