Instagram’s large user base and high engagement rates make it a fantastic platform to get in front of your customers. What’s better is that the platform offers a wide variety of ads and excellent audience targeting, so you can pinpoint who you reach and how you reach them.
When you’re considering investing in this platform, one of the first questions that’ll pop up is how much do Instagram ads cost?
There are many results out there that share the costs per click, impression, and lead from Instagram ads. And the results can vary greatly.
For this guide, we reviewed several of the largest and best studies to compile average costs for Instagram ads for you. To help with your investigation, we also explain how Instagram ads work and why they’re worth the investment. Plus, we explore what influences their price and how to keep it as low as possible.
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How much do Instagram ads cost in 2026?
Based on current studies, the average cost per click on Instagram is between $0.40 and $2. On average, an engagement from an Instagram ad costs between $0.03 and $0.08. And the average cost of 1,000 impressions from an Instagram ad is between $2 and $6.
Let’s break these down.
Instagram cost per click (CPC)
We saw a significant range for the average CPC of Instagram ads, between $0.40 and $0.70.
There’s an important distinction to mention here. This number includes all ad clicks, such as expanding an ad or tapping the “like” button.
For ads with a destination URL, the cost per click-through to that destination was slightly higher, at around $0.50 to $1.20.
The cost per click to a URL destination is a bit higher than the overall cost per click in Instagram ads.
Instagram cost per engagement (CPE)
The average cost per engagement of Instagram ads is between $0.03 to $0.08.
This metric measures the average amount you pay each time someone interacts with your ad—such as liking, commenting, sharing, or saving the post.
Engagements are a good sign that people like your messaging and that you’ve hit the right audience target, but a like isn’t as valuable as a click, so the price you pay for one is less, too.
Likes on your Instagram ad are a sign of a good audience, message match.
Instagram cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
The cost per one thousand impressions from an Instagram ad ranges between $2 and $6 for better-performing campaigns and their respective ad sets.
Impressions are a popular goal to target, especially when you’re trying to maximize brand building.
Say you’re launching a new product, updating your branding, or opening a new location. You may not yet need people to take action. You could put a little money into promoting a post like this one to let your target audience know what’s coming up.
A low CPM is a good goal for awareness ads.
How do Instagram ads work?
Both Facebook ads and Instagram ads are run through Meta business tools. That’s where you’ll do things like set up campaigns, select your budget, choose your target audience, pick ad placements, and find optimization options. Similar to Facebook ads, your Instagram ads will run within the selected time frame, budget parameters, audience selection, and optimization goals.
You can manage both your Instagram and Facebook ads through Meta Business Tools.
Depending on your campaign objective, ads appearing on Instagram can have up to 18 call-to-action button options, can link to your website, and give users options to download applications or shop online stores.
If you’re ready to get started, check out this guide to getting started with Instagram ads. It has everything you need to set up your account and run highly profitable campaigns.
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What makes Instagram advertising worth the price?
Advertising on social media has become a cornerstone of many businesses’ marketing plans. Instagram ads, in particular, come with several compelling advantages.
Advanced targeting
Instagram now has over 3 billion monthly active users (that’s more than a third of the world’s population!).
While that’s impressive, what really hits home for marketers is that Meta offers an incredibly robust arsenal of audience and geographic targeting data for Instagram ads.
This advanced targeting is what makes Instagram ads work so well, as you can be incredibly prescriptive when targeting various audiences. Whether you are using native audiences based on interests, behaviors, or other demographics, or your own custom audiences built from your Pixel or SDK, email lists, or other sources, you can succeed in reaching the right people in your prospecting and retargeting campaigns.
Higher engagement rates
Instagram is known for its high engagement rates. A strong account can easily see 0.48% engagement across its posts. Compare that to the 0.15% engagement rate on Facebook, and you can see why Instagram is so prized.
Those rates include organic posts. You can expand your reach and visibility a lot with paid ads.
Using polls in your Instagram ads is a great way to boost their engagement.
While any form of visual content can perform well, brands typically see more engagement on video ads—about 38% more. As a visual platform, images and videos are more powerful in driving more engagement than on other, predominantly text-based social platforms.
External links
Instagram does not currently allow clickable links in organic posts. You can include a link in your caption or message, but the recipient has to copy and paste it into their browser or visit the link in your Instagram bio. With Instagram advertising, you can include outside links, which enables you to designate a destination URL to your website or another external URL.
To be able to better track website traffic from your Instagram Ads, it’s recommended to use your own domain as you should have your Pixel implemented there, whereas you may not have it on other website URLs that you don’t control.
Longer videos
Instagram Feed and Explore videos can be up to 60 seconds in duration, and while Stories are typically up to 15 seconds in duration, if you run ads in these three ad placements, you can have up to 2 minutes of video content. This gives you more opportunity to convey both your brand and the features and benefits of your offer through your products and/or services.
👋 Looking for more ways to drive people to your site? Free guide >> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website
Factors that influence Instagram ad costs
Similar to other platforms, Instagram ad pricing is influenced by a number of variables.
Campaign objective
Campaign objectives can cause your advertising costs to be automatically higher or lower, depending on which you choose and how it relates to where your target audience is in the funnel.
For example, if you select a brand awareness campaign objective, it will be lower in cost than something lower down the funnel, and that has a higher value objective, such as conversions. Having broader, colder audiences see your ad to drive brand awareness is a lower-value action compared to targeting users further down the funnel who are more familiar with your brand and offerings and ready to open their wallets or take a higher-value action.
Instagram ads focused on leads and conversions will likely be more expensive than awareness ads.
Audience size
If you are targeting broader audiences, they are typically lower in cost as there is less competition for a group of people. As you narrow your audiences, perhaps by reducing their geotargeting or age ranges, you may see the price go up as competition for those eyeballs increases in parallel.
Retargeting audiences are typically smaller as well, which is why we often see higher costs in retargeting campaigns.
Budget
Budget also influences Instagram ad costs because if you have a small budget, it may take longer to get out of the Learning Phase of your campaign or ad set.
Costs may be more expensive at first before the system learns and understands your campaign type and optimization goals, and how your audience engages with your ads. If your ads are well-engaged with, Facebook and Instagram will reward you with lower costs over time.
High engagement on ads can lead to lower costs over time.
Click-through rate
If CTR is low, then we may see higher costs as the system thinks there may be some disconnect between your target audience and what you’re messaging in your ads.
You want your ads to resonate with your target audience, and CTR is a strong indicator of that. Aim for a healthy CTR, which is about 2%. If you have a healthy CTR, you should see your costs decrease.
💡 Free guide >> 12 Secrets to a Higher Click-Through Rate (& Lower Costs!)
Smart tips to lower your Instagram ad costs
Use these tips to keep costs low and results high with your Instagram ads.
Choose a funnel-appropriate campaign objective
Make the most of your budget by selecting funnel-appropriate campaign objectives to start.
If you are targeting colder, broader, prospecting audiences, test less expensive campaigns to introduce your brand to audiences with an awareness, engagement, or better yet, a website traffic campaign. That way, users who leave Instagram and get to your website are tagged with the Pixel so you can later retarget them if they don’t convert on that first click.
If you have a low-cost product that doesn’t need much research, impulse buys can be successful on Instagram. But more often than not, users will need to have several interactions with your brands in order to develop trust, perhaps do some shopping and comparing, and then come back to you through retargeting or other means to open up their wallets.
Use automatic placements
Another way to lower your Instagram costs is to use automatic placements at the ad set level and serve across both Facebook and Instagram.
With more placement liquidity, the system can use its algorithm to determine where to best serve your ads, giving you more options across both platforms and more ad placements, and reducing competition on Instagram’s three current ad placements, thereby lowering your costs.
Test ad variations
You can also lower Instagram ad costs by testing audiences with different ad variations. Change up the ad copy and creatives, plus try other images and videos. By running tests, you can learn what resonates with your audiences, which can improve your engagement rates and CTR, lower your costs, and make your budget go further.
Keep your Instagram ad costs in check
Instagram continues to grow, and the advertising options only become more robust. It’s not yet saturated, and it’s safe to assume that more ad placements will come our way.
Give Instagram Ads a test and see how it fares in comparison to Facebook ads and other advertising platforms you may be running on. It may end up being an important part of your funnel by driving more brand awareness and engagement, or it may become a primary source of revenue.
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