Research
Influencer Benchmarks for Europe 2026: Engagement, Brand Deals and Boosts by Creator Size
Benchmarks from 172,297 Instagram creators in 25 European markets: the median engagement rate falls from 1.30% to 0.63% with size, but niches of the same size sit 20× apart. Plus who works with brands, what a sponsored post costs in engagement, and what 153,579 creator boosts actually bought.
Is 0.8% a good engagement rate for a creator with 50K followers? That depends on what they post about. Across Europe, the median 25K–100K Instagram creator engages 0.79% of their followers. A finance creator of the same size runs a median 0.19%. A sports-team account, 3.85%.
The old "1–3% is good" rule gets both of them wrong. So we built benchmarks the way a brief actually needs them: by creator size, by niche and by market. That's 172,297 Instagram creators in 25 European markets, a year of their brand cooperations, and 153,579 creator posts that brands paid to boost.
Engagement falls with size, then stops falling
Median engagement rate by creator size
Instagram, 25 European markets, engagement ÷ followers
Each creator's median post over the last 180 days. 172,297 creators.
The median runs 1.30% at 1K–10K followers and 0.63% from 100K up. The decline stops there: a 1M+ creator's median matches a 100K–1M creator's.
These are per-follower rates, because that's the number media kits and briefs quote. We've shown before that per view, most of the size gap disappears. Either way the rule is the same: only compare a creator with creators of their own size.
For a 25K–100K creator, the middle half of Europe sits between 0.30% and 1.80%. Above 3.6% is the top 10%.
Niche moves it more than size
Same size, 20× apart: engagement by niche
Median engagement rate by followers, creators with 25K–100K followers, Europe
The lowest and highest of the 75 niches with 100+ creators at this size, against all 61,077 creators of the size.
Inside one size band, niches sit 20× apart. Money and business creators, aesthetics professionals and brow and lash artists run around 0.2–0.26%. Cycling, pets, snow trips and sports teams run 1.5–3.85%.
So the same number means opposite things. A finance creator at 0.5% is in the top quarter of their niche. A sports-team account at 1.5% is in the bottom quarter of theirs.
The country matters too. For 25K–100K creators, the median is 0.49% in Romania, 0.58% in Poland, 0.70% in the UK, 0.88% in Germany and 1.11% in France.
Who works with brands, and what it costs them
Brand work rises with size, and so does the engagement it costs
Creators who worked with a brand in the last year, and the share of their usual engagement a sponsored post keeps
Across the 12 markets where we measure cooperations, 44% of 1K–10K creators worked with at least one brand in the year to September 2026. Among 1M+ creators, 81% did.
Once creators take brand work, they keep it to a small slice of the feed at every size: a median 7–10% of their posts. What grows is the number of brands, from a median 3 for small creators to 6 for 1M+ ones.
The price shows up in engagement. A 1K–10K creator's sponsored post earns 97% of their usual engagement. A 1M+ creator's earns 58%. Our read is that a large audience recognises an ad faster than a small one does.
Markets differ more here than anywhere else. In Poland, 88% of 1K–10K creators worked with a brand last year. In Italy and Spain, about a third did.
What a boost buys
A boost here is a creator's Instagram post that a brand also ran as a Meta paid-partnership ad. We size each one by the EU people it reached, summed over all its ads.
Creator boosts by size
| People reached | Share of boosts | Median reach | Modelled spend | Share of all reach bought | Waited 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1K | 24% | 234 | €2 | 0.03% | 32% |
| 1K–10K | 25% | 3.4K | €24 | 0.4% | 32% |
| 10K–50K | 16% | 21K | €148 | 1.5% | 34% |
| 50K–250K | 16% | 114K | €800 | 8% | 37% |
| 250K–1M | 13% | 475K | €3.3K | 26% | 40% |
| 1M+ | 6.5% | 1.75M | €12.3K | 64% | 40% |
Half of all boosts reach fewer than 10K people, and a quarter reach fewer than 1K. Those look like tests, or a line in a creator contract, more than media.
At the other end, boosts that reach 1M+ people are 6.5% of all boosts and carry 64% of all the reach brands bought.
Modelled spend applies one €7 CPM to every boost, because Meta publishes no spend for these ads. Read it as a scenario, not an invoice.
Most boosts don't wait
By day 7, a typical creator post has collected about 85% of its organic reach in most markets we track. Wait that long and you know which posts deserve money.
Only 34% of boosts wait. Small boosts start on day 3 and the biggest on day 5. By market, 26% wait seven days in France, 38% in Germany, 45% in the UK and Spain, and 58% in Sweden.
The same format, used 57× differently
Median people reached per boost, by market
Creator posts boosted as Meta paid-partnership ads, in thousands of people
Posts published 25 September 2025 – 25 September 2026.
The median UK boost reaches 6.2K people. The median Italian boost reaches 357K. Same ad format, same platform, and a 57× gap in how brands use it.
A boost benchmark from one market says almost nothing about another.
Where these numbers come from
- Engagement rate is engagement ÷ followers, each creator's median post over the last 180 days, for Instagram feed posts and Reels. Creators need at least 6 posts in that window and a niche assigned from at least 10 classified posts. Brand and media accounts are out, and so are rates above 50% (giveaways and similar artefacts).
- Niches are Ravineo Segments, one home niche per creator. A creator is benchmarked against creators of the same size, in the same niche and market wherever that group holds at least 30 creators.
- A cooperation is a post that declares a paid partnership, carries an ad-disclosure hashtag, or was boosted. A tag or a logo in frame doesn't count. Measured in 12 markets: Austria, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the UK.
- A boost is a creator post matched to a Meta paid-partnership ad, sized by the EU reach Meta reports for those ads. A brand running a creator's content from its own page without the partnership label isn't matched, so boost counts are a floor.
- The window for cooperations and boosts is posts published 25 September 2025 – 25 September 2026. It ends three weeks before the data was read, because engagement and paid delivery still move in a post's first weeks.
The benchmarks rebuild every month.
Questions people ask
What is a good engagement rate on Instagram in 2026?
It depends on size and niche. Across Europe the median runs 1.30% for 1K–10K creators, 0.79% for 25K–100K and 0.63% above 100K. Within one size, niches range 20× (0.19% for finance creators, 3.85% for sports teams), so compare a creator only with their own niche and size.
What percentage of influencers work with brands?
Across 12 European markets, 44% of 1K–10K creators worked with at least one brand in the last year, rising to 81% of creators with 1M+ followers. It ranges from about a third of small creators in Italy and Spain to 88% in Poland.
Do sponsored posts get less engagement?
For big creators, yes. A sponsored post from a 1K–10K creator earns 97% of their usual engagement; from a 1M+ creator, 58%.
How much reach does a boosted creator post buy?
The median boost reaches 11K people in the EU, about €78 at a €7 CPM. Half of all boosts reach under 10K people, while the 6.5% that reach over 1M carry 64% of all the reach bought.
When should you boost a creator post?
After about seven days, once the organic run has shown which posts work. Only 34% of boosts in Europe wait that long.
Want these benchmarks for your market, your niche or your creator shortlist? Talk to our team.
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