Free measurement tool
Engagement rate calculator
For founders and creators comparing their own posts, and for anyone asked to quote an engagement rate in a pitch. Pick the platform, enter the interactions it reports, and get the rate by reach and by followers side by side, each with its divisor written underneath, so you always know which number you are quoting.
By reach
7.88%
252 interactions divided by 3,200 reached. The more comparable of the two.
By followers
5.04%
252 interactions divided by 5,000 followers. Falls as an account grows.
Compare this against your own last ten posts
Published average engagement rates disagree with each other by multiples, because they sample different account sizes and count different interactions. A number from one of them cannot tell you whether 7.88% is good for your account.
Your own recent posts can. Run the same calculation on ten of them, use the median as your baseline, and treat anything well above it as a format worth repeating.
Calculated in your browser. Reach counts unique accounts and views counts plays, so a video rate built on views is not comparable to a photo rate built on reach. Pick one and keep using it.
One Instagram post, both formulas
Engagement rate is interactions divided by an audience, times 100. The disagreement is over which audience. Here is a single Instagram feed post run through both, with the numbers you would copy from its Insights:
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Likes | 412 |
| Comments | 38 |
| Saves | 61 |
| Shares | 24 |
| Interactions | 535 |
| Accounts reached | 9,800 |
| Followers | 14,200 |
| Engagement rate by reach | 535 ÷ 9,800 × 100 = 5.46% |
| Engagement rate by followers | 535 ÷ 14,200 × 100 = 3.77% |
Two divisors, two different answers
Divide interactions by followers and you measure how much of your audience you activated. That number falls as an account grows, because reach never keeps pace with follower count, so a healthy account can watch its engagement rate decline for years while everything is going right.
Divide by reach instead and you measure how compelling the post was to the people who actually saw it. That number is stable as you grow, and it is the only one of the two that means anything when compared across accounts of different sizes.
Most calculators pick one of these silently, which is why two tools return different figures for the same post and neither says why. Quote the reach-based number when you are judging content, and the follower-based number only when someone specifically asks for it.
An interaction is not the same thing on every platform
| Platform | Counted here | Where to find the divisor |
|---|---|---|
| Likes, comments, saves, shares | Accounts reached, in the post's Insights; a professional account is needed | |
| TikTok | Likes, comments, shares, favourites | TikTok reports views, which count plays rather than unique accounts, so a view-based rate runs lower than a reach-based one |
| Reactions, comments, reposts | Members reached in post analytics; impressions are counted per render, so dividing by them gives a lower figure | |
| X | Likes, replies, reposts, bookmarks | Impressions in post analytics; bookmarks are private to the author and often the largest hidden signal |
| YouTube | Likes, comments, shares | Views in YouTube Studio; watch time matters more to distribution than any of these |
Your own median is the benchmark
Published average engagement rates disagree with each other by multiples. They sample different account sizes, count different interactions, and rarely say which divisor they used, so putting one next to your number would hand you a verdict the underlying data cannot support.
Your own posts can support one, because they share your audience, your platform and your way of counting.
Working out your median in ten minutes
- Pick your last ten posts on one platform, all of the same format if you can.
- Run each through the calculator by reach and write the result down.
- Sort the ten rates and take the middle value; with ten posts, average the fifth and sixth.
- Treat a new post well above that median as a format worth repeating, and one well below as a post worth examining. Re-run the median every month.
Questions about engagement rate
How do you calculate engagement rate?
Add up the post's interactions, divide by the audience and multiply by 100. With 535 interactions and 9,800 accounts reached, that is 5.46% by reach; with the same 535 and 14,200 followers, it is 3.77% by followers. Always say which divisor you used.
Should I use reach or followers?
Reach, when you are judging a post or comparing accounts of different sizes, because it only counts people who saw the post. Follower-based rates suit a brand deal or a media kit that asks for them, and they drift down as an account grows even when every post is better.
Do saves and shares count as engagement?
In this calculator, yes, on the platforms that report them: Instagram saves and shares, TikTok shares and favourites, X bookmarks, LinkedIn reposts. They take more intent than a like, so a post with fewer likes and more saves can be the stronger one.
Why is my LinkedIn engagement rate so different from my X rate?
Partly because each counts different interactions, and partly because of the divisor. LinkedIn impressions count every time a post is rendered, not each person, and X's analytics also report impressions, so rates on the two are only comparable to themselves. Track each platform against its own median.
What is a good engagement rate?
One above your own recent median on the same platform. Published averages vary by multiples because they measure different accounts in different ways, so the most useful comparison is the median of your last ten posts, recalculated each month.
Related tools
Put a price next to the reach: CPM, CPC and CTR for the paid side of the same campaign.
Test posting windows for four weeks and compare them by engagement on reach.
Engagement stops at the platform; tagged links show which posts sent visitors to your site.