Check a TikTok account's real engagement rate before you pay for a post.

Engagement rate is interactions divided by an audience number. Sources pick different numbers for both, so state the formula next to every rate you quote.

Use views as the base when you buy a post, because views are the audience the post reaches. Follower-based rates mix in followers who never see the video. Take the median across the last 20 videos rather than the mean. On this account the mean was 946,465 views per video, pulled up by one video at 6,000,000. The median was 492,800, which is closer to what a typical post gets.

Published benchmarks disagree because they use different formulas, account sizes and time windows. A rate is only good or bad against accounts like this one, counted the same way. Pick three to five accounts in the same niche and size, run the same formula over their last 20 videos, and compare.

Treat this run as one data point, not a benchmark. The same formula run a day earlier on Somethinc, a skincare brand in Indonesia with 3.6M followers, gave a median of 2,175 views and 0.43% on views. Duolingo reached 2.7% of its followers with a typical post and drew one like or comment for every 10 views. Counted the same way, the gap between the two accounts is plain.

One number hides how an account behaves. Look at the spread. Here 5 of 20 videos passed 1,000,000 views and 6 stayed under 200,000. The newest video, posted hours before the run, had 73,600 views and was still collecting them. Leave videos that new out of the median you quote to a sponsor.

Comments follow their own pattern. A video about a Brawl Stars quest in the app drew 41,600 comments on 416,500 views, and a "wrong answers only" prompt drew 17,300. Videos that ask viewers for a reply pull comments far above the median of 1,626.

Then read the content. Three transcript calls returned no transcript and cost $0. The fourth pulled a 45-second interview outside a LE SSERAFIM concert, where the mascot asks fans to wish a band member happy birthday in Korean. That shows a sponsor what a collaboration on this account looks like.

• Median views over the last 20 videos, against follower count.
• How many videos broke out, and how far.
• Comments per video, a rough check on whether viewers respond.
• What the videos say, from a transcript.

A free engagement rate calculator returns one number from public totals. It does not show which videos it used or how it counted. This run showed every video's views, likes and comments, and you choose the formula. It cost $0.0067, and most of that was the transcript at $0.0047. The profile and video calls alone cost $0.0020, and the three empty transcript calls cost nothing.

Influencer platforms add search, audience data and campaign tools on a monthly plan. Check current pricing. For vetting a shortlist of five creators, the agent route costs about a cent each.

The tools read public profile and video data only. They do not see audience location, age or watch time, which only the account owner sees. Not every video has captions to transcribe. Vet brand accounts, or creators who agreed to it, and not private individuals.