Free tool
Instagram engagement rate calculator
Your rate by reach and by followers, side by side — and the one number that explains the gap between them.
Verdict
Waiting for numbers
Enter a post's likes, comments, saves and shares, and the accounts it reached.
By reach
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Add accounts reached
By followers
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Add followers
Enter a post’s numbers and both rates appear here.
Why reach is the right denominator
Engagements ÷ followers divides by people who, for the most part, were never shown the post.
Reach is the number of distinct accounts Instagram showed a post to. Divide by it and you get the share of people who saw the post and did something about it — a question about the post. Divide by followers and the answer mostly depends on how widely Instagram chose to distribute it that day.
That is why two people can quote 4.6% and 6.8% for the same account and both be right. The calculator above shows both, and the share of followers reached that separates them. The full argument, with the formula.
Reach counts people, so it cannot be added across posts or days. Average the rates, or average each figure over the same posts — never total a month of daily reach.
Questions people ask
How do you calculate engagement rate on Instagram?
Add a post's likes, comments, saves and shares, divide by the number of accounts it reached, and multiply by 100. That is engagement rate by reach. Dividing by followers instead gives engagement rate by followers, the figure most outside tools quote because they cannot see reach.
Should I use reach or followers for engagement rate?
Reach. It counts the accounts that were actually shown the post, so the numerator and denominator describe the same people. Most followers never see a given post, so a rate by followers mostly measures how widely the post was distributed, not how good it was.
Why is my engagement rate by followers lower than by reach?
Because the rate by followers equals the rate by reach multiplied by reach over followers. If a post reached 40% of your follower count, your rate by followers is 40% of your rate by reach — for a reason that has nothing to do with the post itself.
What is a good engagement rate on Instagram?
By reach, Pullsy's starting benchmark puts the typical account at around 5–7% — 7% under 1k followers, 6% at 1k–10k, 5% at 10k–50k — falling slowly as accounts grow. These are the account grade's provisional anchors, not a measured cohort. Your own recent posts are the fairest comparison of all.
Where do I find reach, saves and shares?
In the post's insights, on a professional (Business or Creator) account. They are private to the account holder: no outside tool can read them, which is why a creator sharing them with a brand is worth more than any public estimate.
Every post's rate, computed for you
Connect your Instagram account and Pullsy records reach, saves and shares daily, then prints your rate by reach for every post — and puts it in a media kit a brand can check.