The median creator gets 17,058 views on a recent video post. But that number is nearly useless on its own, because it's pulled upward by accounts with millions of followers. The one you want is your own tier: under 10K followers, the median is 1,234 views.
Here's the full picture across 17,000+ real creator profiles, pinned posts excluded.
Average views on Instagram by follower count
| Followers | Median views | Median likes | Median engagement rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10K | 1,234 | 125 | 2.23% |
| 10K–50K | 3,724 | 292 | 1.52% |
| 50K–500K | 38,554 | 2,616 | 1.93% |
| 500K+ | 330,278 | 31,565 | 2.46% |
Two columns, two completely different stories.
Views multiply about 270× from the smallest tier to the largest. Engagement rate barely moves — 2.23% to 2.46% — and it dips in the middle, bottoming out at 1.52% for 10K–50K accounts. Views measure how far Instagram pushed your content. Engagement rate measures whether anyone cared once it arrived. Growing changes the first number enormously and the second one hardly at all.
That decoupling is why a brand comparing two creators on view counts alone is comparing distribution, not attention.
One more thing falls out of the table: across every tier, the median creator earns roughly one like per 10 to 15 views. If a reel shows 40,000 views and 400 likes, that's a 100:1 ratio — an order of magnitude off the norm, and worth a second look before you pay for the placement.
Why "average" is the wrong word
Ask for the average and you'll usually get a mean — total views divided by post count. Means break on Instagram, because view counts are violently skewed. One reel escapes to the Explore page, does 200,000, and drags a creator's "average" somewhere no normal post of theirs will ever land.
Every number on this page is a median: the middle creator, with half above and half below. It's the honest answer to "what's typical," and it's why our figures run lower than the averages published elsewhere.
The same trap sits inside your own app. Instagram's Insights will happily average your last 30 days including the pinned post you pinned because it outperformed. Strip the outliers before you believe your own number.
Average views by niche
Follower count sets the floor. Niche sets the ceiling — and the spread is far wider.
| Niche | Median views | Median engagement rate |
|---|---|---|
| Comedians | 358,999 | 6.32% |
| Actors | 109,650 | 2.39% |
| Dancers | 58,655 | 4.35% |
| Artists | 38,067 | 2.47% |
| Musicians | 33,352 | 3.04% |
| Athletes | 29,295 | 5.47% |
| Reel creators | 18,941 | 2.17% |
| Digital creators | 15,174 | 1.72% |
| Beauty & personal care | 12,293 | 1.27% |
| Education creators | 9,867 | 0.66% |
| Fitness creators | 8,405 | 2.30% |
| Bloggers | 4,926 | 1.38% |
| Photographers | 4,224 | 2.53% |
| Makeup artists | 3,706 | 1.10% |
Nearly a 100× gap between comedians and makeup artists. Short, reaction-driven video is built for the reach machine; a makeup tutorial is watched by people who came looking for it.
Now read the two columns against each other and the ranking scrambles. Education creators pull 9,867 median views on the lowest engagement rate of any niche, 0.66%. Photographers pull less than half that reach — 4,224 — at nearly four times the engagement rate. Neither is better. They're measuring different things, and a media kit that leads with views is choosing the flattering one.
How to find your average views
For your own account: Insights → Content, filter to reels, take the last 10 to 12, add the views, divide. Skip pinned posts and skip anything that obviously broke out.
Average views = total views on last 10–12 videos ÷ number of videos
For someone else's account, view counts sit under every reel publicly — same method, no access needed. That's exactly what brands do when they vet a creator, and it's why an inflated pinned reel at the top of a profile is such a common (and easily caught) trick.
Either way the raw number only means something next to a peer group. Run a handle through the engagement rate checker to get views and engagement scored against real creators at the same size and in the same category, or browse the benchmarks directly.
So are your views low?
Probably not. The most common reason a creator concludes they're underperforming is that they measured themselves against a number built from accounts twenty times their size — like the 17,058 at the top of this page.
A 6K-follower creator averaging 900 views is sitting just under their tier's 1,234 median. That's the middle of the pack, not a collapse. Find your row in the first table, then find your niche in the second. The honest benchmark is usually a lot lower, and a lot closer, than the one you've been carrying around.