Influencer Rate Calculator
Prices a post on reach and engaged audience rather than follower count, against what the same impressions cost as paid media, with fake followers deducted.
Followers 84,000
inauthentic 12%, so 73,920 real
Engagement rate 3.6%
typical for this size 2.5% (micro, 10k to 100k)
against typical 1.44×
Reach a post 16,262, 22% of the real followers
Engaged a post 2,661
Priced as media
impressions bought 48,787
at a $9.50 CPM $463.48
which is what the same impressions would cost as paid social, before any creative
plus the endorsement which is what you are actually paying extra for
Against the quoted rate
a post $1,400.00
3 posts $4,200.00
CPM on reach $86.09
cost per engaged follower $0.5261
cost per thousand followers $50.00
wasted on inauthentic audience $504.00
premium over paid media $3,736.52, 9.06× the media cost
If the engaged audience converts
orders 143.7
revenue $9,771.63
return on the fee 2.33×
break-even orders 61.8
break-even conversion 0.77%
Rules of thumb, and what they miss
a dollar a thousand followers $84.00
same, on real followers only $73.92
same, on reach instead $16.26
the problem follower count is the weakest predictor of anything on this page
Engagement is 3.6% against a typical 2.5% for this size, so 1.44 times
the norm. That ratio is worth more than the follower count: engagement
falls as accounts grow, so a small account with high engagement often
reaches more interested people than a large one with low engagement.
The dollar-per-thousand-followers rule prices the number that is easiest
to buy. Follower counts can be purchased for a few dollars a thousand,
engagement cannot be faked as cheaply, and reach cannot be faked at all
without the platform noticing.
At 12% inauthentic, $504.00 of the fee buys nothing at all. Audience
quality tools estimate this and they disagree with each other, so treat
the figure as an order of magnitude and ask for the account's own reach
and engagement screenshots instead.
Pricing the reach as paid media gives a floor, and the difference
between that and the quoted rate is what you are paying for the
endorsement. Sometimes that premium is worth many times the media; the
point is to know it is a separate purchase.
Reach per post falls as an account grows and varies enormously by format
and by how the algorithm feels that week. A single post is a sample of
one; a rate card built on a good week overstates what the next post will
do.
Engagement rate is defined differently by every tool. Over followers,
over reach, with or without saves and shares, counted in the first 24
hours or over a week. Two accounts are only comparable if the definition
is the same, and the definition is rarely stated.
The thing you are buying is trust, which is why the rate is not just
media. It is also why one badly matched partnership costs more than it
earns: the audience notices, and both reputations pay for it.
Output is valid and updates as you type.
Fix the highlighted fields to update the output.
The usual rule is a dollar per thousand followers. It prices the one number that is easiest to buy and least connected to anything: a thousand followers cost a few dollars, engagement cannot be faked as cheaply, and reach cannot be faked at all without the platform noticing.
So this prices two ways. As media, against what the same impressions would cost you on paid social, which gives a floor and makes the rate arguable. And per engaged follower, which is the number that tracks whether anybody cared.
Fake followers are deducted rather than warned about. Twelve percent inauthentic means twelve percent of the fee buys nothing, and that belongs in the arithmetic.
How to use
- Put in the follower count, the engagement rate and the reach per post. Ask for the account’s own insights.
- Add an estimate of the inauthentic share.
- Add your paid CPM to see the endorsement premium, and the quoted rate to judge it.
Example
84,000 followers, 3.6 percent engagement, 22 percent reach, three posts at $1,400:
inauthentic 12%, so 73,920 real
Engagement rate 3.6%
typical for this size 2.5% (micro, 10k to 100k)
against typical 1.44×
Reach a post 16,262, 22% of the real followers
Engaged a post 2,661
Priced as media
at a $9.50 CPM $463.48
plus the endorsement which is what you are actually paying extra for
Against the quoted rate
3 posts $4,200.00
CPM on reach $86.09
cost per engaged follower $0.5261
wasted on inauthentic audience $504.00
premium over paid media $3,736.52, 9.06× the media cost
If the engaged audience converts
return on the fee 2.33×
break-even conversion 0.77%
Rules of thumb, and what they miss
a dollar a thousand followers $84.00
same, on reach instead $16.26The deal needs 0.77 percent of the engaged audience to buy. That is the question worth asking, and it is not answerable from a follower count.
Pitfalls
Engagement falls as accounts grow. A nano account at 4 percent and a macro account at 1 percent are both normal. The ratio against the band for the size, printed above, carries more information than either figure alone.
Engagement rate has no standard definition. Over followers or over reach, with or without saves and shares, in the first day or over a week. Two accounts are comparable only if the definition matches, and it is rarely stated.
Reach per post varies enormously. By format, by time of day, by how the algorithm feels that week. One post is a sample of one, and a rate card built on a good week overstates the next one.
Audience quality tools disagree with each other. They estimate the inauthentic share from follower behaviour and they are not measuring the same thing. Ask for screenshots of the account’s own insights panel instead; a refusal is informative.
The premium over media is the point, not a problem. You are buying an endorsement, which paid social cannot deliver. The arithmetic separates the two so the premium is a decision rather than an accident.
A badly matched partnership costs more than it earns. The audience notices, and both reputations pay. Fit is not in any of these numbers and it outranks all of them.
Affiliate and flat-fee structures move the risk, not the cost. Paying per sale shifts the risk to the creator and usually raises the price they want, which is the correct response.
Compatibility
Arithmetic in the browser: nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored.
Reach and engagement are both computed on the authentic follower count rather than the headline number, so the inauthentic share reduces every figure it should. The comparison bands are typical engagement rates by size: 4 percent under 10k, 2.5 percent to 100k, 1.5 percent to a million, 1 percent above, which are broad industry figures rather than measurements of your category.
The break-even conversion is the fee divided by the order value divided by the engaged audience, which is the number the deal has to beat and the one most negotiations never calculate.
Platform disclosure rules are not in the arithmetic and they are not optional: paid partnerships must be labelled, the tags exist for it, and the regulator in most countries treats an unlabelled ad as an enforcement matter rather than an oversight.