It’s basically a company secret, but one that applies to an entire industry: How much do brands really pay the influencers, athletes and all other manner of celebs with oodles of reach to publish a paid post on high profile platforms like Instagram? There’s hardly any players who provide any sort of transparency; speculation runs especially high. The annual “Instagram Rich List” serves to shine a little light on an otherwise very dark and obscure matter. OMR took a closer look at the ranking.
Before we get down to brass tacks and dive into the numbers: We are well aware that this list deals with estimates. Therefore, the rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. And they are surely by no means exhaustive or complete. Nevertheless, HopperHQ’s annual “Instagram Rich List” is a very worthwhile place to start the discussion.
According to the British company, which offers a planning and analytics tool for Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, the “Instagram Rich List” is based on internal data, agency rate cards and public information. For next year’s ranking, management companies, agencies and influencers can all apply to be listed in the rankings.
Here are the highest-earning stars on Instagram
Rank | Name | Followers | Price per Post |
1 | Dwayne Johnson | 188 Million | $1,015,000 |
2 | Kylie Jenner | 183 Million | $986,000 |
3 | Cristiano Ronaldo | 227 Million | $889,000 |
4 | Kim Kardashian | 177 Million | $858,000 |
5 | Ariana Grande | 192 Million | $853,000 |
6 | Selena Gomez | 181 Million | $848,000 |
7 | Beyoncé Knowles-Carter | 149 Million | $770,000 |
8 | Justin Bieber | 140 Million | $747,000 |
9 | Taylor Swift | 135 Million | $722,000 |
10 | Neymar | 139 Million | $704,000 |
Source: HopperHQ
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson sits atop the rankings. According to Forbes, the former wrestler was already one of the highest-earning actors on the planet taking in over USD 89.4m in 2019 (June 2018 to June 2019). In 2020, he defended his crown bringing home USD 87.5m. The seven figures HopperHQ says he gets per Instagram post seem like peanuts compared to the aforementioned astronomic figures. They also seem very realistic. Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?!
Corona puts the squeeze on prices for influencers
What you quickly forget when you are first confronted with the absurd sum of over USD 1m: The influencer marketing industry has also had to grapple with the effects of corona, something that was becoming evident back in April. According to HopperHQ, it was the first time since they put together the list back in 2017 that the figures actually went down. Kylie Jenner, for example, topped the list just last year, commanding USD 1.27m, while Selena Gomez was number 1 in 2017, with a USD 550,000 price tag per post, which would only have been good enough for number 16 in 2020.
And the other first in this year’s “Instagram Rich List:” “The Rock” is the first person not associated with the Kardashian-Jenner Clan to top the list.
USA dominant; just 1 European in the TOP-10
The industry-wide list consists of 100 spots, 55 of which are occupied by stars, athletes and influencers from the USA. Second with 12 representatives is the UK with 12, Europe (soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is the only European to crack the top 10) and South America, each with 9, then comes Africa with 7, Asia with 5 and Australia with three (including fitness influencer Kayla Itsines, who was on stage at OMR18). Another two OMR Alums ranked in the top 100: global pop star Billie Eilish, who met up with Philipp Westermeyer in Berlin last summer for an episode of the OMR Podcast, came in at number 22 on the list (346k per post) and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, also a former OMR podcast guest chatting in the Fiete Gastro takeover with German celeb chef and old-school Oliver buddy Tim Mälzer, just snuck into the top 100 in 98th place (19k per post).
