What Is a Good Engagement Rate?
Engagement rate is interactions divided by an audience figure. The interesting part is which audience figure, because the choice changes the answer by a factor of several. The Engagement Rate Calculator works it out from likes, comments and shares.
Two different calculations with the same name
Engagement rate by followers divides interactions by your follower count. It is the version most quoted, because follower count is public, which makes it the only one you can calculate for someone else's account.
Engagement rate by reach divides interactions by the number of people who actually saw the post. It is the more meaningful figure - it asks what proportion of the people who saw this did something - and it is always higher, because reach is typically a fraction of followers.
So a post with 100 interactions, 5,000 followers and 1,500 reach is 2 per cent by followers and 6.7 per cent by reach. Both are correct, and quoting one against a benchmark built on the other is the commonest mistake in this whole subject.
What the benchmarks are worth
Commonly cited figures put a reasonable follower-based rate on Instagram somewhere around 1 to 3 per cent, with small accounts often higher and very large accounts well under 1. LinkedIn tends to run higher, X lower.
Those numbers move every year as feeds change, and they vary enormously by niche - a tight community account can run at 10 per cent while a broad consumer account at 0.5 per cent is performing fine commercially. Your own last three months is a far better benchmark than any published average, because it is the only comparison that holds everything else constant.
Why rate falls as an account grows
This surprises people and it is arithmetic rather than decline. A large account's followers include everyone who ever followed, many of whom are inactive, and the proportion of them shown any given post falls as the audience grows. So the denominator grows faster than the interactions.
Which is why engagement rate and follower growth should be read together. Rate falling while the account grows is normal; rate falling while the account is flat is worth investigating. The Follower Growth Rate Calculator covers the other side.
Not all interactions are equal
A like costs nothing. A comment costs effort, a share costs a small social risk, and a save is someone saying they want this later. Platforms weight the expensive ones more heavily in deciding what to show, and so should you when reading your own numbers.
A post with few likes and a lot of saves is doing something useful. A post with many likes and no comments is pleasant and inert. If you are counting, count the expensive interactions separately rather than adding everything together.
Common questions
Should I include saves and views?
Include saves if you can - they are a strong signal. Views inflate the total and measure exposure rather than engagement.
Why is my rate so much higher than a big brand's?
Smaller audiences are more self-selected and more of them see each post. It is a genuine advantage of being small.
Can I compare across platforms?
Not usefully. Each platform's norms and reach behaviour differ too much.
Want to work out a post's rate?