Audience Value Reference
Eight follower-count tiers, run through the same engagement rate, influencer rate, CPM, and campaign ROIcalculators used everywhere else on this site, so you can see how much the numbers move as an audience grows — and how much they move when the underlying assumptions change instead.
Stated assumptions for this table: a 2.5% engagement rate (the same “typical” figure the Influencer Rate Calculator normalizes against for instagram), a standard post, paid-CPM comparisons at $5, $10, $20, and an ROI column assuming a 2% conversion rate on interactions at $50revenue per conversion. Change any one of these and every number in the table changes with it — that’s the point.
Followers, engagement, sponsored rate, paid-CPM cost, and ROI
| Followers | Engagements / post | Suggested rate | Paid cost @ $5 CPM | Paid cost @ $10 CPM | Paid cost @ $20 CPM | ROI | ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 125 | $50 | $25 | $50 | $100 | 200% | 3x |
| 10,000 | 250 | $100 | $50 | $100 | $200 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 25,000 | 625 | $250 | $125 | $250 | $500 | 160% | 2.6x |
| 50,000 | 1,250 | $500 | $250 | $500 | $1,000 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 100,000 | 2,500 | $1,000 | $500 | $1,000 | $2,000 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 250,000 | 6,250 | $2,500 | $1,250 | $2,500 | $5,000 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 500,000 | 12,500 | $5,000 | $2,500 | $5,000 | $10,000 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 1,000,000 | 25,000 | $10,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 | 150% | 2.5x |
“Suggested rate” is what the Influencer Rate Calculator returns for that follower count at the stated engagement rate. “Paid cost” is what the CPM Calculator says it would cost to buy that many impressions at each stated CPM — a different kind of reach than organic followers, shown here purely as a cost comparison. “ROI” and “ROAS” come from the Campaign ROI Calculator, using the suggested sponsored rate as spend and the stated conversion-rate assumption to derive conversions.
How much the ROI answer moves with one assumption
The table above fixes the conversion-rate assumption at 2% for every row. Holding the 50,000-follower tier’s spend fixed at its suggested rate and only changing that one assumption shows exactly how much leverage a single input has over the final ROI figure:
| Assumed conversion rate | Conversions | ROI | ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1% | 13 | 30% | 1.3x |
| 2% | 25 | 150% | 2.5x |
| 4% | 50 | 400% | 5x |
Same follower count, same suggested rate, same revenue-per-conversion figure — the ROI swings from a modest result to a strong one purely because the conversion-rate assumption moved. Nothing about the audience changed; the assumption did. That's the entire reason to show a sensitivity table rather than a single confident-looking ROI figure.
Why this table exists
Every number on this page is produced by calling the exact same functions behind the four calculators linked above, not a separately maintained table that could quietly drift out of sync with them. That matters for two reasons. First, it means every figure here is real arithmetic on stated assumptions, consistent with how each individual calculator already presents its own results — a suggested rate, a projected cost, an implied ROI, never a claim about what any specific account or campaign will actually see. Second, it makes the sensitivity of these numbers to their underlying assumptions genuinely visible: watching the ROI column swing by more than 10x in the sensitivity table above, from changing one input while holding everything else constant, is a more honest way to communicate uncertainty than a single polished number ever could be.
Read this page as a map of how the pieces connect — audience size feeds a sponsored rate, a sponsored rate can be compared against an equivalent paid-media cost, and either one can be run through a stated conversion assumption to see an implied ROI — not as a lookup table for what any particular account is actually worth. For that, use the calculators directly with your own real numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do the numbers on this page come from?
Every figure is computed by calling the same functions behind the Engagement Rate Calculator, the Influencer Rate Calculator, the CPM Calculator, and the Campaign ROI Calculator — nothing on this page is a separately hand-typed number. The assumptions each calculation runs on (a typical engagement rate, a few CPM levels, a conversion rate, a revenue-per-conversion figure) are stated explicitly above and below the table, so you can see exactly what's driving each column.
Why does the ROI column use a 2% conversion rate specifically?
2% is a stated, illustrative assumption for the main table — not a claim about what any real post converts at, which varies enormously by niche, offer, and audience. The sensitivity table further down holds everything else fixed and only changes this one assumption (1%, 2%, and 4%) at a single audience size, specifically to show how much the ROI answer moves when that one number changes.
What does the 'paid-CPM cost' column actually compare?
It answers a specific question: if a brand wanted to reach the same number of people as this tier's follower count through paid media instead of a sponsored post, what would that cost at a given CPM? It's a rough apples-to-different-apples comparison — paid impressions and organic followers aren't the same kind of reach — but it puts sponsored-post pricing and paid-media pricing in the same unit for a sanity check.
Why does the suggested sponsored rate scale exactly linearly with followers?
Because this table holds the engagement rate fixed at the same assumed 2.5% for every tier, which keeps the engagement multiplier fixed at 1.0x throughout, leaving only the base rate — which scales linearly with followers — to move. A real account's engagement rate typically isn't fixed across audience sizes; use the Influencer Rate Calculator directly with your own real follower count and engagement rate for an account-specific figure instead of this table's fixed-assumption version.
Educational reference only. Every figure follows from the stated assumptions above, not from any real account, platform data, or market rate — change the assumptions and the numbers change with them.
Use it with
- Influencer Rate Calculator— get a suggested rate for your own real follower count and engagement rate, rather than this table’s fixed 2.5% assumption.
- CPM Calculator— work out paid-media cost for any impression count and CPM, not just the three levels shown above.
- Campaign ROI Calculator— compute ROI and ROAS from your own real spend and revenue or conversion numbers.
- Building a Sponsored-Post Rate From Scratch — the step-by-step guide version of the rate column above, worked through by hand.