What creators actually cost. 926 deals in.
Median negotiated rates by tier, and the 10-15x spread hiding inside every one.
Eliot Intelligence · 7 min read
We pulled every signed creator contract we've executed — 926 deals, 46 campaigns, 536 creators — and published the medians. Rate cards are a starting point, not a price.
Most influencer pricing published anywhere is a rate-card estimate. Ours isn't. Every figure below comes from a signed, executed contract with a final negotiated number attached: 926 deals across 46 paid campaigns and 536 creators on TikTok and Instagram, 2024 through 2026.
926
Contracted deals analyzed
Median cost per post, by tier
| Tier | Deals | Median CPP | Typical range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nano (<10K) | 104 | $300 | $200 – 700 |
| Micro (10–100K) | 97 | $950 | $500 – 1,500 |
| Mid (100–500K) | 358 | $1,250 | $750 – 2,000 |
| Macro (500K–1M) | 107 | $2,500 | $1,500 – 5,000 |
| Mega (1M+) | 164 | $4,500 | $2,500 – 10,000 |
Price scales roughly 10x from Nano to Mega. Average viewership scales far more than that — which is the entire reason a big-creator program can be cheaper per view than a long tail of small ones.
The number that should change how you brief
Inside a single tier, the gap between the best deals and the worst is 10-15x. A Macro creator can cost $750 or $9,100 for the same deliverable.
| Tier | P10 (best) | Median | P90 (worst) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nano | $100 | $300 | $1,500 | 15.0x |
| Micro | $200 | $1,000 | $2,600 | 15.7x |
| Mid | $400 | $1,300 | $3,400 | 7.8x |
| Macro | $750 | $2,500 | $9,100 | 12.1x |
| Mega | $1,600 | $4,500 | $17,000 | 10.6x |
Tier labels don't set price. Selection and negotiation do.
Mega is two different markets
Averaging the 1M+ tier is misleading, because it contains both full-time creators and beauty celebrities. Standard Mega (1-5M followers, 84% of the tier) sits at a $4,500 median, negotiates, and takes bundles. Celebrity Mega (5M+, 16%) has a $10,000 median with deals reaching $50-150K+, is agent-managed, and behaves like a media buy. We use the first for reach and the second surgically, for launches that need the name.
We negotiate every creator deal against benchmark data on 926 signed contracts.
FAQ
- What does an influencer post cost in 2026?
- Across 926 contracted deals, median cost per post ran from about $300 for nano creators under 10K followers to $4,500 for mega creators over 1M, with celebrity-tier mega deals reaching $10,000 and beyond. Published rate cards typically sit above these figures.
- Are influencer rate cards negotiable?
- Almost always. Within a single tier the gap between the best and worst deals we have signed runs 10 to 15x for the same deliverable, which means the posted rate is a starting position rather than a price.
- How much do micro influencers charge?
- Micro creators with 10K to 100K followers had a median contracted cost of $950 per post in our data, with a typical range of $500 to $1,500.
Reported cost per post excludes complimentary bonus posts, so the true effective cost on our campaigns runs lower than every number on this page.