Instagram Engagement Rates: Everything You Need to Know (2024)

Knowing how to calculate your engagement rate on Instagram is important.

Why? Because your Instagram engagement rate helps you gain a better understanding of how your content is resonating with your target audience.

Keep reading to find out what an Instagram engagement rate is, how to calculate it in 2024, and what qualifies as a "good" engagement rate.

What Is an Instagram Engagement Rate?

An Instagram engagement rate is a calculation that shows what percentage of the people you've reached have interacted with your content.

It typically takes into account the number of likes, comments, and saves a post receives in relation to your overall reach.

In some cases it can also take into account the number of impressions and shares a post receives.

Why Should You Track Your Instagram Engagement Rate?

Monitoring your Instagram engagement rate is important.

While having a high reach rate may look impressive, what’s more impressive is how engaging your posts are.

If you’re consistently seeing a strong Instagram engagement rate, you know your content is resonating with your target audience.

And if your engagement rate is lower than where you’d like it to be, you can use it as a springboard to pivot and improve your social strategy.

How to Calculate Your Engagement Rate on Instagram

There are two common ways to calculate your Instagram engagement rate: use a formula and flex your math skills, or use a third-party tool to calculate your engagement automatically.

Here's how:

#1: Use an Instagram Engagement Rate Formula

A simple way to calculate the Instagram engagement rate for a post is to divide the total number of likes, comments, and saves by your reach, and then multiply by 100, to give you a percentage.

Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments + Saves) / Reach x 100

#2: Calculate Your Engagement Rate Automatically

Alternatively, Later Social automatically calculates your Instagram engagement rate for every post you share.

Head to Later’s Analytics dashboard and select the Post Performance tab.

From here, you’ll be able to see how all of your recent posts have performed in an easy-to-use table format:

You can easily filter your posts to see which ones drove the highest engagement rate for your account, for up to one year.

Not on Later yet? No problem. Calculate your engagement rate right now with our free calculator!

What Is a Good Engagement Rate on Instagram?

The answer… it depends.

What is considered a “good engagement rate” for some may be different than what is considered "good" for others.

That said, many social marketers believe anything between 1-5% is a good average engagement rate.

Luckily with Later Analytics, you can see how you stack up against industry peers with similar followings thanks to the Show Industry Comparison feature.

The tool lets you compare your custom engagement rate with industry benchmarks to get a better understanding of where you stand:

And while industry benchmarks give you a solid idea of how others in your niche are performing, it's also important to track your own engagement rate and compare it to previous months and years.

Have you noticed any major increases or declines? Are there posts that typically get more engagement than others?

That said, try not to get too caught up on the numbers.

Your main goal should be to build a genuine and engaged community on Instagram.

Ready to start tracking your performance more efficiently?Sign up to Laterand explore the Instagram Analyticsdashboard, today!

What Is the Average Instagram Engagement Rate?

In 2022, Later analyzed over 44M Instagram feed posts (excluding Reels) and found the average engagement rate (by follower count) is 2.88%.

To break that stat down even further, the average engagement rates (by follower count) forcarousel posts is 3.11%, images is 2.76%, and videos is 2.60%.

While Later's study doesn't include the average Instagram engagement rate by reach, many social marketers believe anything between 1-5% is a good average rate.

For a breakdown of Later's 2022 study, read this: The Best Types of Instagram Posts for Engagement: Carousel, Image, or Video?

How Later Social Can Boost Your Engagement Rate on Instagram

Not to toot our own horn but if you’re looking to increase engagement, Later is your new best friend.

If you’re not familiar, Later's suite of features, including Instagram scheduling, Best Time to Post, Analytics, and countless more, let you optimize your posts for peak performance!

As we mentioned earlier, Later’sInstagram Analyticsgives you a visual overview of how your posts, stories, and Reels are performing — all in an easy-to-use dashboard:

On top of those detailed analytics, Later’s Analytics also shows your personalizedbest time to post on Instagram.

The feature automatically calculates your top seven posting times based on previous activity, which you can use to guide yourscheduled posting times:

Because ICYMI:posting content when your audience is most active = higher engagement!

At the end of the day, your engagement rate is a great Instagram metric to track if you want to find out how your content resonates with your audience.

And remember, if you’re ever looking for a tool to do the heavy lifting for you, Later’s Instagram Analytics feature automatically calculates your Instagram engagement rate for every post you share.

So, what are you waiting for? Create an account and start tracking your engagement rate, today!