Instagram Marketing Statistics 2026: Engagement, Ads and Creators

Instagram carousels averaged a 0.50% engagement rate in Q2 2026, ahead of Reels at 0.48% and images at 0.33%, according to Socialinsider’s quarterly benchmarks. Its Instagram marketing statistics for 2025 show brands leaning harder on video: brands posted 33% more Reels year over year, while Instagram’s engagement rate averaged 0.48%, a 24% decrease year over year.

Paid placements follow the same shift. Over half (53%) of all Instagram ads ran on Reels in Q4 2025, per Sensor Tower, as reported by EMARKETER. Meta’s own disclosures add the creator side: the revenue run-rate of its partnership ads product more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 2026 to $10 billion. The figures below cover engagement, posting habits, ad performance and creator spending for brands on Instagram.

Key Takeaways

• Meta reported Instagram-specific ad gains on its Q4 2025 and Q2 2026 calls: a new runtime model across Instagram Feed, Stories, and Reels resulted in a 3% increase in conversion rates in Q4 2025, and early pilots drove a 1% increase in app event conversions on Instagram in Q2 2026.
• With brands increasingly turning to creators, the revenue run-rate of Meta’s partnership ads product more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 2026 to $10 billion.
• Brands posted 8 Reels a month on average in 2025, up from 6 in 2024, yet carousels held a 0.55% engagement rate in both 2024 and 2025.
• Reels’ share of total Instagram ad impressions jumped from 13% to 21% year over year in Q2 2025, per Tinuiti.
• 55% of global marketers plan to increase Instagram investment in 2026, more than double the 25% planning to do the same for Facebook.
• On Instagram, 75% of recommendations in the US now come from original posts, after a 10 percentage point rise in Q4 2025.

Editor’s Choice

• Meta advertising revenue, Q2 2026: $59,363 million.
• Reels annual revenue run rate, Q3 2025: over $50 billion.
• Advantage+ annual revenue run-rate, Q2 2026: over $75 billion.
• US creator economy ad spend, 2025 projection: $37 billion.
• Average carousel views per post, brands with 100,000 to 1 million followers: 35,370.
• Small businesses using Meta’s AI creative tools, Q2 2026: over 9 million.

Instagram Marketing Statistics: Engagement Rate Benchmarks

• Socialinsider analyzed 35 million Instagram posts from 447,613 pages with an active presence between January 2025 and December 2025.
• Reels averaged a 0.52% engagement rate in 2025, up from 0.50% in 2024.
• Static images saw a 17% year-over-year decrease in engagement, while the carousel engagement rate remained steady at 0.55%.
• The engagement rate is calculated as total likes and comments divided by the profile’s total number of followers, multiplied by 100.
• Instagram performance tightened in 2025, with engagement down about 24% year over year and follower growth slowing across all brand sizes.

Source: Socialinsider 2026 Instagram Organic Benchmarks, 2024 and 2025 data

What is a good Instagram engagement rate for brands?

Instagram’s overall engagement rate averaged 0.45% in Q2 2026, so a brand post near that level is performing in line with the platform. Socialinsider measures engagement by followers, counting likes and comments, so rates measured by reach or impressions use a different base and are not comparable.

About This Data

Figures below come from 17 sources: 9 Meta earnings releases and call transcripts, plus 8 research and industry reports. The reports come from Socialinsider, EMARKETER, WARC, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Influencer Marketing Hub, published between July 2025 and September 2026. Company filings, original research and third-party data cited by EMARKETER qualified for inclusion, and figures are reviewed on a rolling basis and updated when sources publish new editions.

Instagram Engagement Rate by Quarter in 2026

• Carousels fell to 0.50% in Q2 2026 from 0.52% in Q1 2026, and remain Instagram’s highest-performing content format.
• Instagram’s engagement rate declined across all three content formats in Q2 2026, with the overall rate averaging 0.45%.
• Reels and carousels have consistently competed for the top spot over the past year, with carousels holding the lead in most quarters.
• Every format slipped by the same small margin, so the ranking held while the whole platform moved lower.

Recent Developments

• September 9, 2026: IAB research among 2,200 consumers in five countries who had used AI for shopping research in the previous three months found 56% prefer AI-generated shopping recommendations that incorporate creator or influencer perspectives.
• September 3, 2026: EMARKETER forecast that Meta’s ad revenues will surpass $240 billion globally in 2026, and advertisers across the globe can now place ads after organic Reels longer than 60 seconds.
• July 29, 2026: Meta said on its Q2 2026 call that more than 1 million businesses use Meta Business Agents on WhatsApp and Messenger every week, and business agents are rolling out on Instagram now too.
• July 29, 2026: Meta reported Q2 2026 revenue of $60.80 billion, an increase of 28% year-over-year.
• July 29, 2026: Meta said early pilots using large language models drove a 1% increase in app event conversions on Instagram.
• July 29, 2026: Meta said Instagram’s daily active audience reached 2 billion during the quarter.

Instagram Views per Post by Brand Size

• Carousels drew 35,370 average views per post for brands with 100,000 to 1 million followers, against 16,035 for Reels and 22,900 for images.
• That puts carousels at 2.2 times the Reels average for the largest brand tier.
• For brands with 1,000 to 5,000 followers, carousels averaged 993 views, Reels 580 and images 417.
• Carousels take the top spot for views no matter the account size, which Socialinsider ties to a second-shot advantage when a carousel resurfaces.

Instagram Saves and Comments per Post

• Brands with 100,000 to 1 million followers averaged 98 saves per carousel, 96 per Reel and 43 per image.
• At the same size, Reels averaged 60 comments, carousels 40 and images 38.
• Brands with 50,000 to 100,000 followers averaged 35 saves per carousel against 22 per Reel.
• Brands with 1,000 to 5,000 followers averaged 3 comments per Reel and 1 save per post in every format.

Source: Socialinsider 2026 Instagram Organic Benchmarks, 2025 data

Instagram Posting Frequency for Brands

• Brands increased Reels posting by 33% year over year in 2025, to 8 a month from 6, making Reels the most-published format.
• Image posting fell to 7 a month in 2025 from 10 in 2024, while carousels rose from 4 to 5.
• Most brands are posting Reels most frequently, followed by images, with carousels coming in third.
• Carousels rank last on volume but first on engagement and views, the clearest mismatch in the data.

Instagram Follower Growth Rate by Account Size

• Brands with 1,000 to 5,000 followers grew their audience by 22.00% in 2025, down from 38.00% in 2024.
• Brands with 100,000 to 1 million followers grew by 11.25% in 2025, down from 27.00%.
• Growth slowed to 13.62% for 50,000 to 100,000 accounts and 17.20% for 10,000 to 50,000 accounts in 2025.
• Brands with just a few thousand followers can see growth rates above 20%, gradually dipping to around 11% for large, established profiles.

Meta Advertising Revenue Behind Instagram Ads

• Meta’s advertising revenue was $59,363 million in Q2 2026, per its second quarter 2026 results, up from $46,563 million in Q2 2025, growth of 27.5%.
• Advertising revenue reached $58,137 million in Q4 2025 and $196,175 million for full year 2025.
• WARC reports Meta’s advertising business grew 22% to $196 billion in 2025, with a deceleration to +12.1% forecast for 2027.
• Instagram’s ad sales sit inside this Family of Apps line, so read it as the ceiling for Instagram and as the headline number for Meta’s ad business.

Meta Ad Impressions and Price per Ad Growth

• Ad impressions delivered across Meta’s Family of Apps increased by 19% year-over-year in Q1 2026, and the average price per ad increased by 12%.
• In Q2 2026, ad impressions increased by 14% and the average price per ad increased by 12% year-over-year.
• Ad impressions increased by 18% year-over-year in Q4 2025 and 12% for full year 2025.
• In Q2 2025, ad impressions rose 11% and average price per ad rose 9% year-over-year.

Instagram Reels Advertising Statistics

• Reels accounted for 46% of all time spent on Instagram, per Sensor Tower data cited by EMARKETER.
• Instagram’s countdown placement injects a 5-second, nonskippable countdown after a Reel, and only organic Reels over 60 seconds include the ad.
• 55% of consumers stated they skip ads when they can, which is why EMARKETER advises putting the brand and call to action in the opening seconds.
• As video grows across Meta’s apps, Reels now has an annual run rate of over $50 billion.

Source: Sensor Tower and Tinuiti data cited by EMARKETER, June 2026

How much Instagram advertising runs on Reels?

Over half (53%) of all Instagram ads ran on Reels in Q4 2025, per Sensor Tower. Reels’ share of total Instagram ad impressions was 21% in Q2 2025, up from 13% a year earlier, per Tinuiti, so the two figures come from different datasets and quarters: Sensor Tower’s Q4 2025 share of ads and Tinuiti’s Q2 2025 share of impressions.

Instagram Ad Conversion Gains Reported by Meta

• Meta began piloting a new run-time ads ranking model in Q3 2025 and saw it drive a more than 2% lift in conversions on Instagram in testing.
• In Q1 2026, wider coverage of the Adaptive Ranking model drove a 1.6% increase in conversion rates across the major surfaces on Facebook and Instagram.
• Underneat, an online apparel brand in India running campaigns across Facebook and Instagram, saw a 13% incremental lift in purchases and a 16% increase in add-to-cart conversions after adopting Advantage+ sales campaigns.

Source: Meta Platforms earnings call transcripts, Q3 2025 to Q2 2026

Key finding: Meta reported Instagram-specific conversion gains on three of its four calls from Q3 2025 to Q2 2026, including a more than 2% lift in conversions on Instagram in testing in Q3 2025 and a 3% increase in conversion rates across Instagram Feed, Stories, and Reels in Q4 2025. Each gain is small, and each sits inside the same ad system advertisers already buy.

Instagram Time Spent and Content Signals

• Video time spent on Instagram was up more than 30% year over year in Q3 2025.
• Ranking improvements drove a 10% lift in Reels time spent on Instagram in Q1 2026.
• Meta’s largest Reels ranking release drove a 15 basis point increase in sessions on Instagram in Q2 2026.
• Over half of all recommended content on Instagram Feed is now less than one day old, more than double from a year ago.
• On Instagram, the prevalence of original content in the US grew by 10 percentage points in Q4 2025, with 75% of recommendations now coming from original posts.
• Nearly 10% of the Reels people view each day are now created in Meta’s Edits app, almost tripling from the prior quarter.
• For Instagram marketing, fresher feeds and an originality bias favor posting new material over reposting third-party clips.

Meta AI Ad Tools and Revenue Run-Rates

• Meta’s AI-powered Advantage+ end-to-end solutions reached over $75 billion in annual revenue run-rate in Q2 2026.
• Over 9 million small businesses were using at least one AI creative tool in Q2 2026.
• The annual revenue run-rate of Meta’s value optimization suite was over $20 billion in Q1 2026, more than doubling year-over-year.

Source: Meta Platforms earnings call transcripts, Q3 2025 to Q2 2026

Instagram Creator and Influencer Marketing Statistics

• US creator economy ad spend more than doubled from $13.9 billion in 2021 to $29.5 billion in 2024, and is projected to reach $37 billion in 2025, a 26% increase year-over-year.
• Nearly half (48%) of ad spenders consider creators a “must buy,” ranking only behind social media and paid search.
• Building brand awareness was the top creator campaign goal at 43%, and 40% of buyers rank overall ROI as their top KPI for creator campaigns.
• Instagram’s incidence in influencer plans is 20% among brands increasing investment, 13% among first-time testers and 6% among reducers, per Influencer Marketing Hub.
• 31% of respondents included TikTok in their influencer plans, with other platforms clustering at roughly 8 to 15%.

Why it matters: Meta said brands are increasingly turning to creators, and its partnership ads revenue run-rate more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 2026 to $10 billion. Set beside the IAB projection of $37 billion in creator economy ad spend for 2025, creator work on Instagram now reads as a measurable ad line.

Instagram Social Commerce Statistics

• Among current social commerce adopters, TikTok Shop accounts for 66.17% of platform selections, while Instagram Checkout takes 13.16%.
• YouTube Shopping holds 9.02%, Facebook Shops 8.27% and Pinterest Shopping Features 3.38%.
• Meta has started testing affiliate experiences on Instagram, after rolling out an affiliate partnerships offering on Facebook to more test partners.
• Instagram Checkout ranks second among the platforms current social commerce adopters select, a long way behind TikTok Shop.

Marketer Investment Plans for Instagram

• 55% of global marketers plan to increase Instagram investment in 2026, against 25% for Facebook.
• Only 30% of consumers trust Meta to act responsibly, with 27% of Instagram users citing more ethical AI use as the primary route to rebuilding confidence.
• Intent runs far ahead of spend: more than half of marketers want more Instagram, yet a typical campaign still gives Instagram a smaller slice than Facebook advertising receives.

Source: WARC, May 2026

Conclusion

Carousels averaged a 0.50% engagement rate in Q2 2026, while brands keep shifting volume to Reels and over half (53%) of all Instagram ads ran on Reels in Q4 2025. Meta’s calls show the paid side improving in small steps, from a 3% increase in conversion rates in Q4 2025 to a partnership ads revenue run-rate of $10 billion in Q1 2026.

For Instagram marketing teams, the gap to watch is between intent and budget. If more of the marketers who plan to increase Instagram investment act on it, the campaign share WARC measured is the number most likely to move next.