Creators with 50,000 to 250,000 followers post the worst cost per view and the worst cost per engagement of any tier measured in a new analysis from OpenSponsorship, an athlete and creator marketing platform. The finding is drawn from 1,527 completed, paid creator deliverables run on the platform between January 2025 and June 2026, and it directly contradicts the industry’s common treatment of that follower range as a “safe” or credible booking choice.
The mid-tier’s cost per view came in at $0.19, the highest of any category, and its cost per engagement reached $7.07, more than double the rate for nano and micro creators. The result held across 513 campaigns in that tier, the second-largest sample in the study.
Reach and Engagement Favor Opposite Ends of the Market
The study measured two metrics across five follower tiers: cost per view, described as reach efficiency, and cost per engagement, described as action efficiency. The results split sharply by tier.
On raw reach, larger creators were cheaper. Mega influencers, with more than 1 million followers, delivered views at a median of $0.07, roughly half the $0.13 median for nano influencers, those with fewer than 10,000 followers. That runs counter to conventional guidance that smaller creators are the better reach buy. But nano creators generated views equal to 19.9% of their follower count, compared with 1.1% for mega creators, an 18-fold difference in how far content traveled relative to audience size.
On engagement, the smaller tiers won decisively. Micro influencers, with 10,000 to 50,000 followers, bought engagement at $3.05, and nano creators at $3.11, versus $5.00 for mega influencers and $7.07 for the mid-tier. OpenSponsorship put the gap at roughly 40% cheaper for small creators on a per-action basis.
Entry Costs Remain Low Across Smaller Tiers
Median cost per deliverable rose steadily with follower count: $134 for nano, $150 for micro, $417 for mid-tier, $517 for macro, and $2,727 for mega. The company noted that mega-tier fees, while real, fall well short of the roughly $50,000 figure sometimes cited as a going rate.
Large Single Deals Carry Wide Variance
The study also cut the data by spend per deliverable rather than follower count. Deals over $7,500 cost a median of $0.41 per view, four times the $0.10 median for deals under $500. Within that top spend band, the 25th percentile came in at $0.065 per view and the 75th percentile at $1.18, an 18-fold spread within a single category. OpenSponsorship said this makes a single large deal a bet on variance, while a portfolio of smaller deals is comparatively predictable. The over-$7,500 band and the mega tier were both flagged as small samples, 15 and 53 campaigns respectively, that the company describes as directionally consistent but less statistically weighted than the nano, micro and mid-tier findings.
Methodology
The analysis covered deliverables from deals marked “Accepted” between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, filtered to those with a tracked view count above 100 and a recorded fee of at least $50 to exclude test records and product-only placeholders. OpenSponsorship reported medians rather than averages throughout, citing the long-tailed nature of influencer performance data. Cost per view was calculated as fee divided by views delivered; cost per engagement as fee divided by combined likes, comments, shares and saves. The company said the dataset skews toward sports, wellness, food and lifestyle categories, and that fees reflect cash paid, excluding the value of gifted product.
“Every influencer marketing article tells you the same thing: micro-influencers are better value. Almost none of them show you the receipts. So we pulled ours,” said Ishveen Jolly, founder and CEO of OpenSponsorship, in a press release. “The mid-tier finding is the one we think brands need to act on fastest. That creator looks credible in a deck. The data says it is the most expensive place your budget can be.”
Founded in 2015, OpenSponsorship connects brands with more than 25,000 athletes and creators across 160 sports and 120 countries, and says it has completed more than 10,000 sponsorship deals.
Image source: OpenSponsorship The full report is available here
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
Creators with 50,000 to 250,000 followers post the worst cost per view and the worst cost per engagement of any tier measured in a new analysis from OpenSponsorship, an athlete and creator marketing platform. The finding is drawn from 1,527 completed, paid creator deliverables run on the platform between January 2025 and June 2026, and it directly contradicts the industry’s common treatment of that follower range as a “safe” or credible booking choice.
The mid-tier’s cost per view came in at $0.19, the highest of any category, and its cost per engagement reached $7.07, more than double the rate for nano and micro creators. The result held across 513 campaigns in that tier, the second-largest sample in the study.
Reach and Engagement Favor Opposite Ends of the Market
The study measured two metrics across five follower tiers: cost per view, described as reach efficiency, and cost per engagement, described as action efficiency. The results split sharply by tier.
On raw reach, larger creators were cheaper. Mega influencers, with more than 1 million followers, delivered views at a median of $0.07, roughly half the $0.13 median for nano influencers, those with fewer than 10,000 followers. That runs counter to conventional guidance that smaller creators are the better reach buy. But nano creators generated views equal to 19.9% of their follower count, compared with 1.1% for mega creators, an 18-fold difference in how far content traveled relative to audience size.
On engagement, the smaller tiers won decisively. Micro influencers, with 10,000 to 50,000 followers, bought engagement at $3.05, and nano creators at $3.11, versus $5.00 for mega influencers and $7.07 for the mid-tier. OpenSponsorship put the gap at roughly 40% cheaper for small creators on a per-action basis.
Entry Costs Remain Low Across Smaller Tiers
Median cost per deliverable rose steadily with follower count: $134 for nano, $150 for micro, $417 for mid-tier, $517 for macro, and $2,727 for mega. The company noted that mega-tier fees, while real, fall well short of the roughly $50,000 figure sometimes cited as a going rate.
Large Single Deals Carry Wide Variance
The study also cut the data by spend per deliverable rather than follower count. Deals over $7,500 cost a median of $0.41 per view, four times the $0.10 median for deals under $500. Within that top spend band, the 25th percentile came in at $0.065 per view and the 75th percentile at $1.18, an 18-fold spread within a single category. OpenSponsorship said this makes a single large deal a bet on variance, while a portfolio of smaller deals is comparatively predictable. The over-$7,500 band and the mega tier were both flagged as small samples, 15 and 53 campaigns respectively, that the company describes as directionally consistent but less statistically weighted than the nano, micro and mid-tier findings.
Methodology
The analysis covered deliverables from deals marked “Accepted” between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, filtered to those with a tracked view count above 100 and a recorded fee of at least $50 to exclude test records and product-only placeholders. OpenSponsorship reported medians rather than averages throughout, citing the long-tailed nature of influencer performance data. Cost per view was calculated as fee divided by views delivered; cost per engagement as fee divided by combined likes, comments, shares and saves. The company said the dataset skews toward sports, wellness, food and lifestyle categories, and that fees reflect cash paid, excluding the value of gifted product.
“Every influencer marketing article tells you the same thing: micro-influencers are better value. Almost none of them show you the receipts. So we pulled ours,” said Ishveen Jolly, founder and CEO of OpenSponsorship, in a press release. “The mid-tier finding is the one we think brands need to act on fastest. That creator looks credible in a deck. The data says it is the most expensive place your budget can be.”
Founded in 2015, OpenSponsorship connects brands with more than 25,000 athletes and creators across 160 sports and 120 countries, and says it has completed more than 10,000 sponsorship deals.
Image source: OpenSponsorship
The full report is available here
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