Instagram Metrics

This article explains the Instagram metrics available in the platform, how they are calculated, and which connection or account requirements affect the data you can see.

Instagram

To access all Instagram metrics, your account must be connected via Facebook. If you connect directly from Instagram, access to data will be limited. Check the connection details here.

In addition to scheduling and auto-publishing, you can also boost your Instagram posts and reels from the platform. Find the information here.

You can review ad campaigns, both on Instagram and Facebook, in the Meta Ads analytics. We recommend specifying the social network in your campaign name for easy identification. If you manage multiple clients, Facebook recommends having an advertising account for each client.

For more details, refer to Differences between boosted posts and ads.

👀 Considerations

• Followers: Meta currently only provides follower data for Instagram Business or Creator accounts with at least 100 followers. This restriction is documented in the official Instagram Insights API.

• Reach: Reach refers to unique users. For Instagram, it is counted once, although noted as an estimate. In the platform, reach data is received per day, meaning it is aggregated. This can be distorted if the same user views multiple posts, as it would no longer be unique. For this reason, in the organic summary, the data is shown as an average, as it better reflects reality. Review impressions for total data.

• Account Impressions: These represent the total impressions generated by posts, organic and paid, stories, reels, user searches, profile visits, and more. In summary, each time someone interacts with any content related to the Instagram account, an impression is generated. However, it is not possible to manually calculate the total number of these impressions. Only Instagram can provide the exact total number of impressions for an account. This data is obtained directly from Instagram's platform and can be accessed through its analytics tools.

• Collaborative Posts: They will only appear if your account is the content creator. To view the details of a post where you are a collaborator, you can add the content creator's account as a competitor.

• Paid Data: To display detailed paid data for your posts and reels, you need to connect the corresponding Meta Ads account to the brand.

• Reels Views: Organic views are counted from 3 seconds of viewing, while paid views are counted regardless of the duration. In paid interactions, replays are included.

• Trial Reels: When retrieving Reels via the API, Instagram does not specify if they are Trial Reels, so they appear in the analytics along with the rest of the Reels, without distinction.

• Appendix: Consult here the deprecated metrics and the note on privacy in stories.

Below, you can check all the available metrics for your professional Instagram account, business or creator.

Community

✅ GROWTH

❗ Remember that Meta currently only provides follower data for Instagram Business or Creator accounts with at least 100 followers. This restriction is documented in the official Instagram Insights API.

• Followers: Total number of followers at the end of the selected period.

• Following: Total number of users followed.

• Total content: Total number of posts published in the selected period, including posts, reels, and stories.

• Followers: Growth of followers in the selected period, the difference between the last selected day and the day preceding the first selected day.

• Daily followers: Average number of followers gained or lost in the analyzed period.

• Followers per post, Following, Posts per day, Posts per week: average between the total data and the selected time range.

• 💡 The percentages of these metrics show a comparison with the same period immediately prior. For example, if a week is selected it will be compared to the previous 7 days.

✅ BALANCE OF FOLLOWERS

The followers balance records data on all the movements of your followers. If a follower unfollows and then follows again, it counts as two followers. Movements of deleted or restricted accounts are also included.

The graph visually highlights the days where followers were gained or lost the most. However, unlike Instagram, it doesn't display gained or lost followers, but the net increase or decrease for each day. The balance represents the difference in the number of followers for each day compared to the previous day.

• Followers: Balance number of followers in the selected period.

Demographics

Gender, age, followers by country, and city. Instagram will start providing this information from 100 followers. You can see the information as a chart or a table.

Account

✅ PROFILE

• Account Impressions: Total number of views generated by any content linked to your Instagram account: posts, stories, reels, profile visits, searches, and more. This data is provided directly by Instagram and cannot be calculated manually.
  👉 Check the Considerations for more details.

• Avg. reach per day: Average number of people who have been reached with your publications, posts, reels, and stories, and profile. The average is taken over the number of days.

• Posts: Total number of posts published in the selected period, including posts, reels, and stories.

👀 Collaborative posts will appear only if your account is the content creator. To view the information of a post in which you are a contributor, you can add the content creator account as a competitor.

Posts published in period

✅ ORGANIC SUMMARY

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

• Interactions: Total number of interactions that occurred on all posts.

• Average reach/post: Average number of people reached with your posts. The average is calculated across the number of posts. This data includes only organic reach. To see paid data, you must connect Meta Ads to access Instagram campaign metrics.

• Views: Total number of times your posts were displayed. This data includes only organic views. To see paid data, you must connect Meta Ads and check your Instagram campaigns.

• Posts: Total number of posts published in the selected period.

✅ ORGANIC INTERACTIONS

• Likes: Total number of likes on posts.

• Comments: Total number of comments on posts.

• Saves: Number of times posts were saved.

• Shares: Number of times posts were shared.

• Posts: Total number of posts published in the selected period.

• Reactions per post, Comments per post, and Shares per post: Average number of interactions per post included in the period.

• Daily reactions, Daily comments, and Daily shares: Average number of interactions per day within the selected period.

✅ TYPES

• Data on the type of publication: image, carousel, or video. It is possible to view it as a graph or as a table.

• Views: Includes organic views and paid impressions of your posts.

✅ LIST OF POSTS

• Type: Type of post: image, carousel, or video. * Date: Date the post was published. * Views: Total number of times the post was displayed. Below the figure, you can see a bar indicating organic and promoted views. * Organic reach: Total number of people reached organically by the post. * Paid reach: Total number of people reached by the post through promoted content. * Organic likes: Total number of organic likes on the post. * Organic saves: Number of times the post was saved organically. * Organic comments: Total number of organic comments on the post. * Organic shares: Number of times the post was shared organically.

• Organic interactions: Total number of organic interactions on the post. Adds up the organic data of Likes, Comments, Shares, and Saves. * Paid interactions: Total number of paid interactions on the post. Meta Ads provides this data directly from the campaign, without detailed breakdown. * Engagement: See section What is engagement?. * Video views: Total number of video views. Below the figure, you can see a bar indicating organic and promoted views. Views are counted after 3 seconds. * Clicks on paid post: Total number of clicks made on any part of the paid post. * Spend: Amount spent on the promoted post.

  👀 To display separate paid data, you need to have the corresponding Meta Ads account connected to that brand.

Hashtags

✅ LIST OF HASHTAGS

Metrics for the hashtags used in your feed posts. Reels data is not included.

• Organic views: Metrics showing the number of views the post received where that hashtag was used. If the hashtag was used in multiple posts, the value shown is an average.

• Number of posts: Number of posts that include each hashtag.

• Likes: Likes on publications that used each hashtag. If the hashtags have been included in several posts, the numbers will be averaged.

• Comments: Number of comments on publications that used each hashtag. If they have been used in several publications, the numbers will be averaged.

Reels in the period

✅ ORGANIC SUMMARY

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

• Interactions: Total number of organic interactions on Reels. Includes Likes, Comments, Saves, and Shares.

• Average reach/reel: Average number of people reached with your Reels. The average is calculated across the number of Reels. This data is organic only.

• Video views: Total number of video views. Repeat views are not included; only initial plays are available through the API.

• Reels: Total number of Reels published in the selected period.

✅ ORGANIC INTERACTIONS

• Likes: Total number of likes on Reels.

• Comments: Total number of comments on Reels.

• Saves: Total number of times Reels were saved.

• Shares: Total number of times Reels were shared.

• Reels: Total number of Reels published in the selected period.

✅ LIST OF REELS

• Video views: Total number of times the video was viewed. Repeat views are not included; only initial plays are available through the API.

• Organic reach: Organic reach of the video.

• Paid reach: Paid reach of the video.

• Organic likes: Organic likes on the video.

• Organic saves: Total number of times the video was saved organically.

• Organic shares: Total number of times the Reel was shared organically.

• Organic comments: Total number of organic comments received on the video.

• Organic interactions: Organic interactions on the video. Adds up likes, comments, saves, and shares.

• Paid interactions: Total number of paid interactions on the video. Meta Ads provides this data directly from the campaign, without detailed breakdown.

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

• Clicks on paid post: Total number of paid clicks obtained from a promoted post.

• Spend: Amount spent on the promoted Reel.

• Average watch time: The average amount of time spent playing the reel.

• Total watch time: The total amount of time the reel was played, including any time spent replaying the reel. This metric is marked by Meta as in development.

• View rate (+3sec.): The percentage of viewers who watched the Reel past the first 3 seconds.

• Reposts: Total number of times the Reel was reposted.

• Duration: Total duration of the Reel.

• Retention (%): Indicates what percentage of the Reel’s total duration was watched on average by users. It is calculated as average watch time / Reel duration × 100.

Stories in the period

✅ EVOLUTION

• Impressions: Number of times stories are shown.

• Avg. reach per story: Average number of people reached per story.

• Stories: Total number of stories published in the selected period.

✅ LIST OF STORIES

• Date: Date of story publication.

• Impressions: Total number of times stories have been shown. Below the data you can see a bar indicating organic and promoted impressions.

• Organic Reach: Total number of people who have been reached by each story. Organic data.

• Paid Reach: Total number of unique people who have been reached by the story. Paid data.

• Organic Replies: Number of replies on each story. It does not include reactions. Instagram does not provide data on organic responses to stories in Europe and Japan (Footnote).

• Organic Taps back: Number of times users have tapped back to see a story again.

• Organic Taps forward: Number of times users have tapped forward to skip a story.

• Organic Exits: Number of times users stopped watching the stories, for example, by closing them or returning to the main feed.

• 💡 To see the paid data, you need to connect Meta Ads to the brand.

Competitors

✅ LIST OF COMPETITORS (SUMMARIZED MENU)

• Followers: Total number of followers.

• Posts: Total number of posts published by each competitor.

• Reels: Total number of competitor Reels in the selected time range.

• Likes: Average number of likes per post.

• Comments: Average number of comments per post.

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

✅ LIST OF COMPETITORS (MENU 'MORE STATS')

⚡️ Community

• Followers: Total number of followers of your competitor.

• Posts: Total number of posts of the competitor's account.

• Reels: Total data of the competitor's Reels in the rank.

⚡️ Posts

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

• Likes: Total number of organic likes on posts in the selected time range.

• Comments: Total number of organic comments from competitors in the selected time range.

• Posts: Total number of publications made by the competitor's account in the selected time range.

⚡️ List of posts

• Date: Date of publication of the post.

• Likes: Total number of likes of the post.

• Comments: Total number of comments of the post.

• Interactions: Total number of interactions of the post.

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.
  ⚡️ Reels

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

• Likes: Total number of likes on posts in the selected time range.

• Comments: Total number of comments from competitors in the selected time range.

• Reels: Total number of Reels published by the competitor's account in the selected time range.

⚡️ List of reels

• Date: Date of publication of the reel.

• Likes: Total number of likes of the post.

• Comments: Total number of comments of the post.

• Interactions: Total number of interactions of the post.

• Engagement: See section What is engagement?.

Appendix

Deprecated Metrics

As of January 8, 2025, Instagram has discontinued the following metrics in its API. If you had access to these metrics in the platform before this date, you will still be able to view them for previous periods.

• Profile Views: Visits to the profile of your Instagram account.

• Website Clicks: Number of times the URL in the bio of your account has been clicked.

• Clicks: Section showing the clicks made on each button of the Instagram profile, emails, directions, calls, and messages. You can check this in Instagram’s profile activity statistics.

Meta Note: Privacy Update on Instagram Stories Interaction Metrics

Due to privacy rules, interactions with multimedia content on Instagram Stories related to user messages in certain regions will no longer be included in some result calculations. These regions include Europe, starting December 1, 2020, and Japan, starting April 2021.

• For stories created by users in the affected regions, the replies result will now return a value of 0.

• For stories created by users outside the affected regions, the replies result will return the number of responses, but those from users in the affected regions will not be included in the calculation.

ℹ️ What is engagement?

Engagement measures how users interact with your content in relation to how visible or far-reaching it is.
In the platform, you can choose between different calculation formulas.

For Instagram, the engagement shown in the platform is always calculated using organic data.
Even if you connect your Meta Ads account to get promoted post data, this additional information does not affect the engagement calculation.
👉 The result is based exclusively on organic interactions (likes, comments, saves, and more) in relation to the organic reach of your posts.

Note: The engagement of competitors is calculated differently from your own account. We recommend adding your own account as a competitor to make the data comparable.

Learn more here.