How much to charge for instagram story post
Influencer Marketing Costs (2022) - Business of Apps
As long as we’ve had advertising and marketing, brands have capitalized on famous faces to sell their products. If we see those to whom we aspire to use certain products and services, then we want to use them too – so we can relate to their experience and see how those products or services may fit our lives.
With the advent of social media, we’ve seen the emergence of a new kind of celebrity: the influencer. Not celebrities in the usual sense, in that their fame is inextricably tied up with the media through which they broadcast, rather than any specific discipline (not even socialite).
Nonetheless, the content they post is aspirational. Like the celebrities of old, their fans want to be like them, using the same products as they do. Hence, the name ‘influencer’. Influencers offer some advantages over the celebrities of old. They are more accessible (and affordable) – “just like you and me”. They often have close relationships with their fans, they build a rapport that brands themselves can’t replicate. And they are often particularly influential in niches closely associated with specific product categories.
Featured Influencer Marketing Companies
Influencer marketing has become a key marketing channel in the 21st century. For many brands, this has become a de rigueur element of the mix. Today, plugging Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok influencer marketing components into an app marketing plan has become the norm.
Read on to see our set of stats on influencer marketing rates and influencer marketing costs on different social media platforms. We start with a section looking at the size of budget marketers have put aside for this form of marketing, giving an impression of how much money is moving around here. We also look at which are the best influencer marketing channels for app marketers to choose from.
Before we get stuck in, it seems fair to point out that there is considerable variance in the costs reported. We have collated what’s out there, but the only thing that seems fixed is that a significant number of variables come into play.
Which audience marketers are trying to reach, the type/quantity of media, levels of engagement, and many more factors must be in consideration when establishing influencer marketing pricing. So at the end of the day, price points can only be fairly established on a case-by-case basis. That said, we hope it will be useful to any marketers considering utilizing this channel to see some benchmark figures.
Influencer rates/preferred influencer marketing channelsInfluencer marketing is more than a trend; it is widely held to be one of the most effective digital marketing channels available to contemporary marketers. A 2019 BigCommerce influencer marketing research indicates that 89% of brand marketers report that they see a higher ROI with influencer marketing compared with other digital marketing channels. Because we bring up this data point from 2019, before the rise of TikTok as the leading social media platform for brands to connect with their audiences, it’s reasonable to assume that today in 2022 the number of brands who measure a higher ROI for influencer marketing campaigns is even higher.
Accordingly, they are willing to invest. The total global value of influencer marketing in 2022 was estimated at $16.4 billion by Influencer Marketing Hub.
Investment has been on the rise. According to the Business Insider Intelligence report, in 2022 Influencer marketing investment is expected to reach $15 billion, giving almost twice more oxygen to influencers to capitalize on the rising demand.
Featured Influencer Marketing Companies
According to the InfluencerMarketingHub research, in 2020 62% of companies, that took part in the survey, increased their Influencer marketing budget throughout 2020, and an additional 20% committed to keeping the same level budget in 2021.
49% of these companies kept their Influencer marketing budget on the level – $10k and down, while other 23% spent up to $50k / year and about 9% were ready to spend more than $500k / year.
Influencer marketing spend in Q4, 2020 (%)
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
Another find from the InfluencerMarketingHub 2021 report was that last year the overwhelming majority of marketers had planned to invest more in Influencer marketing.
In fact, 62% said they will increase their Influencer marketing budget in 2021. To give you some context – in 2020 only 57% of marketers planned to increase their Influencer marketing budget.
And when it comes to where marketers get money to run Influencer marketing campaigns, almost 83% said they’d borrowed it from the overall marketing budget, at the expense of other marketing channels.
Overall marketing budget powers the Influencer marketing budget (%)
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
The same InfluencerMarketingHub report brings us the picture of what specific social media platforms marketers ran Influencer marketing campaigns on in 2021. A brief look on the graph below will show you that TikTok is rising as one of the major channels to run Influencer marketing campaigns in 2021. Only one company was used by a greater number of marketers – Instagram, with 68% of marketers ran ad campaigns on it and TikTok came second with 45%, followed by Facebook with 43%, YouTube – 36% and finally LinkedIn and Twitter closed the set with 16 and 15 percent respectively.
The most popular Influencer Marketing platforms in 2021 (%)
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
So now we’ve got the overall picture of the influencer rates, influencer marketing spend and top platforms.
Below, we look at some of the most popular influencer marketing platforms and the costs associated with leveraging each one.
Instagram influencer pricingSay influencer, and most people – at least for now – will think of an Instagram influencer. And where there are influencers, there’s marketing. Instagram influencer marketing has become a key part of many brands’ efforts – particularly when they’re aiming to target certain demographics. Indeed, the platform seems tailor-made for brands wishing to interact with prospective customers, with 90% of its 1.1 billion+ users following a brand. In Q4 2020, the total value of Instagram influencer marketing reached $8 billion.
Naturally, we have seen prices rise in proportion as the platform has become ever more indispensable.
And influencers have become more confident of their power to sell products for brands, as this form of marketing moved from informal arrangements to a central pillar of a long-term strategy. Obviously, the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a disruptive force in so many areas of businesses, and the influencer marketing businesses felt its heat as well.
Now, the questions that we want to address first are – how much do Instagram influencers make? What is an Instagram influencer’s salary or, at least, a ballpark of it?
An Instagram post cost varies, it depends on how many followers a particular Instagram influencer has. There are five influencer categories based on the follower’s number – Nano, Micro, Mid, Macro, and Mega. Introducing these categories lead to the creation of influencer rate sheets for posting on various social media platforms. In particular, the Instagram post rates range from $10, posted by Nano influencers to $10k and more, posted by Mega influencers.
An Instagram rate sheet for posts in 2022
| Type of Influencers | Rate |
| Nano (1-10k followers) | $10-100 |
| Micro (10-100k followers) | $100-500 |
| Mid (100-500k followers) | $500-$5k |
| Macro (500k-1m followers) | $5-$10k |
| Mega (1m+ followers) | $10k+ |
Source: AndrewMcCarty.com
Of course, this means average doesn’t tell the whole story. It goes without saying that there are significant differences in the scale of Instagram influencer marketing – which is of course part of its appeal to brands. Accordingly, we see a great deal of variance in the cost of influencer marketing.
Another unnamed influencer (100,000-250,000 followers, 2.5% engagement) shared a pricing model for different packages she offered. (see the table below) This also includes pricing for giveaways and takeovers, as well as photos and story mentions.
Her pricing model seems set a little below others we have seen, with economies of scale applying for more involved campaigns.
Instagram Influencer pricing (packages)
| Story packages: Average views: 15k | Monthly packages: 3 month minimum | One off packages: Ask me for more details |
| 5 mentions per month: $1,000 | 5 photos/month: $2,500 | 1 IG photo: $1,000 |
| 2 mentions per month: $500 | 5 photos + blog post: $3,000 | Giveaway: $1,500 |
| 1 mention: $300 | 2 photos per month: $1,200 | IG takeover: $1,500 |
| 1 photo per month: $700 | Blog post: $2,000 | |
| 1 photo + blog post: $1,500 | Story takeover: $1,000 | |
| Shop page feature: $500/month |
Source: Later
Another influencer with slightly fewer followers (though in the same range) told Later that they would charge $1,000 per Instagram post, $200 per Story, and $2,000-$5,000 for a 60-second video.
Two travel bloggers with a follower count in the 50,000-100,000 bracket (micro-influencers) charged $500 per post. These smaller bloggers often see posts with higher engagement, so can offer better influencer marketing ROI, posits Lately, citing Neoreach data which suggests 30% better ROI from micro-influencers, versus macro. Measuring ROI is frequently cited as the biggest challenge for marketers using influencer marketing.
Featured Influencer Marketing Companies
- BuzzGuru - Influencer Marketing Intelligence & Analytics
- Moburst - Mobile Done Right
- yellowHEAD - Scaling Made Simple
- Ubiquitous - Influencer Marketing at Scale
- Zorka.Agency - Smart. Efficient. Worldwide
- Intellifluence - Influencer marketing made easy
- FansRevenue - The fanbase monetization accelerator for content creators
Using a different influencer-marketing pricing model, a little more focused on results, brands might expect to pay somewhere in the $250 to $750 for 1,000 engagements (Digiday/WebFX).
We get a more precise measure by virtue of a 2019 survey of 2,500 influencers conducted by Klear and published in eMarketer.
On Instagram, influencer pricing adheres to the fairly simple formula of more followers = higher cost. Prices rise fairly proportionally until we reach the point of celebrity influencers (with over 500k followers). At this point, we see close to a fourfold leap up from power influencers (with 30-500k).
In terms of formats, you’ll pay a premium price for a video – somewhere around 50% more than you would for a post. Stories are the cheapest, presumably due to their ephemeral nature.
Influencer Rates Worldwide, by Influencer Tier, 2019
| Type of content / Influencer Tier | Nano (500-5k followers) | Micro (5k-30k followers) | Power (30k-500k) | Celebrity (500k+ followers) |
| Instagram Post | $100 | $172 | $507 | $2,085 |
| Instagram Video | $114 | $219 | $775 | $3,138 |
| Instagram Story | $43 | $73 | $210 | $721 |
Data source: eMarketer
Of course, follower count is not the only variable which might affect the cost of Instagram influencer marketing pricing.
Geography also plays a part. A 2017 survey from eMarketer found that UK marketers were willing to pay £1,203 ($1,581) for a micro-influencer (under 10,000) post on Instagram, and £60,476 ($79,528) for a celeb influencer (1 million followers up). Influencer marketing in the UK seems to be pitched at a fairly robust price point, albeit one that it seems these marketers have been willing to pay.
Influencer Marketing Hub offers a calculator for influencers to work out what they should be charging, based on follower count and engagement. Of course, it could as well be used by markers looking to determine influencer marketing pricing.
We ran some random British celebrities through it in early April 2022 – it looks back over the last 12 posts, so results may differ at different points – to see what it said.
Tottenham and England footballer Harry Kane was first. With 12.3 million followers, 185k average Likes, giving him an engagement rate of 1.51%, his estimated earnings per post are set at $24,518-$40,864.
Music is another popular influencer genre, so we put award-winning musician Dua Lipa through. With her 82 million followers, 2 million average Likes, and engagement rate of 2.7%, she could be raking in $162,666 -$271,110 per post.
Comedian and actor Lolly Adefope commands a higher engagement rate than either of our two previous examples at 7.09% – with 9,090 average Likes generated from a smaller follower base of 112,707. That would earn her $342-$570 per post.
But what if you want to go REALLY big? At the very top of the Instagram influencer food chain we find the megastars who dominated the marketing/advertising landscape before all these influencers came along.
Ok, so here is how much you would need to pay if you want your product or service being introduced to the top celebrity Instagram followers. The list is 60/40 gender split, with women dominate – 6 women against 4 men.
The world famous soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo’s post, which has 423 million followers on Instagram, costs between $620k and $1M.
Hollywood action movies star Dwayne Johnson, who has 154 million Instagram followers, post on Instagram costs anywhere between $504k and $840k. Ariana Grande’s marvelous voice allowed her to summon 303 million followers, asks for a single post on Instagram between $500k and $833k. At the bottom of the list is Kendall Jenner, with 229 million Instagram followers, who charges “only” $580k per post.
Top Celebrity Instagram post price, up to (in $M)
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
YouTube influencer marketing pricingOne of the consequences of lunching a video sharing service such as YouTube back in 2005 was that over time the YouTube influencer phenomena emerged. Some of influencers have become one of the world’s biggest celebs in their own right, the medium itself was, and still is, very conducive for people to share all sorts of information and become known and recognized in countless number of areas. YouTube was, along with Instagram and Facebook, one of the earliest platforms for the Influencer phenomena to emerge.
So, how much does YouTube influencer marketing cost?
On the graph below we stack together influencer post pricing for multiple platforms to show you the striking difference between YouTube influencer post rates and the rest of top social media platforms.
Now, the graph covers the 2014-2019 time frame plus 2021. Such timing allows us to see clearly how introduction of TikTok and the massive exodus of influencers from YouTube and Instagram to TikTok have changed the influencer marketing pricing landscape.
As you can see, you’ll have to shell out big money for influencer marketing using YouTube videos – though 2019’s $6,700 is not the high point. In 2017 you’d have to spend close to $8,000 for the pleasure. Prices dipped in 2018 to $4,085 and rose up to roughly $4,500 in 2021 – again, the existence of TikTok leaves YouTube a smaller part of the influencer marketing pie.
This pricing is based on a charging $20 for every 1,000 subscribers an influencer has on her or his YouTube channel, a scale continued up to $20,000 for an influencer with 1 million.
Various factors could well play into influencer YouTube videos pricing fluctuations: influencers become better known, smaller influencers are brought into the marketing mix (much better for some brands, we might note), bigger or smaller brands invest, etc.
Now, the COVID-19 pandemic hit influencers really hard, many influencers who ran ad campaigns for the traveling industry had to stop and cancel any campaigns abruptly.
To take a more end product-focused view, marketers utilizing YouTube influencer marketing might expect to pay $50-$100 for every 1,000 views. To give you some perspective, in 2021 an average YouTube video CPM (cost-per-mile or cost-per-view) was about $27 per 1,000 views, so at that point it was about essentially doubling your expenses, if you decided to work with YouTube influencers, as opposed to running ads via the YouTube ad platform yourself.
Finally, in comparison, shelling out on a tweet ($422) or a Facebook post ($395) is very much a discount option.
Average cost of a paid post per platform, 2014- 2019, 2021 ($)
Source: Izea, BusinessInsider
A representative of influencer marketing platform HYPR quoted in the 2017 Digiday report added a little bit of complexity to the pricing model quoted above. Beyond 50,000 subscribers, we might add $2,000 per 100,000 followers (50,000 followers would be equal to $1,000 using the above scale). When we reach 1 million it’s a bit more complicated, given the level of celebrity. At this stage we might expect to see a spend of $25,000-$50,000 per influencer marketing video.
Referring back to the more precise eMarketer/Klear stats, we again see that celebrity influencer marketing commands a considerable pricing premium over mere mortal influencers. Indeed, you would have to pay nearly five times more for an influencer with over 500,000 followers as compared with one with 30,000-500,000 followers.
It does not quite follow, however, that more followers = higher marketing expense.
For whatever reason, according to these YouTube influencer marketing pricing stats, it seems you will pay more for a micro-influencer than for a power-influencer. Perhaps a reasonable assumption might be that these influencers exert a higher level of influence over their fanbases. Potentially they are operating in specific niches in which they claim a level of expertise. There’s no hard evidence for it here, but potentially power-influencers might be able to drum up regular business, which means they can afford to charge less per post. The other less edifying possibility may simply be that the sample is smaller in this bracket.
At all levels, YouTube is the most expensive influencer marketing channel, at least for now when TikTok hasn’t risen to the same heights YouTube has. Yet. Perhaps we might assume a certain expectation that YouTube videos would have slightly higher production values than the more personal/intimate format of an Instagram video. That said, pricing is relatively similar between the two video platforms at the power influencer and celebrity level.
Lower down the follower count hierarchy, the YouTube influencer marketing premium is considerably more pronounced.
YouTube influencer rates by number of followers ($)
| Nano-Influencers | Micro-Influncers | Mid-tier Influencers | Macro-Influencers | Mega-Influencers | |
| Price range | 20-200 | 200-1,000 | 1,000-10,000 | 10,000-20,000 | 20,000+ |
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
Top Influencer Marketing Platforms and Agencies
- BuzzGuru - Influencer Marketing Intelligence & Analytics
- Moburst - Mobile Done Right
- yellowHEAD - Scaling Made Simple
- Ubiquitous - Influencer Marketing at Scale
- Zorka.Agency - Smart. Efficient. Worldwide
- Intellifluence - Influencer marketing made easy
- FansRevenue - The fanbase monetization accelerator for content creators
- SEM Nexus - Startup App Marketing Experts
- Zoomd - Zoomd.
See the Big Picture, Down to the Finest Detail - LetsTok.com - Smart AI Powered Influencer Marketing for Your Brand
As we mention above, in most cases, Facebook influencer marketing is relatively cheap compared to other platforms. This is according to Izea, who pins the price of an influencer Facebook influencer post at a relatively bargainous $395. While the cost of a Facebook influencer post cost more in 2019 than it has in previous years, the cost has not followed a steady upward curve. Indeed, like Instagram and YouTube (according to Izea’s data at least) 2018 saw a decline in the cost of influencer marketing on Facebook – again, we are free to speculate as to why.
WebFX, on the other hand, set Facebook influencer marketing rates a little higher than Izea (remember, Izea’s averages make a like-for-like comparison imprecise at best). According to this source, you might pay $25 for the services of an influencer with 1,000 followers, $250 for one with 10,000, and so on (up to $25,000 for an influencer with 1 million followers).
The Klear influencer marketing stats published on eMarketer show an interesting dynamic in terms of Facebook influencer marketing pricing (this only considers posts, not breaking down media types). At the lowest nano level, it is the cheapest; climb up to micro-influencers and it is in the mid-point – more expensive than Instagram but cheaper than YouTube (though recall at the micro-influencer level there is a considerable premium on YouTube).
It again becomes the discount option at the power level, barring Instagram Stories. Like YouTube, for some reason, influencer marketing is cheaper at the power than the micro level. Again we might speculate that it has something to do with engagement or sample size.
Then we have the celebrity level: here Facebook once again commands a premium over stablemate Instagram, though is considerably cheaper than YouTube. We might assume this is a consequence of wider reach relative to the former, but lower required investment to produce content than the latter.
Facebook influencer rates by the number of followers
| Number of followers | 10k | 100k | 1,000k |
| Price | $250 | $2,500 | $25,000 |
Data source: WebFX
2021 data from Influencer Marketing Hub gives you the Facebook influencer pricing range based on tiers. It starts with just $25 for a Facebook post from Nano-influencer and all the way up to Mega-influencer that would charge you more than $25,000 for posting about your product or service.
Facebook influencer rates by tiers
| Tier | Nano-influencer | Micro-influencer | Mid-tier | Macro-influencer | Mega-influencer |
| Price | $25-250 | $250-$1,2500 | $1,250-$12,500 | $12,500-$25,000 | $25,000+ |
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
Snapchat influencer marketing pricing
WebFX reckon you might pay $10 for every 1,000 views for Snapchat influencer marketing, up to $10,000 for a Snapchat influencer delivering 1 million views.
Until November, 2020, follower count wasn’t public on Snapchat, so back then this measure was the only really way to accurately gauge the reach (or influence) of a Snapchat influencer.
Several years ago influencer Cyrene Quiamco gave Digiday a slighter higher scale.
Snapchat influencer post rates by the number of views
| Views (followers equivalent) | Price range |
| 1,000-5,000 | $500 |
| 5,000-10,000 | $1,000-$3,000 |
| 10,000-20,000 | $3,000-5,000 |
| 30,000-50,000 | $5,000-10,000 |
| 50,000-100,000 | $$10,000-$30,000 |
If we consider views to be analogous with followers, then this would put Snapchat influencer marketing at a similar price point to Instagram influencer marketing. In reality follower count will be higher, thus making Snapchat the cheaper option.
Looking all the way back to 2016 – since when Snapchat has endured several peaks and troughs (though 2016 and 2019 were both good years so hopefully there’s some commonality) – Captiv8 estimated a snap from an influencer with 3-7 million followers would cost around $75,000. A snap from an influencer with 50,000-500,000 followers would be more like $1,000.
On this scale you might expect to pay $11-25 per 1,000 followers for a big Snapchat influencer, and $2-20 for a micro-influencer, which puts it close to what you would pay as a marketer on Snapchat Ads.
Snapchat influencer marketing, cost per follower range
| Influencers | Micro | –influencers | ||
| Followers | 3,000,000 | 7,000,000 | 50,000 | 500,000 |
| Cost | $75,000 | $75,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Cost per follower | $0. 025 | $0.011 | $0.020 | $0.002 |
| Cost per 1,000 followers | $25 | $11 | $20 | $2 |
Source: Buffer
In the UK in 2017, a Snapchat micro-influencer represented the form of influencer marketing on which marketers were willing to spend the least, according to eMarketer influencer marketing stats, with £1,052 ($1,386) the stated cap. A celeb snap would cost £52,702 ($69,414) – not cheap, but also the lowest cost celebrity influencer marketing rate available in this market.
Twitter influencer marketing pricingTwitter perhaps doesn’t get the same sort of coverage as some of the other influencer platforms, but it remains to be one of the world’s most notable social media platforms with the monthly active user base of more than 330 million people – and where there’s social, there’s influencers.
According to the BusinessInsider stats above, the average cost of an influencer tweet is $284 (2021).
Interestingly, while all other platforms saw a decline in terms of the cost of influencer marketing in 2018, the average price of an influencer tweet shot up, 6-fold, from $48.
Here the WebFX influencer marketing stats are in sync with those of BusinessInsider, with Twitter offering the lowest cost influencer marketing option, at $2 a tweet for a Twitter influencer with 1,000 followers up to $2,000 for a Twitter influencer with 1 million.
In the 2017 UK eMarketer survey, marketers said they would pay £1,351 ($1,779) for a micro-influencer tweet, and as much as £64,798 ($85,339) for one from a celebrity.
TikTok influencer marketing pricing
Obviously taking a look at the influencer marketing rates in 2022, you just can’t have a complete picture without TikTok. In May 2021 the mega popular social media platform app was the most downloaded app, beating YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Originally attracting only younger generation, by 2021 TikTok became the major challenger for Instagram & YouTube video content sharing dominance.
Today influencers of all tiers have TikTok on their radar and many of them are successfully switched to it from other platforms and quite successful in showing what is possible when it comes to making a video ad viral.
According to InfluencerMarketingHub, TikTok influencer post pricing looks the following.
TikTok influencer post pricing
| Tier | Nano influencer | Micro influencer | Mid-tier influencer | Macro influencer | Mega influencer |
| Price | $5-$25 | $25-$125 | $125-$1,250 | $1,250-$2,500 | $2,500+ |
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
Comparing TikTok influencer post pricing with the YouTube one, we see that the former is way more affordable. On top of that, you need to factor in a TikTok’s superior level of engagement, based on its highly competitive environment that has been sparking so much creativity for the last several years.
Other
Before social media really became a big thing, we still had a form of influencer marketing: blogs. Back in the Dark Ages (2006), before anyone had even come up with the concept of an influencer, you could get a influencer blog post for a paltry $7.39. Like all good things this, of course, edged its way upwards.
2014 was a key year. With social media marketing now entrenched (Facebook took off for real in 2012, Instagram followed in 2012) the average cost of an influencer marketing blog post jumped up more than 10-fold, from $35.72 to $407.46. Growth after this point was rapid, with prices breaking the four-figure mark in 2017, and climbing as high as $1,403 in 2018. 2019’s figure of $1,442 represents something of a levelling out – for now, at least, this is how much marketers are willing to invest in this form of influencer marketing.
We might note that, of the formats analysed by Izea, blog posts are the second-most expensive on average. The specificity, persuasive potential, and search engine friendliness of blog posts are obviously of high value when trying to influence potential buyers.
Average cost of a paid blog post, 2006 – 2019 ($)
Source: Izea
WebFX also place influencer blogging among the highest-priced forms of influencer marketing. In this estimation, you might expect to pay $60 per 1,000 unique views. As with all of these rather imprecise measures from WebFX, we might expect a good deal of variation – if the blog draws on technical expertise, for example, naturally the price point will creep upwards.
Pinterest is another popular channel for influencer marketing, though we could not find any indication of how much you might pay for Pinfluencer marketing. An API introduced in 2018 was designed to help marketers measure the impact of Pinterest influencer marketing.
How to Determine Influencer Rates in 2023
You might know your favorite Instagram influencers’s preferred brand of dog food, the messy details of their last breakup or what’s in their medicine cabinet. But there’s one piece of information that rarely makes it into an Instagram story: how much that influencer is being paid.
The global influencer market is a $13.8 billion global industry. But what cut of that is your average, non-Kylie Jenner influencer getting per post?
Creating branded content involves time, labour, skill, and production costs. And those things aren’t paid for with products and freebies.
And paying the right price pays off. But what is the right price?
Read on to find the best formula for calculating rates, the ballpark cost of different types of posts, and other factors that might affect influencer pricing for your next influencer marketing campaign.
How to calculate fair Instagram influencer rates
Price per Instagram post
Types of Instagram influencers
Other factors that affect Instagram influencer pricing
Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a fitness influencer used to grow from 0 to 600,000+ followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.
Long story short: Prices in this industry vary greatly and there’s no standard rate card.
Allegedly, a post from model Emily Ratajkowski would cost $80,700. Rumours are that Demi Lovato charges at least $668,000, while Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson takes home a cool $1.5 million for crafting a post for his 187 million followers. Even for the biggest celebrities (and even among the Kardashians themselves!), there seems to be no hard-and-fast rule.
However, there are ways to make sure brands are getting value from their sponsored post, and influencers are being fairly compensated for their work.
Rates should be based around an influencer’s follower count and engagement rate, but less-quantitative factors like star power, talent, or access to a niche audience can impact a rate as well.
Covering any expenses associated with a shoot (like renting a studio, hiring a hairstylist, et cetera) will also be a factor.
Most pricing starts with one of these baseline formulas and goes up from there.
- Engagement rate per post + extras for type of post (x #of posts) + extra factors = total rate.
- The unspoken industry standard is $100 per 10,000 followers + extras for type of post (x # of posts) + additional factors = total rate.
Of course, your brand goals will be a factor as well in determining which influencer will offer the most value.
If your goal is brand awarenessDo you want quantity or quality with your outreach? If sheer numbers are what you’re looking for, a macro-influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers may be your best partner for your next campaign.
Conversely, if you’re hoping to get in front of a specific audience, finding the right micro- or nano- influencer with a primo niche audience might be even more powerful for brand awareness. See the section on “types of Instagram influencers” below for more details, or read up on how to find Instagram influencers that work best for your business.
An influencer’s engagement rate is one of the most reliable ways to predict conversions on Instagram.
So if your goal is conversions, an influencer’s engagement rate may matter more than follower count.
Engagement rates can be calculated by adding up all engagements on a post (likes, comments, clicks, shares), dividing by follower count, and multiplying by 100.
Price per Instagram postTypically, influencers will have a press kit describing their rates and the types of partnerships available. Depending on the campaign, bundled content or special rates can also be worked out to reduce labor and costs.
Instagram post (photo)A standard sponsored Instagram post typically includes a photo and caption. In some cases the product is featured in the image. In other cases, like when a service is being promoted, the caption is more crucial.
Using the formulas above, you might roughly expect a photo post to cost under $2,000 for accounts with under 100,000 followers.
For macroinfluencers, you might expect to pay in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.
A popular formula many influencers use* is:
Average price per IG post (CPE) = Recent Average Engagements x $.14.
Instagram post (video)View this post on Instagram
A post shared by • Krystal • (@houseofharvee)
Video’s star continues to rise on social, and Instagram is no different, tracking an 80 percent year-over-year increase.
Most content creators appreciate that a video involves greater production costs than a photo, but the added investment can often translate into more than just added engagement.
Many influencers use this formula when calculating what to chard for Instagram video posts*:
Price per IG video (CPE) = Recent average engagement x $0.
16
Instagram post giveaway/contestView this post on Instagram
A post shared by RYAN AND AMY SHOW (@ryanandamyshow)
Instagram contests are a great way to grow followers and brand awareness. Typically a contest involves asking a user to do something for a chance to win a prize, whether it’s tagging a friend, liking your account, or sharing a post.
Because the combination of content required for executing a contest would be unique to each brand and influencer, the best way to estimate what it would cost is looking at the individual elements and adding those up: for instance, do you want five photo posts and a Story to promote your frozen-yogurt-for-life giveaway? Crunch the numbers and you’ve got a ballpark figure to start with.
Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a fitness influencer used to grow from 0 to 600,000+ followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.
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Price per Instagram contest = (# of posts*0.14) + (# of videos*0.16) + (# of Stories*price per Story)
Instagram StoryView this post on Instagram
A post shared by kendall gender 🤎 (@kendallgender)
An Instagram story is a photo or video that vanishes after 24 hours. Production quality can range from off-the-cuff smartphone footage to polished uploaded content, and costs will vary accordingly.
One formula you could use to calculate the cost of Instagram stories is*:
Price per Instagram Story = Recent average view x $0.06
Instagram Story with swipe upThe swipe up feature on Instagram is a seamless way to earn in-app conversions and website visits.
And since links are hard to come by in Instagram’s ecosystem, story swipe ups have added value. So Instagram Stories with swipe up will likely cost more than the average cost for a Story post itself. (See above)
We suggest charging your regular price for a Story, plus a price per “swipe” or website visit or conversion. Determining what that swipe up or conversion is worth will vary depending on the product being sold. A conversion on a hot tub, for example, is worth more than a conversion on a lipstick. But you could start by asking for 3% to 10% of each sale.
Try this formula when calculating the cost of an Instagram Story with swipe up:
Price per Instagram story with swipe up = price per Instagram story + price per swipe up
Note that if you’re working with a micro-influencer that has fewer than 10,000 followers or is not verified, they may not have access to this feature.
Instagram Story with pollAdding a poll to an Instagram Story is a low-cost way to learn more about an influencer’s followers (and your prospective customers).
There may be additional charges based on how time or labor intensive preparing or monitoring this is for the influencer — so expect this to cost more than a typical story. (See above)
Price per Instagram story with poll = price per Instagram story (Recent average view x $0.06) + price per poll (hourly rate for extra labour)
Instagram Story AMAAny Instagram Story with an additional interactive element to it — whether that’s an Instagram Live or a series of posts inspired by the Questions sticker — is going to cost more than a standard sponsored Instagram Story, and will vary by influencer.
Brand TakeoverA brand takeover usually involves hosting the influencer’s content on your brand’s feed for an agreed upon length of time. A takeover agreement may involve asks for the influencer to promote it a certain number of times from their account–in posts and/or Stories.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Erin Cebula (@celebula)
In this case you might use a formula adding up all the different types of posts involved in your brand takeover, plus your hourly rate for planning and strategizing (if applicable).
Also, because the goal of a brand takeover is usually to gain new followers, you may want to consider charging by how many new followers the brand gets as a result of your takeover.
Caption MentionBecause a caption mention will likely require the least production costs or time than any of these other influencer product options, it’s likely this will be your cheapest option. But, of course, this still varies by the influencer.
Affiliate MarketingAffiliate marketing is one of the most common ways to make money on Instagram. It’s the practice of having an influencer who is repping your product earn a commission for every sale of said product.
As of 2021, Instagram influencers generally make 5-30% commission in affiliate marketing contracts, with bigger influencers starting in the 8-12% range.
Types of Instagram influencersFrom personal finance to plant-based influencers, there are nano, micro, power middle, macro and mega influencers in every category. Depending on your Instagram marketing goals, certain influencers may be a better match for your brand.
For brands looking to create widespread buzz, macro-influencers with large follower accounts may be the best bet. Macro-influencers typically have more than 200,000 followers, which gives them the ability to reach a wider audience. (Or, go even bigger with a mega influencer: those with followings of one million or more!)
Micro influencers, meanwhile, have 25,000 followers or less, and are very often popular in location or topic-specific communities. They specialize in a range of industries of categories, including anything from sports and gaming, to travel and food.
Want to get even more niche? Try working with a nano influencer: accounts with 1,000 to 10,000 followers.
Power middle influencers fall right in the middle of them all, as you probably guessed, with a highly engaged audience in the 10,000 to 200,0000 range.
Other factors that affect Instagram influencer pricingBrands in search of quality partnerships should budget for these cost factors when marketing with influencers.
Usage rightsIf you want to maintain ownership of the content you create with an influencer, so that you can use it on other platforms or down the line, this will likely impact the influencer’s rate.
ExclusivityMost contracts include an exclusivity clause, in which the influencer agrees not to work with competitors for a determined length of time. Since this could cost influencers prospective deals, it will affect the cost.
Chances are, influencers are making waves on other platforms, too. Brands can negotiate cross-posting deals to really maximize the reach of a paid influencer post.
Niche demographicsDoes the influencer have intimate access to a group that’s valuable to your brand? They may charge a premium. Supply and demand, baby!
Hiring photographersVarious production related costs such as how long it takes to produce the content (labor), props, clothing, hair and makeup, photography, editing, and travel, should be factored into influencer rates.
Agency feesMany influencers are represented by managers or agencies such as Crowdtap, Niche, Tapinfluencer, or Maker Studios. These companies will typically charge handling fees.
Campaign lengthThe length of the campaign will have a direct affect on influencer pricing based on the added labour, content, and exclusivity requirements attached to it.
Depending on how much time a brand gives an influencer to create content, a rush fee may be applied.
Brand fitIf an influencer feels that a company lacks a level of affinity with their personal brand, they may charge for what the partnership may cost them in credibility.
Content typeSome types of content are more difficult or time consuming to produce than others. Influencers may give discounts for easier-to-execute formats, or charge more for those which are more intensive.
Link in bioIf the goal is to drive traffic, making sure there’s a link to your website somewhere is going to be key. It’s not uncommon for influencers to charge extra to include a link in bio.
Now that you have a better sense of influencer pricing, learn more influencer marketing tips, plus how to work with an Instagram influencer.
*Source: Aspire IQ
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How much to charge for advertising on Instagram
Today, in the accounts of Instagram bloggers, you can find ads from both start-ups and large corporations. The price tag for one advertising post can vary from several hundred to several million dollars. Such a huge price range challenges all influencers in assessing the fair value of their services. We offer you to figure out how much to charge for advertising on Instagram, and on what factors the cost depends.
Why you can get money on Instagram
Influencer marketing continues to gain momentum.
About 7 out of 10 users rely on the opinion of bloggers when making a decision. Influencers allow you to establish closer contact with the audience, drive huge streams of payback Internet traffic and improve sales.
Using these market trends and having an active audience on Instagram, you can earn money by promoting brands and their products. There are several options for earning:
- sponsored publications;
- affiliate marketing.
Let's consider each of them in more detail.
Sponsored post or story
Sponsored posts are one of the most popular ways to make money on Instagram. Advertising with bloggers shows amazing cases, so brands of all calibers are looking to partner with influencers. And not only millionaire bloggers are in demand. Brands also turn to micro-influencers with up to 50K followers for advertising. nine0003
The task of the influencer in this case is to create and place high-quality advertising content in their account.
The format of a sponsored post can be anything, from a simple photo with a product and a mention of the brand, as if by chance, to a full review.
Collaboration is based on individual advertising agreements between the brand and the account holder. The influencer chooses the cost of placing an advertising post independently based on several key parameters:
- volume of subscribers;
- audience engagement;
- demand.
Often the cost is influenced by two more unpredictable concepts - the blogger's personal desires and the ability to sell to his audience.
In determining the cost of an advertising post, a lot also depends on the format of advertising, the scale of the influencer, the brand budget, and product features. As a rule, the more difficult it is to advertise a product and the more time it takes to create content, the higher the cost of placing a sponsored post. nine0003
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing involves earning a certain commission on the sale of partner products, attracting new customers.
The task of the influencer in this case is to conduct a review, talk about the benefits of the product and add a referral link or a promo code for the purchase to the description. If users like the recommendation, they go to the partner's website and make a purchase, the blogger will receive a certain commission from the funds they spend.
Affiliate marketing has more flexibility than sponsored publications. A blogger can decide for himself what format of publications to choose, what, how, and when to write, but earnings also depend solely on the actions of the influencer himself. Working according to this scheme, it is important to choose the right products on offer so that they are ideally suited to your target audience. nine0003
Assess the quality of the audience
When a brand pays you to post, it is actually buying views, likes, clicks from your target audience. And you have to be honest with the advertiser about what response you can offer. Selling your influence without actually having it is a recipe for disaster.
Therefore, before placing a price tag, you should definitely evaluate the quality of your audience. Detailed account audience analytics can be done with trendHERO .
The service allows:
- to find out the demographics of subscribers;
- compare the interests of your audience with the values of the brand;
- see how the number of subscribers grows;
- calculate the audience engagement indicator;
- Check your account for bots.
Advertisers now value quality over quantity. Nobody wants to overpay for bots in subscribers and “dead” souls, so before cooperation, you should definitely check the quality of your account. So, if necessary, you can increase the level of audience engagement, clean your account from bots, and avoid being blacklisted by unscrupulous bloggers. nine0003
Please note that advertisers can get detailed profile statistics without you. Therefore, it makes no sense to hide cheated activity and subscribers.
How to calculate how much to charge for advertising?
The price of advertising depends on many factors:
- format;
- the quality and quantity of the audience;
- brand budget;
- influencer requests.
There is no single magic calculation formula suitable for everyone. Therefore, below we suggest that you familiarize yourself with several different ways to determine the cost of advertising on Instagram. nine0003
Hourly
Hourly is a good option for aspiring influencers who don't yet have a huge following but already know they can create quality content.
This is also a good option for those who post content that requires a lot more skill than just taking photos or videos. For example, if you conduct a full product review for your publications, apply technical editing skills, use special effects, drones, then it is logical that you should receive monetary compensation for your efforts and time spent.
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How much a blogger will charge for advertising in this case can be calculated using the following formula:
- Hourly rate * number of hours spent on content production + any additional costs.
Calculation example for creating a sponsored post at an hourly rate of $50:
- 30 minutes to research the brand and competitors;
- 60 minutes to generate a publication idea and determine creative direction;
- 45 minutes product photography; nine0012
- 60 minutes for photo editing and retouching;
- 15 minutes to publish the material and write a caption to the post.
Total: 3.5 hours to create a publication is $175 to pay.
Additional expenses may be the cost of the necessary props, the cost of paying for the work of an assistant, travel and other expenses that the blogger incurred to create high-quality content.
When invoicing, be sure to include all hours spent, from the time it takes to generate an idea.
As for the additional costs, then everything is individual. For example, some even include in the price the travel time and the money spent on gasoline and the purchase of props. Others are frivolous about such calculations and perform minor duties just like that. nine0003
It's worth mentioning right off the bat that not all brands may like the idea of paying an hourly rate. In some cases, you will have to calculate in advance how long it will take you to produce in order to quote a fixed fee. Of course, it may take you longer to create content than you planned, or you may be able to complete it much earlier. But knowing the estimated cost, companies can plan costs.
Engagement payment calculation
The brand wants to get views, new loyal customers, likes and comments from cooperation. Logically, it makes sense to charge for the actual engagement of users under a post. This option will be attractive for those who do not want to keep track of every second spent on the project, and are confident in the quality of their audience and their influence.
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But it is important to understand that there is a certain relationship between the number of subscribers and engagement. As a rule, the more followers, the less engagement on the account. This is due to many factors, including the fact that subscribers believe that if there are more than 30K+ likes on a post, then you don’t need them anymore.
To calculate how much a blogger should charge for advertising, taking into account engagement, follow the following scheme:
- Calculate the average number of likes per post. For calculation it is recommended to take into account the last 12 posts. Output the total number of likes and divide by 12.
- Determine the average number of likes by counting all the comments under the last 12 posts and dividing the number by the number of posts.
- Calculate the average number of activities per post by adding the average number of likes and comments.
Next, you can determine for yourself the optimal cost for one user activity and calculate how much it will cost to place a post with you.
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For example:
- the average number of likes under posts is 3000;
- average number of comments 75;
- total activity of users under post 3075,
- the selected price for one activity is $0.1.
Total: posting will cost $307.5 (3075 x 0.1).
You can automatically calculate engagement and get a lot of other useful statistical information about your profile through trendHERO.
Because comments require more effort from users, you can set separate fees for likes and comments if you wish. Remember also that brands always like to get more than they planned. Offer a discount, several posts instead of one, additional content with a product as a courtesy. nine0003
Payment by CPM
The third option is to calculate the cost of advertising by CPM. CPM (abbr. from Cost per mille) is a marketing term that shows the cost per thousand impressions or subscribers, taking into account their involvement.
To calculate your CPM payment, follow a few simple steps.
Step 1: Calculate Engagement
First of all, you need to calculate the level of engagement on your account. For this you need:
- Add up the average number of likes and comments per post. nine0012
- Divide the resulting value by the number of followers on the account and multiply by 100%.
Average cost of payment for 1000 impressions difference depending on the level of engagement of subscribers:
- 1.5-3% participation - 5 USD;
- 3-5% - 7 USD;
- 5-8% - 10 USD;
- > 8% - 15 USD.
Step 2: Follower count
Next, divide the number of followers by 1000. For example, if you have 250K followers in your account, then the CPM value of the formula would be 250.
Step 3: calculation of CPM
Now all that remains is to substitute the obtained values into the formula and calculate:
- Advertising price = CPM value by engagement level x per subscriber rate.
For example, let's take an account with 25K followers and engagement of 3-5%.
The calculations for it will look like this:
- 7 USD x 25 = 175 USD per post.
Brands also often use pay per 1000 impressions. To calculate the CPM in this case, you should:
- Take the average number of impressions a post gets and divide by 1000.
- Multiply the resulting value by the cost per impression. The average cost is 20 USD, which formally means 2 cents per impression.
Calculation example for an account where 20000 is the average number of impressions: (20000/1000) x 20 = 20 x 20 = 400 USD.
As a rule, the engagement and impressions for Stories and regular posts are different. Therefore, for each specific ad format, you should display its own cost. Sometimes the cost of placement may be intentionally increased compared to the base rate. For example, if it takes many times more time and skills to create an advertising publication for all brand requirements than for a regular one. nine0003
Other methods
There are several other ways to determine the optimal cost of advertising in your account.
The methods below do not require special calculations, but make it easy to navigate the market situation.
Use the calculator
You can use online calculators to calculate the cost of a sponsored post. It is convenient, simple and does not require much time. But you have to trust the average formula derived by professionals. nine0003
For example, the mafluence.com service allows you to calculate the cost of advertising based on the number of subscribers, their activity, engagement level, and many other factors. To make a calculation, you only need to specify a nickname.
The calculator from influencermarketinghub.com works in much the same way. With it, you can also calculate the approximate cost of advertising based on the number of subscribers, their involvement, and some other statistics by entering only the account name in the appropriate line. nine0003
Monitor competitors
You can determine the approximate cost per post by analyzing competitors.
You can find out the cost of placing an advertising post directly, for example, by asking the owner of another account, or by searching for prices in chats and customer groups, on advertising exchanges.
Knowing the cost of advertising in accounts like yours, you can also create competitive offers for advertisers by offering discounts or slightly more material for the same cost. nine0003
Specify the brand's budget
Any cooperation negotiation should start with the customer's budget. Of course, you should already have your own minimum bar calculated, below which you would not cooperate. But it’s still worth considering the brand’s budget.
Knowing the brand's budget, you can act in several scenarios:
- Develop an offer based on the brand's needs and budget.
- Reduce the time spent on creating content and thereby reduce the cost of advertising for the brand. nine0012
- Get more than originally planned if the customer's budget is more than the standard cost of placement in your account.
It may also happen that the applied brand does not have an advertising budget. Of course, unpaid work does not pay bills, but sometimes it is worth accepting such offers. Especially if you need experience and feedback.
Some brands offer barter, interesting collaborations, they are ready to provide free copies of their products in exchange for publication. And although such cooperation will be less profitable from a financial point of view, it can still be useful both for gaining experience and for establishing connections. nine0003
In calculating the cost of advertising, everything is very individual. All influencers are at different levels, have their own strengths and weaknesses, and produce content of varying quality. The final cost of placement can be determined only by you. After all, only you know for sure how subscribers trust you, how long it takes to create high-quality content, and how real the activity in the profile is. We can only recommend staying honest with brands, keeping an eye on the quality of your audience, and looking for a compromise when necessary.
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Instagram Calculator - Estimate How Much It Costs to Advertise on Instagram!
How much does advertising on Instagram cost?
How much does it cost to advertise on an Instagram profile? How much do bloggers earn? You can check how much a blogger (or you) could earn from a particular publication, just paste the link to his post and click on the button.
The above tools are not official Instagram tools and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Instagram in any way. This tool has been designed to provide potential bloggers and micro-bloggers with the opportunity to earn. nine0003
Unlike YouTube, where you sell ad space on your videos and channel page for ads at a rate determined by Google, Instagram does not compensate its users for showing ads on their posted photos. Instagram is owned by Facebook, so it culls Facebook ads on people's posts. So Instagram influencers and brands don't have middlemen or any set rates if they want to work together.
Brands make deals with bloggers and micro-bloggers, and the cost of advertising on Instagram can vary markedly depending on the circumstances. However, in almost all cases, one thing remains the same: bloggers get paid more if they have a high level of engagement as well as a large number of followers. Brands are well aware that you can easily buy followers that are of no practical value to anyone. Hence, they are much more interested in you having real followers, those who interact with your posts. nine0003
Compared to other social networks, Instagram accounts have a relatively high level of engagement. For example, the average Facebook or Twitter user only has an engagement rate of 0.5 – 1.0%. But, as account analysis shows, Instagram has an engagement rate of 3%. Any level of engagement above this, combined with a large following, suggests that you are an influencer among your peers. Our Instagram earnings calculator takes into account all these factors. We're looking at the average engagement rates of your last 12 Instagram posts (engagement is likes and comments on your posts).
Example. If your engagement rate is less than 8% and the number of followers is less than 1000, you can expect to get paid less from brands than those bloggers who exceed the average engagement rate on their posts. nine0003
From a brand perspective, niche also matters. For example, fashion firms are much more likely to work with influential name bloggers than plumbing firms, and brand budgets are also highly dependent on niche.
Your Instagram account needs constant growth
Instagram doesn't have a standard way to make money, unlike YouTube and its Google Ads. Therefore, as a blogger, you need to find brands willing to pay you directly. nine0003
Any Instagrammer who wants to earn money should be attractive to the majority of the audience and be constantly active, fulfilling their priority task. You can improve your position in the following ways:
- By improving your bio so it is very clear who you are and who wants to follow you
- Conduct ongoing analysis of your Instagram account using a variety of services.
(Read our article about 20 good services for Instagram) - Like most social networks, Instagram likes to see evidence of regular posting, not sudden bursts of activity when you feel like you have free time. Publish
- High quality original photographs. Try taking pictures with a decent camera rather than just your phone. You should be known for producing really good content (which in the case of Instagram is high quality images). nine0012
- Use relevant hashtags so people in your niche can find you from your tagged images, this is where a hashtag generator can help you
- Interact with your followers by commenting and liking their images and they are more likely to do the same in exchange for yours.
- Make a content plan, because consistency is a sign of excellence. Start with a simple list of topics you want to cover in your posts and expand as needed. nine0069
Also, in our recent article, we analyzed 9 ways to increase the activity of subscribers in your profile.
Sponsored posts
Sponsored posts are the most common form of collaboration between brands and Instagram influencers. So how much does it cost to charge for advertising on Instagram? Our calculator above is designed to show you the approximate cost of advertising on Instagram. In this situation, the brand will typically reach out to someone it considers influential and offer to pay them to promote the sponsor's image to their followers. nine0003
Of course, to be effective, a sponsored post needs to fit well with the blogger's audience and look like a real influencer recommendation. In recent years, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has stepped in by this time, and sponsored posts are now required to be clearly labeled as such. As long as the product fits well with your profile audience, it doesn't matter if the post is tagged #promo or #promo.
A perfectly sponsored post shows how the brand's product fits perfectly into the life of a blogger and how it can just as easily fit into the lives of his or her followers.
Top Instagram influencers, with thousands of active followers in a popular niche, can earn very lucrative fees for posting sponsored posts. The Grouphigh Influencer Marketing Report suggests that an average person blogger can charge between $200 and $500 per post. nine0003
Those with over 100,000 followers are unheard of earning between $700 and $900 per photo. Those with 500,000 followers can get anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 per photo posted.
Of course there are superstars. Kim Kardashian West was able to get $300,000 for posting on all of her social media. Of course, she has 87.1 million :). A typical post by any of the Kardashian/Jenners clan usually nets at least $200,000. Often, Insta bloggers create content and the brand has the right to reuse that content in their marketing and on their website. nine0003
Affiliate Marketing
Just like a blogger can promote an affiliate product on their blog, an Insta blogger can promote an affiliate product on their posts.
