What counts as a good engagement rate on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X — by platform and by follower size, with the exact bands our free calculator scores against.
Engagement rate is the share of people who interact with a post — likes, comments and shares — relative to how many could have seen it. It is the number brands check before a collaboration and the fastest health check for your own content. But "good" depends entirely on the platform and the size of the account, so here are the working benchmarks we use in our free engagement rate calculator.
On TikTok, dividing by views is the honest measure — the For You feed shows videos to far more people than an account's follower count suggests. Median engagement per view across recent posts:
| Engagement by views | Verdict |
|---|---|
| under 3% | Low |
| 3 – 6% | Average |
| 6 – 10% | Good |
| over 10% | Excellent |
These are the bands behind the Guardian Score on our calculator and per-profile pages.
Instagram is usually measured against followers: median likes + comments per post, divided by follower count.
| Engagement by followers | Verdict |
|---|---|
| under 1% | Low |
| 1 – 3% | Average |
| 3 – 6% | Good |
| over 6% | Excellent |
Small accounts always out-engage big ones — a nano account's audience is friends and true fans, a mega account's is passive reach. Typical 2026 ranges, aggregated from public industry benchmarks:
| Account size | Instagram (by followers) | TikTok (by followers) |
|---|---|---|
| Nano (1k – 10k) | 4 – 6% | 10 – 18% |
| Micro (10k – 100k) | 2 – 4% | 6 – 12% |
| Mid (100k – 500k) | 1.5 – 3% | 5 – 8% |
| Macro (500k – 1M) | 1 – 2% | 4 – 6% |
| Mega (1M+) | 0.5 – 1.5% | 3 – 5% |
Comparing a 2k account with a 2M account on the same number is meaningless — always benchmark within the size tier.
YouTube runs lower than TikTok because watching is the main action: likes + comments per view of 1–3.5% is average, above 3.5% is good, above 7% excellent. On X, engagement per follower under 0.5% is low, 0.5–1% average, 1–3% good and anything above 3% exceptional.
One viral post can double a simple average and flatter an account for months. The median of the last 12 posts reflects what a typical post earns — which is what a brand actually buys and what your content strategy actually produces. That is how our calculator and every per-profile page on this site measure engagement.
The usual causes, in order of likelihood: bought or inactive followers dragging the denominator up, posting frequency that collapsed (algorithms reward consistency), content that drifted from what the audience followed you for, and simple audience fatigue on repetitive formats. Fixing the follower base is the fastest win — engagement is a ratio, and dead weight in the denominator hides genuinely good content.
Live @handle lookup, median-based, free and no sign-up.
Measured against followers, 1–3% is average, 3–6% is good and anything above 6% is excellent. Small accounts run higher: a nano account (1k–10k) typically sees 4–6%, a mega account (1M+) 0.5–1.5% — always compare within the same size tier.
Divide by views, not followers — the For You feed reaches far beyond your follower count. 3–6% of viewers engaging is average, 6–10% is good, above 10% is excellent.
Whatever the audience actually was: on TikTok and YouTube that is views; on Instagram and X, follower-based rates are the accepted standard because per-post reach is not public. Comparing rates only makes sense when both use the same denominator.
Directly — engagement is a ratio, and bought or inactive followers inflate the denominator while contributing zero likes or comments. If your content performs but the rate looks low, audit the follower base first.