Influencer marketing is constantly on the rise. Influencer marketing provides a significant ROI for the businesses, so who wouldn't want a piece of that cake?
According to Omnicore, today, in 2022, there are more than 500,000 Instagram influencers in the USA alone. Also, this study shows that 69% of marketers in the United States plan to spend most of their budget money on Instagram influencers.
But what do these numbers mean for you as an influencer?
In essence, more competition. More competition equals various rates; unfortunately, some may be on the lower end.
That is why it is vital to know how to calculate your influencer rates, and here we will see the crucial aspects.
There Is No "One Size Fits All" Calculation
Before we explain the process of calculating your rates, it's valuable to mention that there's no standard or only one formula for it. In many situations, it depends on whether you're a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and you can charge millions of dollars per post, or you aren't that influential, and your influencer rates will be lower.
However, even if you're a blogger, a vlogger, or a reality TV star type of influencer, you still need to know how to calculate your influencer rates.
Now, about those rates.
Most Common Type of Influencer Charging
One way of calculating rates is by using the number of followers. Here you can see a table of the types of influencers and their rates.
Source: Influencer Marketing Costs 2021
In essence, the higher your number of followers, the higher your influencer rates.
A nano influencer has up to 10,000 followers, and the realistic rate is between 10 and 100 dollars. A mega influencer is a person that has more than one million followers and can easily charge more than 10,000 dollars per post. That sounds impressive, right?
There are two main formulas to help you with your calculations.
Source: Instagram Influencer Pricing: How to Determine Influencer Rates in 2021
As you can see, engagement rate plays a significant role in the total rate. The industry standard is $100 per 10K followers, although you don't necessarily need to follow that one if you feel like charging more.
Almost every calculation for pricing is made out of these formulas. The rates can also depend on how popular the brand is, but it's good professionalism to keep the same rates for businesses of the same size.
Let's look at other ways influencers can determine their influencer rates.
Through Engagement Rate
You can calculate your engagement rate the following way:
Let's say you have 2,000 followers, and your latest post has 60 likes and 5 comments.
To calculate your engagements, add the number of likes with the number of comments:
60 + 5 = 65
Then. divide this number, 65, by the number of followers you have, 2,000:
65 / 2,000 = 0.0325
To find out the percentage, you have to multiply it by 100:
0.0325 x 100 = 3.25%
So, 3.25% is your engagement rate.
Why must you know your engagement rate?
Remember, a business owner can also make this calculation. Regardless of the number of followers you have, the engagement rate is crucial for calculating your influencer rates.
Let's see another example:
Source: Influencer Rates: How Much Do Influencers Really Cost
As you can see, Liv B. has even a higher engagement rate than Kim Kardashian.
There's a perfectly reasonable explanation behind this, and it involves the number of followers, just like we've talked about in our blog about the benefits of collaborating with micro-influencers.
Of course, there are other reasons why Kim charges more, but you get the point.
In such a case having a higher engagement rate can move you to a different influencer payment category, which is a great thing!
At the end of the day, business owners are interested in how many people will see their brand and not just how many followers you have.
The Quality of Your Content
You have to remember that influencer marketing is created for the people, not robots. If your audience engages with your posts, comments on your images, or talks with you in private messages, it means that you have created an impressive post.
You can use that and try to increase your payment rate.
Furthermore, you should also consider how many expenses you have, such as are you paying for a hairstylist, are you renting a house, how much money you will spend on creating the photo or video, and any other similar expenses needed to make the post.
Source: Christina Galbato
For example, Christina Galbato most certainly made an effort and spent some money to make this post perfect for the brand. If you have such high expenses for creating a post, your influencer rates should be higher.
Exclusivity Is Precious
Last but not least, another way to make the maximum out of your potential charge is to collaborate exclusively with one brand per industry. Try to avoid promoting multiple brands from the same industry; it's not professional, and your reputation as an influencer is one relevant aspect of your career you should take seriously.
By sticking to one brand per industry, you can specialize as a niche influencer and increase your rates even more.
Let's say you are a mid influencer with 500,000 followers; if you advertise a brand exclusively, you can easily ask for 5,000 dollars per post since you are "running the show" only for that brand, excluding the chance to get more money out of similar brands.
So, don't forget that the number of followers and the engagement rate are crucial for calculating influencer rates.
If you want to improve your influencer marketing continuously, check out our influencers at Brybe and hire the best of the best influencers for your brand!