Instagram Ad Cost Calculator 📣 Calculate by Keyword Or Account

Instagram ad strategies never work out of blind shots. It’s all about having accurate figures to make data-driven decisions. You need to know how much money your top competitors are pumping in to manage your budget better. Unfortunately, getting those insights is almost impossible with more calls to social media privacy. Marketers are guessing in the dark as data privacy tightens.

That’s where our Instagram ad cost calculator comes in. We use advanced algorithms to give very accurate estimates of the Instagram ad costs of a social media handle. All you need to do is drop the username. Read on to learn what it is and how to use our free Insta ad cost calculator to improve your strategies.

How Instagram Ads Work?

Instagram ads are one of the best non-intrusive methods to reach your audience through feeds, Stories, Reels, and so on. But not many know how they work.

It all begins when advertisers select the campaign goal: increase brand awareness, drive sales, improve website traffic or something else. Similarly, they must define the target audience using age, location, interests, etc. 

As the next step, advertisers must choose their budget along with the bidding strategy. It could be:

• Cost-per-click, where they pay each time someone clicks the ad.
• Cost-per-mille, where advertisers pay based on the number of people who see the ad. 

Instagram uses an auction system to show ads. Its main aim is to make sure that the most relevant and high-quality ads are displayed first.

Even though the Instagram algorithm tries its maximum to deliver your ads to the right audience, always keep in mind that your competitors are also running behind the same. That’s why knowing their cost strategies can bring you to the forefront.

Seeing when your competitors ramp up ad spending can tell you when markets are heating up or cooling down. You can even use competitor ad cost data to learn from their successes and failures.

When To Calculate Instagram Ad Costs?

Check out some scenarios when you need to calculate Instagram ad costs:

• Understanding sponsored post costs way before new campaign launches can avoid overspending and budget scarcities. Thus, you will know exactly how much you will need to promote your products.
• When competition is intense, track their ad cost in order to better understand their strategy and how you might respond.
• While planning marketing budgets, estimate ad costs so that you can plan resources that operate all platforms without dropping out mid-campaign.

What is an Instragram Ad Cost Calculator?

An Instagram Ad Cost Calculator is an online tool that lets you know the cost of running ads on an account. It is completely free, without any ads or premium versions. You can use it to get data insights while placing ads on a new account. Similarly, brands can make use of the tool to get an idea of the industry standard cost of running ads on their accounts. 

Basic VS Advanced: What’s the Difference?

Grum Instagram ad cost calculator offers two options: Basic and Advanced. Under the basic option, you just need to enter the Instagram username. You can see the ad cost of the account based on the number of followers and engagement rate. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Our advanced version gives you a deep insight into the ad cost based on multiple variables. As the input, you must choose the content type, size of the brand, content whitelist, content rights, CTA, and exclusivity. Considering all these factors, we will display their earnings breakdown as estimated earnings per post and added earnings. You can also have a look at the engagement data of their past posts.

Main Features

What makes our ad cost calculator more interesting is our set of cool features. Have a look at them:

• Free and Unlimited: Grum ad cost calculator tool is completely free. And the best part is that you can access it without any daily quota restrictions.
  
  
• Easy User Interface: Getting relevant data must not be technically a big deal. That’s why we have set up the interface as easy as possible. It works like a charm across all devices. All you need to do is enter the input. Above all, there are no annoying ads to slow you down. 
  
  
• Privacy-First Approach: You can use our free Instagram ad cost calculator without any sign-ups. So, you need not enter any private information. All your prompt data will be set up for auto-deletion as we comply with all GDPR standards.
  
  
• Real-Time Accuracy: You need not enter the engagement data of the account manually. Our tool automatically fetches it from the official servers. That means there are no chances for any mistakes. You can get to know the most accurate results that are calculated with updated figures.
  
  
• Basic Cost Estimation: You just need to enter the username of an account. Within seconds, our system will fetch the data from the given account and display the estimated ad costs you need to incur.
  
  
• Shareable Reports: Tired of preparing Excel sheets? You can use the one-click share feature of our calculator to submit the live link to the report. 

How To Use Instagram Ad Cost Calculator? 

Using our free ad cost and earnings calculator is pretty simple. Check out the steps to follow:

1. Visit The Website

Go to the Grum website. Pick the Instagram ad cost calculator from the Free Instagram Tools dropdown menu. 

2. Enter The Input

As mentioned before, you have two options: basic and advanced. If you just need to have a quick overview of the cost that an account incurs on sponsored posts, the basic version is enough. You just need to type in the account username for that. But for advanced earning insights, go for the advanced version. There you need to input many details like:

• Content Type
• Size of the brand
• Will the brand whitelist the content?
• Is the brand requesting a direct CTA?
• Are any rights required for the content?
• Availability to the brand

3. View The Results

As soon as you hit the ‘calculate’ button, the system will start working automatically. First of all, it fetches all the required data, such as likes, posts, comments, etc., from the official Instagram API. Then, within seconds, it will do the calculations and display the results. You can have a look at the:

• Ad cost
• Engagement Rate
• Earnings Per Post
• Added Earnings
• Generic information like followers and number of posts
• Engagement data of past 6 posts

You can even click the link to see the live post.

4. Share The Report

No more screenshot compilations or Excel sheets. You can share the link to the report for an active collaboration. 

Why Use Instagram Ad Cost Calculator?

If used properly, the Grum Instagram ad cost calculator could be a kingmaker for your ad strategies. Check out why you must try it out:

• Plan Your Budget Scientifically

Budgeting holds an important place in any successful campaign. With our tool, you can plan it with sufficient data. It lets you have a glimpse of what competitors of your level are pumping into Instagram ads and influencer marketing and their ROI. That helps you allocate the resources effectively between multiple campaigns. Thus, you can stay within your budget. Every penny will be spent wisely.

• Competitor Analysis

Grum ad cost calculator helps you know the ad budget strategies of your competitors. You can check them regularly to spot any spending patterns. That makes it easier to utilize many opportunities early. Above ad campaign costs, you can even calculate their engagement rate. If used properly, all these data can keep you well ahead of the competition.

• Check Earning Insights

You can view the earnings per post and added earnings of an account through our free ad cost calculator’s advanced features. It lets you even pinpoint the extra value of offering content rights or CTAs in posts. You can analyze all these granular details to determine if an account is worth an investment or partnership. With such transparency, you can make informed decisions based on data. And if you want to uncover an account’s revenue more in detail, you can also use our instagram earning calculator.

• Save Time

Ad cost data is not publicly available on any platform. All you can do is keep a close eye on their Meta ad library account to see how often they run ads and make a very generic estimate. These may not be even close to the exact figure. Similar is the case with earnings and engagement rates. 

You can get all these advanced insights through our tool, within seconds. There is no cost and no limit to how many times or how much you can use the calculator. 

• Analyze Your Own Brand

An in-depth analysis of the ad spending and earning data of competitors lets you know where you stand exactly in the market. You can understand your market value and negotiate for better deals in influencer marketing. 

Factors Affecting Ad Cost

Simply knowing your competitor’s spending won’t help you implement better ad strategies. You need to have good technical knowledge of the factors affecting it. Have a look at them:

• Target Audience: Instagram works through an auction system in which the advertisers bid for their ads to be shown to a specific demographic. The narrower the demographic, the more competitive the space is. So, you need to spend more to reach them.
  
  
• Ad Placements: Placements are a part of the bidding process. In fact, Instagram does this after considering your objective and budget. Reels have varied costs. Stories are typically pricey as it has very high engagement rates, whereas Explore might be cheaper but reach more people.
  
  
• Ad Format: Video ads, particularly those that are longer or interactive, tend to be more expensive than static images. That’s because of two main reasons. First of all, videos require a higher production value. Secondly, they have higher engagement chances and take away more user time. So, the platform charges more. Carousel ads can also be more expensive since they offer the opportunity for storytelling through multiple images or videos.
  
  
• Time: Ad costs are adjusted also according to the real-time demand. Advertising at peak times such as evenings or weekends, when there are more users online, will cost more because of higher competition for the ad space. Similarly, seasonal trends can also spike ad costs.
   
• Industry Competition: The dynamics of an auction mean that in a busy market, you might have to pay more for ad placements. So, highly competitive industries such as fashion or tech tend to cost more due to the increase in the number of advertisers trying to reach the same audience.
  
  
• Ad Quality and Relevance: Just like any other social media platform, Instagram also values quality the most. The algorithm favors high-performing ads with lower costs. For that, it considers three main metrics: quality ranking, engagement rate ranking, and conversion rate ranking. If your ad is highly engaging (likes, comments, shares), it is considered more relevant, and this could decrease your cost. Want to make your post more engaged? Buy quality, real Instagram comments from us!
  
  
• Campaign Objectives: The platform optimizes the ad placement for your chosen result. The more complex your goals are, the higher the amount you need. So, conversion-driven campaigns are usually more expensive because they’re trying to drive tangible results like sales.
  
  
• Bidding Strategy: You can opt either for automatic or manual bidding. Automatic might save your pocket by finding the lowest effective bid. Yet, the manual gives you more control to save on less competitive times. But the catch over manual bidding is that you need to have an in-depth knowledge of market dynamics to execute it in the right manner.
  
  
• Call-to-action (CTA): Adding a strong CTA at the end, like ‘Swipe Up’ or ‘Shop now’ can increase your ad cost but drive better results.

Tips To Optimize Your Ad Spending

Instagram ads are not about spending less. It’s all about spending smarter. Check out some exclusive tips for that: 

1. Use Lookalike Audiences For Targeting

Target people who are similar to your existing customers instead of spreading out to broader groups. Luckily, Instagram has a lookalike feature that lets you reach out to a given audience’s behaviour and demographics. 

First of all, you must have a custom audience for that. Set your website visitors or email subscribers through the Facebook Ads Manager. Then, run a lookalike audience ad based on the data. It would perform better with lower costs per engagement.

Frequenntly refresh your source audience. Just as the identity of your favorite customers and product may change over time, your lookalike audiences should also update. This sharpens your targeting, thereby conserving your wasted ad spend.

2. A/B Testing Multiple Ad Formats

In fact, there is no winning formula for Instagram ads. What works for one brand may not work for you. You need to figure out the right strategy for your brand through consistent testing. 

That’s where the A/B testing feature of Instagram comes in. Here’s how to use it effectively:

• Test one variable at a time. For instance, you can test an image ad versus a video at first. The caption must remain the same for both versions. Next time, run the same ad with different captions. You can use our free Instagram caption generator to get catchy ad copies.
• Allocate a small portion of the budget to each version. Try to make it even.
• Measure all the major metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CTC) to decide which version delivers the best result.
• Spend the majority of your budget on the ad with the highest ROI.

3. Optimize Your Posting Times

Just like a social media post, timing matters a lot in ads. As a general rule of thumb, you must consider the time zone of your target audience. Try to post ads when your audience is more likely to be active. You can use Instagram insights to see when your posts receive more engagement. 

The more active your audience is when the ad is posted, the more engagement it gets. This, in turn, reduces the cost to a great extent. 

4. Use Frequency Capping

Repetitive ad exposure is frustrating for users and a waste of your budget. Frequency capping controls how many times your ads are displayed to the same user. Have a look at how to implement it:

• Set frequency limits within Facebook Ads Manager under the ‘Delivery’ section.
• Track the cost per thousand impressions. If the engagement drops drastically, adjust the cap accordingly.

5. Target Competitor’s Audience

In case you are new to Instagram ads, the best thing that you could do is target people who follow your competitors. They might be already interested in similar products or services. Check out how to do it:

• Go to Facebook ad manager.
• Pick the ‘detailed targeting’ section and enter competitor names under Interests.
• You can further filter it with demographic or behavioral characteristics to target even more precisely.

Such a targeted approach enables you to reach an already engaged audience. That reduces the cost of acquisition to a great extent.

6. Retarget Lost Audience

Lost leads are people who visited your website or clicked on your ad but did not convert. Retargeting is the best way to re-engage them at a lower cost. Such campaigns generally have a lower CPC and higher conversion rates. First of all, you need to set custom audiences for that.

You can use Meta Pixel to track visitors to your website, who were not converted. Bring them back by offering incentives like discounts. You can show them products they browsed to personalize their experience.

7. Monitor and Adapt

The digital environment is in constant flux. Real-time optimization is the only way to stay ahead. That’s why it’s very important to check out key metrics like CTR and CPC regularly. If some of them fall, don’t hesitate to pause ads that are not yielding results.

But never limit to your ad metrics. Use our Instagram ad cost calculator to get detailed insights on the spending and earning insights of your competitors. You can compare them side-by-side to optimize the budgeting strategies constantly.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 

How accurate is the Grum Instagram Ad Cost Calculator?

Our free Instagram ad cost calculator leverages real-time data directly from the official servers for maximum accuracy. But, at the same time, the accuracy of results also depends on your inputs. Wrong information can lead to inaccurate estimates. Although we cannot predict precise ad costs without market trends, our algorithm ensures it is as realistic as possible.

Can I calculate ad costs for private Instagram accounts?

No. Private accounts do not show followers and engagement metrics— the main metrics we use for ad cost calculation.

Can I use this tool to predict ad performance for new accounts with no ad history?

Yes. We predict the ad cost based on the follower count and engagement rate of the account.

I’m new to Instagram advertising. How can your tool help me?

In fact, beginners benefit the most from our free Insta ad cost calculator. You can use it to get a basic idea of how much you need to spend for ads based on your current engagement data. On top of that, you can even know your competitors’ ad spending and what they are earning. That lets you set more realistic budgeting strategies for your own ads.

What makes your tool different from other ad cost calculators out there?

Our Instagram ad cost calculator fetches data directly from the official API. So, the data will be more accurate and updated. We even go beyond the basics to show more detailed insights such as earnings per post, added earnings, engagement rate, and so on. 

Bottom Line

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Still paying marketing agencies to run ads for your brand? Use our Instagram ad cost calculator to plan a data-driven ad strategy. You can also get an inside scoop on the ad spending of your competitors to understand the industry standards. And, that too, for free. Try it out now!