Influencer Marketing in South Africa: Rates, Engagement & Statistics

Key Figures

Influencer Map of South Africa by Province

Executive Summary

• engagement is measured per view and reported by platform;
• asking rates use the middle of the market;
• performance figures only count accounts with recent activity;
• no figure is published from fewer than 20 creators.

Five things that stand out

1. Brands pay what creators ask.
   • On Lit.africa campaigns, the typical deal settles at 100% of the creator's listed asking rate, so rate cards are a reliable guide to real prices.
   • A Mid creator's TikTok Reel typically sold for R3,030, against a typical Mid asking rate of R1,849. Brands tend to book Mid creators from the upper end of the price range, and pay them their full rate.
2. TikTok leads engagement by a wide margin.
   • A typical TikTok post earns likes, comments, shares and saves equal to 12.1% of its views.
   • Facebook comes next at 8.8%, then YouTube at 6.3% and Instagram Reels at 4.1%.
   • On TikTok, Micro creators (1,000-9,999 followers) engage best, at 13.0%.
3. Bigger creators deliver engagement far more cheaply.
   • Measured against asking rates, cost per engagement falls from R21.95 for Nano creators to R1.53 for Mid and R0.64 for Macro.
   • Since Q1 it has fallen 15% for Micro and 23% for both Mid and Macro creators. It rose 11% for Nano.
4. Gauteng has the most creators, but not the best value.
   • Gauteng is home to 46.1% of creators and has the highest asking rates.
   • Creators in North West (13.7%), Free State (13.2%) and KwaZulu-Natal (13.1%) earn more TikTok engagement per view than Gauteng (11.8%) or the Western Cape (10.5%).
   • Cost per engagement is lowest in Limpopo (R2.84) and the Eastern Cape (R2.88), against R4.29 in Gauteng.
5. The creator profile is stable.
   • Creators on Lit.africa remain young and mostly female: 55.6% are aged 18-24 and 84.7% are female.
   • 51.3% report earning under R10,000 a month, unchanged since Q1.
   • The iPhone 11 is still the most common phone, used by 29.6% of creators who list one.

What This Means for Brands

• Budget from rate cards. Deals on Lit.africa close at the creator's asking rate. The asking rates in this report are a sound starting point for budgets, and the paid rates show what a campaign typically costs.
• Buy reach from Mid and Macro creators, and authenticity from Micro. Cost per engagement falls steeply above 10,000 followers. Micro creators earn the highest TikTok engagement per view, so they suit trust and conversion goals, while larger creators are the efficient buy for awareness.
• Look beyond Gauteng. In most other provinces, creators engage at least as well as in Gauteng and cost less per engagement, so national campaigns can reach further for the same budget.
• Judge creators against their own platform. A 6% engagement rate is below average on TikTok but above average on Instagram Reels. Compare each creator with the figure for their own platform, not one blended number.

FAQ: Influencer Marketing in South Africa

Methodology & How to Cite

About This Report

Why a Quarterly Index?

How the Averages Work

• 35% trimmed mean. Every benchmark - prices, engagement, audience, CPE and post performance - is the average of the middle 35% of values once sorted, so a handful of extreme accounts can't distort it.
• Who this covers. Every figure describes creators registered on Lit.africa - a large slice of South Africa's creator economy, but not all of it. Our base skews young, female and Gauteng-based.
• Engagement rate is likes, comments, shares and saves divided by views (per view), so it only covers posts with a view count - videos and reels. It's reported per platform because platforms differ a lot (and TikTok accounts for most measured posts). Engagement per follower is reported separately as account engagement.
• Asking rates. Prices are what creators list on their Lit.africa rate cards, not what brands ended up paying.
• Paid rates. What brands and creators actually agreed on paid campaigns run through Lit.africa over the last 24 months, before platform fees, divided by the number of pieces of content in each deal. Deals under R100 a piece are excluded, and a format is only published once it has at least 20 deals from 15+ creators across 10+ campaigns, so no single brand sets the rate. Creator tier is based on current audience size, and paid rates are compared against creators' current asking rates.
• Cost per engagement (CPE) is a creator's asking rate for a post divided by the engagement their video posts typically earn.
• Active creators only. Performance figures only use social accounts our systems have refreshed in the last 120 days.
• Minimum sample. A figure based on fewer than 20 creators isn't published (shown as "–").
• One account, one vote. Audience and engagement count each social account once, however many content types the creator sells on it. Prices and CPE are per content type, since each is a separate product.
• Active rate cards only. Content types a creator has switched off are excluded.
• Tiers by audience: Nano (under 1,000), Micro (1,000 - 9,999), Mid (10,000 - 99,999), Macro (100,000 - 999,999) and Mega (1,000,000+).

Methodology Changes Since Q1 2026

• Cost per engagement was understated in Q1 2026. The comparisons in this edition restate it on the corrected basis.
• Engagement rates are now calculated per view and to the decimal - Q1 2026 rounded each creator's rate down to a whole number first.
• Prices now use the same central 35% band as every other benchmark - Q1 2026 used an upper-middle band, so its prices read higher.
• Small samples are no longer published, performance figures only use recently refreshed accounts, accounts are counted once rather than once per content type, and switched-off content types are excluded.
• Creators exactly on a tier boundary (e.g. 10,000 followers) are now counted in one tier, not two.

Data Coverage & Representation

How to Cite This Report

Lit.africa, South African Influencer Marketing Index Q3 2026 (data as at 22 October 2026), https://lit.africa/benchmark-reports/state-of-marketing-2026-Q3

Full Report

• Influencer rates for the top 10 content formats across all five tiers - and by category, province and gender
• Engagement rates per view and per follower, and paid vs organic performance, by tier
• Typical views, likes, comments, shares and saves per post
• Cost per engagement by tier, category and province
• Creator demographics - age, gender, education, income, language and location down to town level
• Production equipment - phones, cameras, microphones and lighting