Free tool Analytics
Engagement rate calculator
Add up your last ten posts, and see whether your engagement is above or below what creators your size get, in South Africa and worldwide.
A micro creator with these numbers has
4.43%
| Interactions per post, everything you entered | 1,107 |
| Likes and comments only, which is what the benchmark counts | 4.09% |
| Instagram median, micro creators | 0.54% |
| South African micro creators, Lit index | 4% |
× 7.57 the benchmark · Price it in the rate calculator
How we calculate this
Engagement rate is interactions per post divided by followers, as a percentage. The number is only useful next to a benchmark, and benchmarks are only honest if they count the same things, so here's what counts.
1. Your rate
We add up the likes, comments, shares and saves you enter, divide by the number of posts, then by your followers. Benchmarks count likes and comments only (Socialinsider's formula for Instagram: "the sum of likes and comments on the post divided by the total number of followers"), so if you add shares and saves we show the likes-and-comments version alongside, and that's the one we compare.
2. The benchmark for your size
Instagram medians by follower tier come from HypeAuditor's State of Influencer Marketing 2026, built on 88.7 million Instagram accounts' 2025 data: nano (1k–10k) 1.78%, micro (10k–50k) 0.54%, mid-tier (50k–500k) 0.43%, macro (500k–1M) 0.35%, mega (1M+) 0.33%. These are medians, so half of creators your size sit below them.
For TikTok by followers, no creator-tier median has been published that we could verify. The only anchor is Socialinsider's 2026 average of 2.6% across 70 million posts, and it's a brand-page figure, so treat a creator result above it as expected rather than exceptional.
3. TikTok by views
HypeAuditor measures TikTok differently: likes, comments and shares divided by views. On that scale its 2025 medians are nano 11.6%, micro 9.3%, mid-tier 7.6%, macro and mega 6.8%. Enter your views and we compare on that scale too. Never compare a by-views number with a by-followers one.
4. The South African line
Lit's South African Influencer Marketing Index for Q1 2026, from more than 20,000 local creators, puts average engagement at 3% for nano and 4% for micro creators. Lit doesn't publish its follower bands, its formula or figures for bigger tiers, so we show it as a second reference for Instagram creators under 50,000 followers and don't use it for a verdict.
5. The verdict
Editorial thresholds: 1.5 times the benchmark or more is well above, at or above it is above, 0.7 times or more is around, and anything lower is below.
Sources
Last reviewed October 2026. Know a better South African benchmark? Tell us at hello@frontcamera.co.za.