📊 How We Estimate Instagram Feed Impressions
Impressions are an estimate of how many times a post was seen. Since Instagram doesn’t always provide exact impression data, we’ve developed a formula to give a reliable estimate based on a brand’s number of followers and how many likes a post received.
Here’s how it works:
🔧 The Two Key Ingredients:
Number of Followers – The larger your audience, the more people potentially saw your post.
Number of Likes – Likes help us understand how engaging the post was.
📐 The Estimation Logic (In Simple Terms)
If a brand has almost no followers, we assume impressions are very low — roughly 1.5x the number of likes.
For brands with more followers, we:
Estimate that about 15% of followers saw the post — this is a baseline.
Apply a small adjustment for smaller accounts to avoid overestimating (this uses some math magic to make the formula more accurate for different audience sizes).
Then we adjust that estimate based on how many likes the post got. If likes are low compared to follower count, we slightly reduce the estimated impressions (since the post likely didn’t perform well or reach as many people).
✅ In Short:
Estimated Impressions = a percentage of your followers (+/-) adjusted based on engagement (likes)
This approach ensures that our estimates are:
Scaled properly for both large and small accounts
Sensitive to how well the content actually performed
📊 How We Estimate Instagram Story Impressions
Instagram Stories don’t always provide public impression data. So, we’ve developed a data-informed model to estimate how many people likely saw your story, based on your follower count and the time you posted it.
🔧 Two Key Factors We Use:
Your Follower Count – This gives us a starting point to estimate how many people could see your story.
Time of Day Posted – Stories perform differently depending on when they’re shared, so we adjust impressions accordingly.
🧠 The Estimation Logic (Plain English)
Step 1: Calculate a Baseline Impressions Estimate Based on Followers
Depending on how many followers your brand has, we assume a certain portion of them saw your story. These percentages vary based on follower count:
Follower Count | Baseline Estimate |
Up to 500 | ~35% of followers |
501 to 2,000 | ~25% of followers |
2,001 to 10,000 | ~6% of followers |
10,001 to 50,000 | ~3.5% of followers |
50,001 to 250,000 | ~3% of followers |
Over 250,000 | ~1.5% of followers |
We also include small fixed adjustments in some ranges to make the estimates smoother.
Step 2: Adjust Based on Posting Time
We found that timing matters. So, we tweak the impressions depending on what hour the story was posted.
Early morning posts (e.g., 6–8 AM) tend to perform better.
Late night or midday posts tend to get slightly less reach.
We calculate a time modifier that adjusts your baseline up or down depending on the hour posted. The earlier you post in the day (closer to 8 AM), the higher your multiplier — up to 30% more reach. Posting closer to 8 PM or later leads to lower adjustments.
✅ In Short:
Estimated Impressions = a percentage of followers (based on size) × a time-of-day multiplier
This allows us to give you realistic and nuanced estimates that reflect how both your audience size and your posting strategy influence visibility.