How Brands Check an Instagram Creator Before Paying Them (and How to Pass)

If you have ever sent a media kit to a brand and heard nothing back, this is probably why. Brands and the agencies that work for them run the same handful of checks on every creator before they spend a penny, and most creators have no idea what those checks are. This post lists them, explains what a pass looks like at each size, and shows you how to run every one of them on your own account for free before a brand does.

Here is the whole checklist at a glance. The rest of this post takes each row in turn.

Check	What they look at	What fails it
Engagement rate	Likes plus comments over followers, last 12 posts	Bottom quarter for the size
Median Reel views	The middle Reel of the last 12, and views per follower	Median far below the average
Fake followers	Sample of the newest followers, profiles opened	Over 30% suspicious or bot-like
Posting rhythm	Posts per week and days since the last post	Under one a week, or a month of silence
Sponsored density	Paid partnership tags in the last 12 posts	A third of the feed already sponsored
Private insights	Audience country, age, reach and saves from your own insights	No screenshots, or a long delay

Check one: engagement rate for the size

The first number anyone looks at is likes plus comments over followers, averaged across the last 12 posts. But the pass mark depends on size. Our sister company Sup, which runs creator campaigns for brands, publishes benchmarks from the creators it tracks: the median is about 3% at 10,000 to 50,000 followers, a little over 2% from 50,000 to 500,000, and 2.5% above that. A creator in the bottom quarter for their size gets a closer look. A creator in the top quarter gets a better fee.

A clean 8,000-follower account with a 6% rate beats a 60,000 account at 1% on every check a brand runs.

Run it on yourself with the free engagement rate calculator, which shows the rate post by post and where it sits for your tier.

Check two: median Reel views, not the best one

Views are what the brand is buying. They look at the last 12 Reels and take the median, because the best clip is the one in your media kit and the median is what they will get. They also divide views by followers to see whether your content travels beyond your own audience. A creator whose Reels reach more people than follow them is worth more per view than one who reaches the same followers every time.

Check three: fake followers

Every serious brand samples the follower list. They look at the newest followers for accounts with no photo, no posts, no bio and a machine-made username, and they count how many follow thousands of accounts while nobody follows back. Under 15% is clean. Over 30% means a conversation about giveaways and past growth services. Over 45% ends the conversation. You can see exactly what they see with the free fake follower check, which opens 60 of your newest followers’ profiles and scores them.

If you ever used a follower-count service, this is the check that catches it, years later. Real, local followers grown by hand pass it. That is why we built Sup Growth the way we did.

Check four: posting rhythm and the last post

A creator who posts once a month starts cold every time and cannot promise reach. Brands look at posts per week from the last 12 posts and at how long ago the last one went up. One to five posts a week with a post in the last few days is the comfortable range.

Check five: how crowded the feed is

They count how many of the last 12 posts carry Instagram’s paid partnership tag. A creator with several is experienced, which is good, and is also splitting the audience’s attention between brands, which is not. A feed that is one third sponsored gives a new brand’s post very little room.

Check six: the numbers that are not public

Audience country, age and gender. Reach, saves and shares. Story views. None of that is visible to anyone but you, so brands ask for screenshots from your own insights. Send them the same day. A creator who is proud of their audience sends them without being asked twice, and brands notice the delay when someone is not.

How to pass, in order

Run the whole report on yourself first. Sup’s free Instagram analytics tool shows engagement rate, average and median Reel views, posting rhythm, content mix, paid partnership count and top posts for any handle in one page, which is close to what a brand’s screen looks like. Fix the worst number before you pitch.

If the rate is low for your size, the fix is almost always the audience rather than the content: replace followers who never look with followers who do. If the views are inconsistent, post Reels more often and open on the point. If the fake share is high, stop whatever brought them in and let real growth dilute it. Then build a one-page media kit with the median, not the best, so the brand’s check confirms what you told them. Our guide to an influencer media kit covers the layout, and how to get sponsorship for Instagram covers the pitch.

Frequently asked questions

Do brands really check small creators this closely?

Yes, and small creators benefit most, because a clean 8,000-follower account with a 6% rate beats a 60,000 account with a 1% rate on every check above. The checks are what let small creators win.

What if my likes are hidden?

Public tools can only count comments then, which shows a lower rate. If you hide likes, expect to be asked for insight screenshots earlier.

Where do the brands come from?

Increasingly from platforms that run campaigns end to end. Sup, for example, sources and vets creators for brands, negotiates the fee on real numbers, and pays when the post goes live. Passing the checks above is how you end up on those shortlists.