The formula
(likes + comments) ÷ views × 100
A video with 12,000 views, 540 likes and 60 comments has an engagement rate of 5%.
That is 600 reactions out of 12,000 people who watched.
What counts as good
- Under 2%: below typical. People watch, but few of them react.
- 2% to 5%: the healthy band most channels sit in.
- Over 5%: excellent. This is the number to put in a pitch.
Why views, and not subscribers
Some tools divide by subscribers instead.
That flatters a channel whose old subscribers stopped watching, and punishes a new one whose video reached strangers.
Dividing by views asks a simpler question: of the people who watched, how many cared enough to react?
Small numbers lie
A video with 40 views and 6 likes scores 15%.
That is not a great channel.
It is a small sample.
For a channel-wide number, add up the likes, comments and views of your last ten videos and divide once.
Averaging ten percentages instead lets the smallest videos pull the result up, and brands have learned to distrust a figure built that way.