According to research made by Mediakix, there are more than 30M influencers around the world on platforms like Instagram, Youtube and TikTok. With this number of people that brands could work from, the rates come into play to decide on who to choose for influencer marketing projects. If you give an unreasonably high number, you might lose the job. But if you give a really low number, brands might think of you as suspicious, as no-one with a good engagement rate would agree on a low budget. So buckle up, we are going to give you the formula to decide your rates.
Follower count is still important.
Even though the follower count is now one of the less important metrics, it still plays a huge role in deciding on the rates. Instagram’s algorithm is constantly changing, but there is one thing that all marketers agree on: a post is seen by the 10% of the audience of an influencer at first, the rest depends on the engagement the post generates. So let’s say you have 10,000 followers. That means your post will be shown to 1,000 people at first. If these 1,000 people engage with the post, it’ll be shown to more people. So it makes sense to start your base fee with this information in mind.
Know your engagement rate & audience breakdown.
Most brands look for specific audiences when they are creating marketing projects. As an influencer, you should know your audience breakdown in terms of locations, gender, and age groups. Because you do not want to promote a man’s only product in a local area when your audience is 70% women from around the world.
Your engagement rate will also affect your rates, as the higher the engagement rate, the higher the price should be. This is because if your engagement rate is higher than the general amount, your content will be seen by more people.
Be flexible with your rates.
Now that we have some ideas on how to decide the rates and the affecting factors, let’s talk about the flexibility. You can and should be flexible with your rates depending on the project. Most influencers create different packages with different rates depending on the brand, the length of the project, platforms and many more factors.
Our suggestion is to decide on the regular rates of one piece of content individually, and then create different bundles for brands. For example, let’s say you have 10,000 followers on Instagram and you charge $100 for a post. Your story fee should be lower than this as a post is always online on your feed, whereas a story is only available for 24 hours. So for a story, you can charge around $50. With these fees in mind, you can create packages as following:
- 1 x Post & 1 x Story: $120
- 1 x Post & 3 x Story: $200
- 2 x Post & 1 x Story: $220
You can switch up the content and the price according to the brands as well. If the brand is in your niche, it’s better to give them a good fee so you can continue to work with them. However, you should never go too low. Besides looking suspicious of low engagement rate, you can also lose your chance to work with a higher fee the next time.
These are our tips for deciding your rates on your influencer marketing journey. Let us know how you decide on your rates as an influencer in the comments down below or hit us up on our social to start a conversation!