Rate Card Calculator
Price any brand deal by follower count, engagement, niche, usage rights and exclusivity, with the rate bands and multipliers that Indian brands actually work from.
Two creators with identical follower counts routinely quote rates that differ by five times or more, and the one charging less is usually the one who never worked out what their engagement, niche and usage terms were actually worth. This calculator prices all of it.
What's inside
The calculator
Enter your actual follower count rather than picking a tier, the curve between tiers matters, and a creator with 94,000 followers should not be priced the same as one with 11,000.
Your rate band
Rate bands by follower count
These are the underlying bands the calculator draws on, before niche, engagement and usage multipliers are applied. The spread within each tier is wide because follower count alone is a weak predictor of value.
What moves your rate
Ranked by typical uplift. Notice that the top three have nothing to do with follower count, they are all terms you negotiate, and all of them are routinely given away free by creators who don't know to price them.
Using the number in a real negotiation
A calculator produces a band. Converting that into money requires three moves:
- Open at the ceiling, settle at the quote figure. If you open at your floor you have nowhere to move, and brands expect some negotiation. Opening high is not aggressive; it is normal.
- Price the package, not the post. Quote one number for the full scope. Itemising every deliverable invites the brand to cut items while expecting the same per-item rate.
- Never quote before you know the usage. "Can we also run this as an ad?" asked after you've agreed a fee is the single most expensive question in influencer marketing, and it is asked constantly.
Five pricing mistakes
| Mistake | What it costs you | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Quoting per-post with no usage terms | The brand runs your content as paid ads for a year at an organic-post rate | Always ask about paid usage before quoting |
| Accepting 'exposure' or future-work promises | Unpaid work, and a rate anchor you'll struggle to raise later | Offer reduced scope at your real rate instead |
| Discounting heavily for your first brand deal | Every subsequent negotiation starts from that number | Discount scope, never rate |
| Agreeing unlimited revisions | Uncapped labour against a capped fee | Two rounds included, billable thereafter |
| Ignoring barter tax exposure | A ₹1L product creates real tax liability under Section 194R | Price barter at retail value, or ask for a cash component |
Setting your floor rate
Your floor is not a number the market gives you, it's a number you calculate. Work out what an hour of your time is worth, multiply by the realistic hours a deliverable takes end to end (concept, shoot, edit, revisions, posting, reporting; usually far more than creators estimate), and add your production costs. Anything below that figure is work you are subsidising.
Once you have that number, hold it. The single fastest way to raise your income as a creator is not landing bigger brands, it is declining the deals below your floor that consume the time you'd otherwise spend on deals above it.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge for an Instagram Reel in India?
For a lifestyle creator posting organically with average engagement, a rough baseline is your typical Reel reach multiplied by a CPM of roughly ₹1,150–₹1,800 depending on tier. In practice that lands around ₹3,800 for a 5,000-follower nano creator, ₹22,000 for a 45,000-follower micro creator, and ₹105,000 for a 300,000-follower mid-tier creator.
Niche, engagement rate, usage rights and exclusivity then move that baseline substantially; finance and tech command 30–50% premiums, and paid whitelisting adds 40–80%.
How do I calculate my influencer rate?
Price on reach, not followers. Multiply your typical Reel reach by a tier-appropriate CPM, then apply multipliers for niche, engagement relative to your tier average, usage rights, exclusivity and turnaround. Follower count only matters because it predicts reach.
What is a good engagement rate for an Indian influencer?
It depends entirely on tier. Nano creators (1K–10K) typically run 6–12%, micro creators (10K–50K) 3.5–7%, mid-tier (100K–500K) 2–4.5%, and mega creators (1M+) 1–2.5%. Always compare against your own tier, a 2.5% rate is excellent for a macro creator and poor for a nano.
How much extra should I charge for whitelisting or paid ads?
Typically 40–80% above your organic rate. A 30-day whitelisting window sits near +40%, 90 days near +65%, and perpetual usage rights near +90%. Always establish whether the brand wants paid usage before you quote, retro-fitting it after a fee is agreed is the most common way creators lose money on a deal.
Should I charge more for regional language content?
Often yes. Regional-language creators reach audiences English-first campaigns cannot, and supply is short relative to brand demand in high-demand languages. A modest premium is defensible and increasingly common.
Price your work, protect your income
How to Negotiate Brand Deals
The order to run a negotiation in, six questions to ask before quoting, and word-for-word scripts for the five conversations that always come up.
Open →Brand Deal Red Flags
The warning signs that show up before a deal goes wrong — screening the brand, reading the terms, and what to do once you are already in.
Open →Content Calendar & Deal Tracker
A free workbook for your content pipeline and what you are owed, with overdue alerts and India tax-threshold monitoring built in.
Open →Stop calculating. Start running campaigns.
Every calculation in these tools is something Ishi does automatically inside Echio.
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