What is a good engagement rate on Instagram Reels? 2026 benchmarks from 23,596 reels
The median creator in our index gets 3.0% engagement on Reels by views and 1.35% by followers. Here are the benchmarks by follower tier, the two formulas behind them, and why the one most people use makes big accounts look broken.
SFOM.AI
·8 min read
A good engagement rate on Instagram Reels in 2026 is about 3% when you divide likes and comments by views, and about 1–1.5% when you divide by followers. Those are the medians across 1,347 creators and 23,596 Reels we measured between March and September 2026. Which of the two you should care about depends on what you are judging — and most guides quietly mix them up.
Key takeaways
- Median engagement by views: 3.01%. The middle half of creators sits between 1.75% and 4.71%; the top 10% are above 7.1%.
- Median engagement by followers: 1.35%, falling from 3.05% for 1k–10k accounts to 0.86% for accounts above 1M.
- By views, larger accounts do slightly better (2.7% → 3.7%). By followers they look much worse. The difference is reach, not audience quality.
- Comments per 100 likes fall from 3.2 on small accounts to 1.2 on accounts above 1M.
- Judge a reel against the same creator's median, not against an industry average.
The two formulas, and why they disagree
Engagement rate by followers = (likes + comments) ÷ followers × 100. It is the number most guides quote and most influencer marketplaces still display. It answers: how much of my audience reacted?
Engagement rate by views = (likes + comments) ÷ views × 100. It answers a different question: of the people who actually saw this reel, how many reacted? On Reels this is the more honest measure, because a large share of views comes from people who do not follow the account — dividing by followers blends reach and response into one number.
Saves and shares are the strongest signals Instagram itself uses, but they are not visible on other people's posts, so no public benchmark — this one included — can contain them. On your own account, add them from Insights.
Benchmarks by follower tier
Each figure is the median across creators in the tier, where each creator's own value is the median of their reels. That stops one prolific or viral account from moving the result.
- 1k–10k followers (281 creators, 4,298 reels): 2.68% by views, 3.05% by followers, 1.36 views per follower, 3.2 comments per 100 likes.
- 10k–50k followers (321 creators, 5,544 reels): 2.68% by views, 1.49% by followers, 0.55 views per follower, 2.9 comments per 100 likes.
- 50k–100k followers (135 creators, 2,513 reels): 2.99% by views, 1.06% by followers, 0.59 views per follower, 2.7 comments per 100 likes.
- 100k–500k followers (327 creators, 5,993 reels): 3.07% by views, 0.91% by followers, 0.32 views per follower, 1.7 comments per 100 likes.
- 500k–1M followers (125 creators, 2,491 reels): 3.38% by views, 0.80% by followers, 0.29 views per follower, 1.4 comments per 100 likes.
- 1M+ followers (158 creators, 2,757 reels): 3.70% by views, 0.86% by followers, 0.25 views per follower, 1.2 comments per 100 likes.
What counts as good in each tier
Treat the middle half of creators as normal and anything above it as good. By views that band is roughly 1.5%–4.7% for accounts under 50k followers and roughly 1.7%–5% above 100k. By followers it is far wider and shifts with size: 1.2%–6.9% for 1k–10k accounts, but 0.3%–2.1% for accounts above 1M.
Why the follower formula makes big accounts look broken
Views per follower is the hidden variable. In our sample a typical 1k–10k account gets 1.36 views per follower on a reel — Instagram shows small accounts to more non-followers than they have followers. A typical account above 1M gets 0.25, a quarter of its follower count. Divide engagement by followers and the big account looks several times less engaging, even though the people who actually saw its reels reacted slightly more often (3.7% against 2.7%).
That is why follower-based engagement rate is a poor way to choose creators for a campaign or to judge your own growth. It mostly measures how far your follower count has run ahead of your current reach.
How to use this on your own account
- Calculate engagement by views for your last 15–30 reels and take the median. That is your baseline.
- Compare every new reel with that baseline, not with the tiers above. A reel at twice your own median engagement is a signal even if it is below an industry figure.
- Track views per follower over time. If it falls while engagement by views holds steady, the content is fine and reach is the problem — work on hooks and formats, not polish.
- Watch comments per 100 likes. When it rises, you are starting conversations, which tends to come with the shares and saves you cannot see on other accounts.
How we measured
Sample: Instagram Reels from creators in the SFOM.AI index with at least 1,000 followers and at least five reels posted between 1 March and 17 September 2026. Each reel was read at least three days after posting so its counts had settled, reels under 100 views were excluded, and engagement means likes plus comments. Our index leans towards creators who post consistently in trend-heavy niches, so read these as benchmarks for active creators rather than for every account on Instagram.
What is a good engagement rate on Instagram Reels in 2026?
About 3% by views is the median among the 1,347 active creators we measured. Above roughly 4.7% puts a creator in the top quarter and above 7% in the top 10%. By followers the median is 1.35%, but that figure depends heavily on account size.
How do you calculate engagement rate for Instagram Reels?
(Likes + comments) ÷ views × 100 for a per-view rate, or ÷ followers × 100 for a per-follower rate. On your own account you can add saves and shares from Insights; on other people's accounts they are not visible.
Why does engagement rate drop as an account grows?
Mostly because reach per follower falls as follower count grows — in our sample from 1.36 views per follower for 1k–10k accounts to 0.25 for accounts above 1M. The follower-based rate drops even when the people who see the reels respond just as often.
Should I pick creators by engagement rate?
Use engagement by views together with the creator's median views. Follower-based rates penalise large accounts and reward small ones for reach rather than for audience quality.
Check any creator against their own median
SFOM.AI measures Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X creators by their own 180-day median, not their follower count — so you can see who actually performs before you pay for a post.
Measure a creatorRead next
Related articles
What is an outlier video? How to find outliers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
An outlier is a post that beats its own author's typical views by a wide margin — not a post with a big number. We measured how often that happens across 64,471 Reels and TikToks, and here is how to find outliers in your niche, with or without a tool.
How to plan a week of Reels and TikToks: a 7-day shot list that doesn't burn you out
Most creators don't run out of ideas — they run out of decisions. A fixed weekly rhythm (three proven formats, two light posts, one conversation, one day off) turns “what do I post today?” into a 20-minute Monday job. Here is the template and how to fill it.
Google Trends alternatives, grouped by the question you're actually asking
Most roundups list the same twelve tools with the same vendor copy. The reason people search for a Google Trends alternative is simpler than that: it measures search demand, and they need to see what is happening on social. Here is which tool answers which question — including where we do not fit.