In the age of social media dominance, Instagram has emerged as one of the leading platforms for influencer marketing. However, the Instagram influencer pricing is still a little unclear. How much should you pay influencers? What’s a fair price for an Instagram post?
In this article, we will delve into the world of Instagram influencer pricing, exploring the factors that influence it, different pricing models, how to determine the right price and other important considerations. Choose the topic you’re interested in – or start from the beginning!
▸ Factors to consider before partnering with influencers
▸ Different types of influencer partnerships
▸ Pricing models for influencer collaborations
▸ Factors that affect influencer pricing
▸ Factors to consider when choosing influencers
▸ Key metrics when pricing influencers
▸ How to determine the right price for a collaboration?
▸ How much do Instagram influencers earn per post?
▸ How to find Instagram influencers you can afford?
Factors to consider before partnering with influencers
▸ Define your goals
Before embarking on an influencer partnership, it’s essential to clarify your campaign objectives. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, or boost sales? Each goal will require a different approach and measurement strategy.
By defining your goals clearly, you can align your influencer selection, content creation, and performance metrics to ensure maximum effectiveness and ROI.
▸ Establish production arrangements
Make sure to establish clear expectations and guidelines for content creation. Clearly communicate your brand message, any specific requirements, and desired deliverables. Collaborate with influencers in shaping the content to ensure it aligns with your brand identity while allowing room for their creative expression.
▸ Set a realistic timeline for content production
Setting a realistic timeline for content production is crucial to ensure smooth collaboration and timely campaign execution. Begin by assessing your overall marketing strategy and identify key milestones and events that align with your campaign.
Discuss the timeline with influencers and consider their availability, content creation process, and posting schedule. Allow ample time for content creation, revisions, and approvals, while also considering any potential delays.
A well-planned timeline will help you avoid last-minute rushes and ensure that your influencer collaboration aligns seamlessly with your broader marketing initiatives.
Types of influencer partnerships
Influencer partnerships come in various shapes and forms. Understanding the different types of influencer collaborations can help you select the most suitable approach for your brand. Let’s explore some of the most common types of influencer partnerships!
▸ Sponsored content
This is the most popular collaboration type around here – this is what most people call influencer marketing! Sponsored content partnerships involve compensating influencers for creating and sharing content that promotes your brand or specific products. This can take the form of Instagram posts, YouTube videos, blog articles, or other digital media.
Sponsored content allows you to leverage the influencer’s creativity and storytelling abilities while reaching their engaged audience.
▸ Product seeding, PR packages, and gifting
Product seeding or gifting partnerships involve sending free products or samples to influencers in exchange for their review, mention, or content creation featuring your products.
This type of collaboration can generate buzz, generate user-generated content, and build positive brand associations. However, that might not work with all the influencers – sending gifts without previous agreements doesn’t obligate the influencer to share the gift.
▸ Affiliate collaborations
Affiliate marketing involves influencers promoting your products or services and earning a commission for each sale they drive. Influencers share unique tracking links or discount codes with their audience, allowing you to track conversions and measure ROI effectively.
This type of partnership incentivizes influencers to actively promote your brand and can be a cost-effective way to drive sales and increase brand exposure.
▸ Shoutouts
Shoutouts involve influencers mentioning your brand or product in their social media posts or stories. These mentions can be organic or part of a paid collaboration. Shoutouts can help increase brand visibility and credibility by leveraging the influencer’s authority and reach.
▸ Giveaways
Giveaway collaborations involve influencers hosting contests or giveaways where their audience has a chance to win products or services from your brand. Giveaways are an effective way to generate buzz, increase brand awareness, and grow your social media following.
By partnering with influencers to host giveaways, you can tap into their audience and benefit from increased exposure and engagement.
▸ Caption mention
Caption mentions occur when influencers include your brand or product name in the caption of their social media posts. This type of partnership provides a subtle and natural way to promote your brand while maintaining the authenticity of the influencer’s content. Caption mentions can help drive brand recognition and encourage their audience to explore your offerings further.
▸ Platform takeover
Platform takeovers involve influencers temporarily taking control of your brand’s social media account to create and share content directly with your audience. This type of partnership offers a unique opportunity to showcase the influencer’s perspective and creativity while increasing engagement and reach.
Platform takeovers can provide fresh and diverse content to the brand’s audience, introducing new voices and perspectives to your audience.
▸ Brand ambassadorship
Brand ambassador deals involve establishing a long-term partnership with an influencer who becomes the face and voice of your brand.
Brand ambassadors consistently promote your brand, creating content, attending events, and actively engaging with their audience on behalf of your brand. This type of collaboration fosters a strong and ongoing relationship, allowing for deeper brand integration and increased loyalty among their followers.
@itslindaling is a brand ambassador for Löwengrip – she even states it in her bio!
Influencer marketing pricing models
When it comes to pricing, influencers, and brands can choose from various models based on their objectives and requirements. Here are some common pricing models used in Instagram influencer marketing:
▸ Cost per post
In the cost-per-post model, influencers charge a specific fee for each post they create in collaboration with a brand. This pricing structure is suitable for brands looking for a one-off promotion or short-term campaign.
▸ Monthly fee
The monthly fee model is often used for long-term collaborations. It’s a pricing model that involves a predetermined fixed price for a specific scope of work or deliverables: such as 2 posts and 8 stories monthly.
This model offers simplicity and clarity in pricing – and is very much loved by the influencers as it offers them financial stability.
▸ Cost per impression or engagement
The cost-per-impression model focuses on charging for every thousand impressions (CPM – cost per mile) that a sponsored post receives. Brands pay influencers based on the estimated or actual reach that their content generated.
In the cost-per-engagement model, influencers are compensated based on the level of engagement their posts generate, such as likes, comments, shares, or clicks. This model aligns with brands seeking to drive specific actions from their target audience.
▸ Affiliate model
In affiliate arrangements, influencers endorse a brand’s product or service, sharing their unique affiliate link or a personal discount code. When a follower makes a purchase using this link or code, the influencer earns a commission.
For the brands, it’s a cost-effective method because they pay a commission when a sale is made. This performance-based model can be a more efficient use of marketing budget compared to fixed fee deals where payment is made regardless of the result.
At the same time, affiliate deals incentivize influencers to create high-quality, persuasive content because the better their content, the more likely their audience is to make a purchase, increasing their commission. This often leads to more enthusiastic and authentic promotions, which can be more convincing to potential customers.
However, it’s worth noting that the best type of deal often depends on the specific goals, budget, and circumstances of the brand. Sometimes a fixed fee may be a better fit, while other times an affiliate deal might be the way to go. As always, it’s about finding the right strategy for each unique situation.
Many brands have public affiliate programs where influencers can apply – Click&Grow is one of them!
11 factors that affect influencer pricing
Determining the appropriate price for collaborating with Instagram influencers involves considering various factors that influence their pricing. Let’s explore some of the key factors:
1. Follower count, reach, and engagement rate
The number of followers an influencer has is a significant factor in determining their pricing. However, it is equally important to assess their reach and engagement rate, which measures the level of interaction and responsiveness from the influencer’s followers.
Influencers with higher reach and engagement rates may warrant higher pricing due to their ability to effectively reach and engage their audience.
2. Industry or niche specialization
Influencers operating within niche markets or having a highly targeted audience often have a higher value for brands seeking to reach a specific demographic. Influencers with expertise in niche areas can provide valuable insights, expertise, and engagement within a particular market segment.
3. Type of content
Projects that require more time should be compensated with a higher fee. While making a story post doesn’t require much time and is usually priced lower, creating a video, including Instagram Reel, is much more time-consuming and, therefore, reflected in the price.
On the other hand, a video stands out much better on social media and allows you to convey more information about the brand, making it a worthwhile investment.
4. Quality of content
The quality of content an influencer produces is a vital consideration. Influencers who consistently create high-quality, visually appealing content that aligns with a brand’s aesthetics and messaging may command higher pricing. High-quality photos are definitely worth a higher fee as influencer-generated content works wonders on the brand’s social media channels!
Using Promoty to see influencers’ previous content – try it out yourself
5. Link in Bio
A link in the bio directs followers to a specific landing page, product, or service, potentially increasing web traffic and conversions. Given its potential for added value, it is often priced as a premium feature that can add to the overall campaign cost.
6. Usage rights
Another variable to consider is the breadth of usage rights agreed upon in the partnership. These rights delineate the manner in which the brand is permitted to utilize the content generated by the influencer.
A wider scope of usage rights, especially allowing brands to repurpose the content in their paid ads, often necessitates a higher investment.
7. Exclusivity agreement
Exclusivity agreements play a significant role in pricing influencer campaigns. An exclusivity clause restricts influencers from endorsing competitive brands for a specified period, thereby ensuring undivided promotional effort for the brand in question.
Such agreements inevitably inflate the cost of campaigns due to the potential revenue influencers forego by committing to one brand. Marketers should carefully weigh the benefits of exclusivity against these increased costs.
8. Agency fees
Another crucial factor is agency fees. When influencers are managed by agencies or managers, additional fees are incurred, often around 20% of the total campaign cost. These fees compensate the agency for contract management, communication facilitation, and quality assurance.
9. Campaign length
Campaign duration significantly influences the cost structure of influencer marketing. An extended campaign necessitates a larger commitment from the influencer in terms of content creation and engagement, leading to increased costs.
10. Post combos
Post combinations or packages offering diverse content formats often carry a higher price tag. Similar to bundled deals, they offer multiple forms of content at a somewhat reduced rate than purchasing each separately but is costlier than single posts.
11. Rush fee
Urgency also factors into pricing. A rush fee is applied when marketers require content to be generated on a shorter timeline. This fee compensates influencers for expedited work, potentially involving rescheduling of content or additional hours. Therefore, proper planning and timeline management can help avoid such additional costs.
Factors to consider when choosing Instagram influencers
Finding relevant Instagram influencers for your brand can be quite a challenge! When selecting and collaborating with Instagram influencers, it’s important to consider the following factors:
▸ Authenticity and relevance
Aligning with influencers who genuinely resonate with a brand’s values, products, or services is vital for maintaining authenticity. Brands should assess an influencer’s content, messaging, and audience alignment to ensure a natural fit.
▸ Audience demographics and reach
Understanding an influencer’s audience demographics, including age, location, interests, and purchasing behavior, is crucial. Brands should partner with influencers whose followers align with their target customer profiles.
For example, if the campaign is aimed at the U.S. market, it is worth involving content creators whose followers are mostly from the U.S. – otherwise a large part of the marketing budget will be wasted.
Follower demographics on Promoty’s influencer analytics tool
▸ Engagement and conversion metrics
While follower count is important, focusing on an influencer’s engagement and conversion metrics provides deeper insights into their effectiveness. Brands should analyze an influencer’s ability to drive meaningful actions and conversions within their audience.
Key metrics when pricing influencers
When it comes to pricing influencers, it’s essential to evaluate various key metrics to ensure you invest in partnerships that provide maximum value.By considering these metrics, you can accurately assess an influencer’s worth and negotiate fair compensation. Here they are:
▸ Number of collaborations
Before confirming the collaboration, make sure to check their Instagram profile: to stand out and appear more trustworthy, it’s better for creators to have fewer collaborations on their profile. That way, carefully selected brand partnerships will shine brighter and come across as more credible to their audience.
▸ Sponsored post engagement rate
This metric measures the percentage of an influencer’s audience that actively engages with their content through likes, comments, and shares. A high engagement rate indicates an influencer’s ability to captivate and connect with their followers, making their sponsored posts more impactful.
▸ Follower growth percentage
Monitoring an influencer’s follower growth percentage over time provides insights into their audience’s organic growth. Consistent and healthy follower growth indicates that the influencer is attracting genuine followers who are interested in their content. Rapid or irregular spikes in follower count may indicate the use of bots or other artificial means to inflate numbers.
Pricing influencers should take into account a combination of factors, including their current follower count, growth trajectory, and the overall quality of their audience engagement.
Monthly followers’ graph on Promoty’s influencer analytics tool
▸ Bots and fake followers
It’s essential to assess an influencer’s audience authenticity by analyzing their engagement patterns. High follower counts with disproportionately low engagement rates could be an indicator of bot involvement.
Investing in influencers with genuine, organic audiences ensures that your marketing efforts reach real people who are more likely to engage with your brand.
Audience credibility score on Promoty’s influencer analytics tool
▸ Influencer rate sheets and results
Finally, of course, you want to know the influencer’s default price list and compare it to their social media metrics, content quality, and other relevant metrics.
Many creators have media kits that provide a transparent framework for understanding an influencer’s pricing structure. They outline the costs associated with various types of collaborations, such as sponsored posts, stories, or long-term partnerships. Reviewing an influencer’s rate sheet can help you assess whether their pricing aligns with your budget and campaign goals.
Additionally, consider evaluating the results they have achieved in previous collaborations. Look for case studies, testimonials, or performance metrics that demonstrate their ability to deliver on their promises.
How to determine the right price for a collaboration
Determining the right price for collaborating with Instagram influencers requires a strategic approach. Here are some steps you should take:
1. Set budget and objectives
Brands should establish a clear budget and define their campaign objectives before approaching influencers. This ensures they have a realistic understanding of the resources available for influencer collaborations.
2. Research influencer rates
Thorough research on industry standards and influencer rates within the target market is essential. Brands can gain insights into the average pricing for influencers with similar reach, engagement, and niche.
3. Negotiate with influencers
Negotiation is a key aspect of influencer collaborations. Brands and influencers should engage in open and transparent discussions to find a mutually beneficial agreement that aligns with the brand’s budget and the influencer’s value.
4. Evaluate ROI
Measuring influencer marketing ROI (return on investment) is crucial to determine the effectiveness of an influencer campaign. Brands should track key performance metrics, such as the influencer marketing cost, and impact on the sales numbers, to assess the impact of the collaboration and make informed decisions for future partnerships.
How much do Instagram influencers earn per post?
Influencer rates on Instagram can range from less than a hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per post, depending on the influencer’s reach and engagement – micro-influencer rates are obviously more affordable!
According to our experience, the average prices in the global market might be the following:
Influencers with up to 10,000 followers: $100 – $800 per post
Influencers with up to 50,000 followers): $600 – $1,600 per post
Influencers with up to 500,000 followers): $1,200 – $10,000 per post
Influencers with up to 1,000,000 followers): $10,000 – $30,000 per post
Influencers with over 1,000,000+ followers: $20,000+ per post
However, these figures are approximate and can vary depending on various factors. It’s crucial to conduct thorough research, consider the influencer’s performance metrics, and negotiate rates based on them.
How to find Instagram influencers you can afford
Finding Instagram influencers within your budget requires careful research and a strategic approach. Here are three effective methods for discovering influencers you can afford:
▸ Finding influencers manually on Instagram
One way to find affordable Instagram influencers is by conducting a manual search directly on the platform. Here are a few methods to consider:
• Search for hashtags. Search for relevant hashtags related to your industry or niche. Explore the top posts under these hashtags and identify accounts that align with your target audience and have a moderate follower count.
• Search for keywords. Utilize Instagram’s search bar to look for keywords related to your brand or product. Review the profiles and content of accounts that appear in the search results. Look for influencers with an engaged following and content that resonates with your target audience.
• Leverage influencer networks. Identify popular influencers within your industry or niche and analyze the accounts they follow or engage with. This can lead you to discover micro-influencers or rising stars who may be more affordable but still have a highly engaged audience.
• Use the “similar profiles” feature. When you’ve found an influencer you’d like to work with, click on the little arrow button next to the “Message” button on their profile – and you will see a list of similar profiles!
▸ Hiring an influencer agency
Influencer marketing agencies have broad networks, insider knowledge, and the expertise necessary to connect brands with influencers who share their values and target demographics.
Besides having a broad pool of influencers, agencies can also handle the heavy lifting of campaign logistics. This includes contract negotiation, content review, campaign execution, and performance analysis, allowing your team to focus on other essential aspects of your business.
However, these services come with a price. Agency fees can range widely, and for small businesses or startups with limited marketing budgets, these costs can be substantial.
▸ Leveraging influencer search tools
To streamline the process of finding affordable Instagram influencers, you can leverage specific influencer search tools. These platforms provide advanced search filters, analytics, and performance metrics, helping you identify influencers within your budget.
Promoty is one of them: Using our influencer search tool, you can find the right influencers from our global database of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube influencers.
For each influencer, you can see their detailed analytics: audience demographics, fake followers and audience credibility, followers’ growth over time, previous collaborations, and many more. This helps you to find the perfect influencers for your brand and keep them nicely organized 🙌🏼
Searching for Singapore-based influencers on influencer search tool
Wrapping it up
Navigating Instagram influencer marketing pricing can be a challenging task, but understanding the factors that influence pricing, different pricing models, and strategic considerations can help brands and influencers establish fair and mutually beneficial collaborations.
By setting clear objectives, conducting thorough research, and fostering authentic partnerships, brands can leverage the power of Instagram influencers to drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales.
Not sure where to get started? Get Promoty Premium to access our global database of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube influencers – and start finding influencers for your brand! 🤍
