Data & Method
What’s a good engagement rate by follower tier?
Engagement rate by follower tier is the share of a creator’s audience that interacts with a piece of content, read separately for each account-size tier. It matters because the “right” benchmark for a creator with 20,000 followers is not the same as for one with 500,000: comparing across tiers is misleading.
Key takeaways
- On Instagram, median engagement falls with size: from 4.95% in the Junior tier (2-10k) to 1.19% in the Celebrity tier (1M+), Italian creators, profiles updated between August and November 2026.
- Every tier states its base: from 36 creators (Celebrity) to 593 (Mid), 2,016 in total.
- Judge a creator against its own tier, never against a single figure across tiers.
A single figure computed across all tiers hides what matters: how much interaction changes with audience size. Below is the median engagement rate by follower tier for Italian creators on Instagram, with the number of creators behind each tier.
| Follower tier | Median engagement rate | Creators |
|---|---|---|
| Junior, 2-10k | 4.95% | 180 |
| Mid, 10-40k | 3.24% | 593 |
| Pro, 40-100k | 2.12% | 539 |
| Macro, 100-300k | 1.91% | 487 |
| Mega, 300k-1M | 1.69% | 181 |
| Celebrity, 1M+ | 1.19% | 36 |
The median is the creator in the middle of the tier: half do better, half do worse, and a few viral profiles don’t move it the way they would move an average. Celebrity rests on the smallest base of the six (36 creators), so treat it as the least settled figure in the table.
The decline is clear, but it doesn’t mean “smaller is better”: a Macro creator reaches far more people at a lower rate. The choice follows the goal (reach or interaction), and a creator is judged against the median of its own tier, not another one.
Frequently asked questions
What’s a good engagement rate on Instagram?
It depends on the follower tier. Among Italian creators on Instagram the median engagement rate is 4.95% in the Junior tier (2-10k, 180 creators), 3.24% in Mid (10-40k, 593), 2.12% in Pro (40-100k, 539) and 1.91% in Macro (100-300k, 487). A creator above the median of its tier is doing better than half of its peers.
Do smaller creators have higher engagement?
Yes, at the median: in our data the median engagement rate falls at every tier, from 4.95% in Junior to 1.19% in Celebrity (36 creators, the smallest base). More interaction in proportion doesn’t mean more results in absolute terms: a bigger creator reaches more people. Choose on the goal, not on the rate.
How is engagement rate measured here?
For each creator, average likes and comments on the last 12 non-pinned posts, divided by followers; only profiles with measured likes count. For each tier we take the MEDIAN of those values, and a tier is published only with at least 20 creators. Base: Italian creators on Instagram, profiles updated between 20 August and 9 November 2026.