Engagement Rate Calculator

The two engagement rate formulas

A rate, rather than a count, is what lets accounts of different sizes be set side by side: Quid's report puts it as 1,000 likes making a huge difference to a brand with 2,000 followers and very little to one with 100,000. “Engagement rate” is one name for several measurements. They share a numerator, the interactions on a post (likes, comments, shares, and saves where the platform has them), but they divide by different audiences, and the studies that publish benchmarks disagree about which interactions to count. This calculator divides by one of two audiences:

A rate by followers sets interactions against your whole audience, including followers who never saw the post. A rate by reach or views sets them against the people who did see it. Which audience a published figure divides by is the first thing to check before comparing anything with it: Quid's report and Socialinsider's Instagram and X figures divide by followers, while Socialinsider's TikTok figure and the YouTube figures from Social Status and SociaVault divide by views. Use the toggle above to calculate either.

How the calculator compares your rate with a study

The result gives no grade and uses no size bands. The headline rate counts every interaction you type, over the audience you select. To compare it with a published figure, the calculator works on each cited study's own basis:

• Same audience. Only studies that divide by the audience you selected (followers or subscribers, reach, views or impressions) are used.
• The study's interactions. It recomputes your rate counting only the kinds of interaction that study's own definition names, and sets that rate against the study's figure. It says which kinds it counted and which of yours it left out. A field you leave blank counts as zero, and if you typed none of the kinds a study counts, the result says so and gives no rate for that study.
• One study heads the result. The result row and the first sentence use the study that counts the most of the kinds you typed; if two count the same number of them, the one whose definition names fewer kinds. Every other study that divides by the same audience follows in a sentence that begins “Also:”, each on its own basis.
• This calculator's reading of unclear definitions. Quid gives one list for all its platforms (likes, comments, favorites, reposts, shares, reactions and video interactions) and does not say which apply where. This calculator counts likes, comments and shares as Quid's kinds on every platform, reads X replies as comments and reposts as shares, and does not count favorites as saves or count any kind that Quid does not clearly name. If Quid does count a kind this reading leaves out, the rate recomputed here is lower than Quid's own method would give; if on some platform it does not count a kind this reading includes, the rate here is higher. Quid's page settles neither.
• Whose accounts. Quid's and Socialinsider's figures are for brand accounts (Quid samples companies from 18 industries, one of which is Influencers), so for a creator the comparison is with brands, not with other creators. SociaVault's sample is YouTube channels, and Social Status's is the YouTube channels tracked in its Competitor Analytics tool. The result says “brand” wherever the sample is one.

For each study the result says what was counted and what was left out, how many times the study's figure the recomputed rate is, and names the study, the date it was published, the year its data covers and its sample. Where no study cited here divides by your selected audience (Instagram by reach, X by impressions), the page says so rather than comparing unlike things. A multiple is arithmetic, not a rating: 12.9 times a brand median says how far apart two numbers are, and nothing about whether an account is doing well.

Benchmarks by platform (2025–26 data)

Each row is one published figure, with the formula its publisher states. A median or an average describes that study's sample: it is a reference point, not a target and not a grade.

Instagram

Quid's 2026 report puts the all-industry median at 0.30% of followers, which it describes as a drop of roughly 17% from 0.36% the year before. Rival IQ's 2025 report (the same series, published 25 February 2025) charts that 0.36% as 2024, so 0.30% is the 2025 figure. Socialinsider's 2025 average is 0.48% counting likes and comments only: by format it gives Carousels 0.55%, Reels 0.52% and Images 0.37% for 2025, and an overall 0.45% for the second quarter of 2026. No Instagram figure by reach, or by account size, is cited here.

TikTok

Socialinsider's TikTok benchmark divides likes, comments, shares and saves by views: 4.20% for 2025 (3.85% for 2024) and 3.85% for the second quarter of 2026. By page size for 2025 it gives 4.40% for 1K to 5K followers, 4.00% for 5K to 10K, 3.90% for 10K to 50K, 3.75% for 50K to 100K and 3.95% for 100K to 1M, and says engagement plateaus beyond the smallest accounts. Quid's median by followers is 2.01%.

YouTube

Social Status publishes a new figure each month, so its average per view of 0.28% is the figure for September 2026, not a current one; its twelve monthly values from October 2025 run from 0.12% (October and November 2025) to 0.46% (April 2026), and the data file behind its chart lists 44,335 posts from 1,853 profiles for September 2026. SociaVault's 2026 median is 3.06% per view, with about 2.7% for long-form and about 3.8% for Shorts, and medians by subscriber tier from 5.23% (1K to 10K subscribers) down to 1.41% (500K or more). SociaVault says Shorts lift a channel's overall rate and suggests comparing Shorts and long-form videos each against its own figure. The two per-view figures differ by about 11 times, which is why the calculator never mixes them: Social Status counts shares and publishes a monthly average, while SociaVault counts likes and comments only, publishes a median and filters for authentic accounts. Quid's median per follower is 0.21%, in its first year with YouTube.

X

Quid's all-industry median was 0.03% in 2025, double the 0.015% of 2024, which the report calls the platform's first meaningful rebound after several years of decline. Socialinsider's average, counting likes and retweets only, was 0.12% in 2025 and 0.15% in 2024. This page reads X replies as comments and reposts as shares: Quid's 2026 report writes “reposts” where its 2025 report wrote “retweets”.

Why the published figures disagree

The same platform gets different answers from different studies: 0.30% and 0.48% for Instagram, 0.03% and 0.12% for X, 0.28% for September 2026 (Social Status) and 3.06% (SociaVault) for YouTube. The studies count different interactions, divide by different audiences, report a median or an average, sample different accounts and cover different periods, so a figure is a reference point only for its own formula and sample. Quid says it uses engagement rate per post because that controls for post volume and audience size.

Where studies split by account size they do not agree on a shape: SociaVault's YouTube medians fall steadily with subscriber count, while Socialinsider's TikTok averages by views fall and then level off. No study cited here splits Instagram or X rates by size. SociaVault does publish its own below-average to excellent ranges for five YouTube subscriber tiers (likes and comments per view); this calculator does not adopt them, and it does not grade a rate against size bands of its own.

Worked example 1: an Instagram account

An account has 25,000 followers and averages 900 likes, 40 comments, 25 shares and 60 saves per post, with an average reach of 12,000 accounts.

The headline stays 4.10%, with every interaction counted. By followers, the calculator then compares on each study's own basis. Reading Quid's list as likes, comments and shares, it recomputes (900 + 40 + 25) ÷ 25,000 × 100 = 3.86%, which the page says is about 12.9 times Quid's 0.30% median for brand accounts, and lists the 60 saves as left out. Socialinsider counts likes and comments only: (900 + 40) ÷ 25,000 × 100 = 3.76%, about 7.8 times its 0.48% average for brand accounts, with the 25 shares and 60 saves left out. The two multiples use different studies, samples and interactions, so they are not comparable with each other. The reach-based 8.54% means 1,025 interactions for every 12,000 accounts reached, about one for every twelve, and no cited study divides Instagram interactions by reach, so the page shows no comparison for it.

Worked example 2: the same TikTok account, two rates

A TikTok account with 80,000 followers averages 45,000 views per video, with 3,800 likes, 150 comments, 420 shares and 260 saves.

By views, Socialinsider's TikTok average of 4.20% for 2025 counts all four interactions, so the page compares the full 10.29% and says it is about 2.4 times that average for brand accounts. By followers the headline stays 5.79%, but this calculator reads Quid's list as likes, comments and shares, so the page recomputes (3,800 + 150 + 420) ÷ 80,000 × 100 = 5.46%, about 2.7 times Quid's 2.01% median for brand accounts, and lists the 260 saves as left out. The same posts give two rates against two audiences and two studies, so the two multiples answer different questions and are not comparable with each other.

This page is general information about social media metrics, not marketing, business or financial advice. Platforms change what they report and studies disagree, so treat every figure here as a reference point for its own sample.

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