The short answer: A nano influencer has roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers. Most are not paid a fee; they are sent product. The reason to use the tier is efficiency: a nano and micro programme Augmentum Media ran for Lululemon delivered more than 7.1 million impressions at a £2.49 CPM with no influencer fees, while a mid-tier paid campaign using six creators averaging 235,000 followers came in at £16.34. Both were good results for their format. The nano programme reached a thousand people for roughly a sixth of the price. The trade-off is volume of management, not quality of content.

As of September 2026. Every figure attributed to Augmentum Media comes from a published case study. External definitions are attributed to their source.

How many followers does a nano influencer have?

There is no governing body and no official threshold, so the bands are conventions rather than rules. The widely used split puts nano creators at roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers, micro at 10,000 to 100,000, mid-tier at 100,000 to 500,000, macro at 500,000 to 1 million, and mega above that. Brandwatch uses the same broad definition.

Where the money is concerned, the exact line matters less than the floor. Augmentum Media works in a band of roughly 3,000 to 50,000 followers, with a hard floor around 3,000 and a ceiling of 100,000 to 150,000. Below about 3,000 followers an account usually cannot produce enough reach to justify the cost of picking, shipping and briefing, however good the content is. The full ladder is in our guide to types of influencers.

Do nano influencers get paid?

Usually not in cash. The standard arrangement is seeding: the brand sends product with no fee and no posting obligation, and the creator posts if they actually like it. That sounds like a worse deal for the brand until you look at what it filters. Paying a nano creator up front buys one post from someone who may never use the product again. Sending it free buys honest information about whether the product survives contact with a real user.

Some nano creators do get paid, and the sequence matters. In the programmes Augmentum Media builds, money enters after the content proves itself: creators who post well move onto trackable links and codes and earn commission, and the strongest content gets paid amplification behind it. That is the whole logic of influencer seeding, and it is why the tier is cheap to start and expensive to fake.

If you do pay a fee, our breakdown of UK influencer pricing covers what rate cards ask for against what gets negotiated.

What CPM do nano influencers actually deliver?

This is the question the tier debate should turn on, and almost nobody publishes a real number against it. Cost per thousand people reached is the only measure that lets you compare a free product send against a five-figure creator fee on the same axis.

Four programmes, four formats, four verified CPMs:

The spread is roughly six to one between the smallest tier and the mid-tier, on verified campaign data rather than estimates. The Fabletics number was 18 percent stronger than its own target and carried a 5.3 percent average engagement rate against a 1.5 to 2 percent benchmark, so this is not a weak paid campaign flattering a cheap one. It is what paying fees costs, even when the paid campaign goes well.

One caution on reading these numbers: a low CPM on seeded content is only meaningful if the content volume is real. Lululemon produced more than 1,300 creatives, an average of about 11.4 to 11.9 per influencer, which is what makes the denominator large enough to trust. Our post on earned media value explains why EMV should always be reported next to the cost CPM that produced it.

How do you find nano influencers?

At this tier, discovery is the job. One mid-tier creator takes one negotiation; the same reach in nano creators takes dozens of decisions, and that work does not shrink as the programme grows. It is the reason nano programmes stall at around 100 creators when they are run by hand alongside somebody's day job.

What a working process looks like in practice: on the Lululemon programme, Augmentum Media sourced more than 500 on-brand profiles a month and converted more than 60 percent of the creators approached into live campaign participants, with content live within two weeks of a creator saying yes. The opt-in rate is the number to watch, because it tells you whether your targeting is right before you have spent anything on shipping.

Follower count is the last thing to filter on. Comment quality, whether the creator replies to their own audience, whether they have posted about anything in your category unpaid, and whether their audience is in your market at all, all matter more. Our influencer outreach post covers what to send once you have a list, and the discovery guide sets out the vetting sequence.

What percentage of nano influencers become affiliates?

Between 15 and 25 percent, and on the best-run accounts around 35 percent. That range is the single most useful planning number in the model, because it turns a seeding budget into a forecast: seed 300 creators and you should expect roughly 45 to 75 of them to become people who actively sell for you.

It compounds in a way paid campaigns do not. Fussy ran for more than 20 months, seeding 250 to 300 creators a month, and grew to more than 1,750 active affiliates who drove 11,500+ new customers at a 5.12x return on ad spend and a customer acquisition cost under £13.96 including fees. Mother's Earth tripled its programme within two months of launch and expanded from the Netherlands into Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the same mechanism. NOOMA onboards 30 to 35 affiliates a month at twice its in-house conversion rate.

A nano programme is not a campaign. It is a recruitment funnel for the people who will sell your product for the next two years. The mechanics of the handover are in our brand ambassador programme guide and the influencer versus affiliate marketing comparison.

When are nano influencers the wrong choice?

Three cases, and being honest about them is more useful than defending the tier.

You need reach on a specific date. Seeded nano content arrives when creators feel like posting. If you have a retail listing going live on the 14th and need noise on the 14th, you need paid creators with contracted dates, or you need to start the nano programme months earlier. Huel's Target launch used more than 6,000 creators precisely because the timeline allowed for that scale.

The product is expensive or hard to ship. Seeding economics assume the unit cost of the product is low relative to the content you get back. A £200 device sent to 300 nano creators is a £60,000 experiment, and the maths stops working.

You have nobody to run it. This is the real failure mode. The tier is cheap in fees and expensive in hours: shipping, chasing, tracking, re-briefing. Brands that treat a nano programme as a free alternative to ads usually discover the cost was labour all along.

Are nano influencers better than micro or macro creators?

No tier is better. They answer different questions, and the mistake is picking one and defending it.

Nano and micro creators win on cost per thousand and on volume of usable content. Mid-tier and macro creators win on certainty: a named face, a contracted date, a known audience size. The productive approach is to treat tiers as a sequence rather than a choice. Augmentum Media seeds broadly at nano and micro, converts the creators who genuinely perform into affiliates, then puts paid budget behind the specific content that already worked, which is where a mid-tier creator can earn their fee.

The engagement-rate argument usually made for small accounts is weaker than it looks. Engagement rate falls as follower counts rise for structural reasons, so comparing the two directly flatters the smaller account. Compare on CPM and on cost per acquired customer instead. Our micro versus macro comparison runs that comparison in full, and influencer marketing KPIs covers what else to track.

What does a nano influencer programme cost to run?

The fee line is near zero and the other four lines are not. Budget for product cost and fulfilment, the labour to run discovery and outreach at volume, affiliate commission once creators convert, and paid amplification behind the content that performs.

The last line is where nano content earns twice. The Turmeric Co. programme seeded more than 2,700 influencers and generated over 4,500 content pieces, and using that library as ad creative cut creative testing costs by 55 percent, with more than 15 VIP creatives a month at an average cost under £90 per video. NOOMA produced more than 1,000 ad-ready creatives in nine months and scaled from roughly 100 to more than 250 Instagram posts a month with zero paid influencer spend.

Content you already own, from creators who already chose your product, is the cheapest ad creative most DTC brands will ever get. Our influencer marketing budget breakdown covers all five lines, and influencer whitelisting cost covers what to pay for the rights to run it as an ad.

Frequently asked questions

What does nano influencer mean?

A nano influencer is a social media creator with a small audience, conventionally 1,000 to 10,000 followers. The term describes audience size only. It says nothing about content quality, and the most common commercial arrangement is receiving free product rather than a fee.

How many followers do you need to be a nano influencer?

Roughly 1,000 followers at the bottom and 10,000 at the top, though the bands are conventions rather than official thresholds. For brand programmes the practical floor is higher: Augmentum Media targets a minimum of around 3,000 followers, because below that an account rarely generates enough reach to cover the cost of shipping product to it.

Do nano influencers get paid?

Most are not paid a cash fee. They receive free product with no obligation to post. Creators who post well and drive measurable sales are then usually moved onto an affiliate arrangement earning commission on trackable links and codes, which is how 15 to 25 percent of seeded creators typically progress.

How can I find nano influencers?

Search your own tagged posts and followers first, since people already buying your product are the highest-converting creators to approach. Then search hashtags and location tags in your category, and check comment quality rather than follower count. On one programme Augmentum Media sourced more than 500 on-brand profiles a month this way, with a campaign opt-in rate above 60 percent.

Which brands work with nano influencers?

Consumable DTC brands use the tier most, because the unit cost of the product is low and repeat purchase is the goal. Published examples include Lululemon, Fussy, The Turmeric Co., NOOMA and Mother's Earth, all of which ran nano and micro seeding programmes rather than paid campaigns with large creators.

What is a good CPM for nano influencer content?

On seeded nano and micro programmes with no influencer fees, verified campaign CPMs have landed between £2.49 and EUR 4.46. For comparison, a mid-tier paid campaign with creators averaging 235,000 followers delivered £16.34, and that was 18 percent better than its own target. Treat anything under £5 on a seeded programme as strong.

How many nano influencers do I need?

Work backwards from the affiliate target rather than from a reach target. If 15 to 25 percent of seeded creators become affiliates, then 300 seeded creators should produce roughly 45 to 75 active sellers. Programmes that run continuously at 250 to 300 creators a month have reached more than 1,750 affiliates over 20 months.

Are nano influencers worth it for a small brand?

They are usually the only tier a small brand can afford to run properly, because the cost is product and labour rather than fees. The constraint is time, not budget: discovery, shipping, chasing and tracking at volume is what stalls these programmes, so decide who owns those hours before you start.

Do nano influencers have higher engagement rates?

Typically yes, but the comparison is misleading. Engagement rate falls as follower counts rise for structural reasons, so small accounts will always look better on that metric. Compare tiers on cost per thousand people reached and on cost per acquired customer instead, which is where the six-to-one spread between nano and mid-tier actually shows up.

Can nano influencer content be used in paid ads?

Yes, and it is usually the most valuable thing a seeding programme produces, provided you agreed usage rights up front. One programme turned a library of more than 4,500 seeded content pieces into ad creative and cut creative testing costs by 55 percent, at an average cost under £90 per video.

How long before a nano influencer programme works?

First content can be live within about two weeks of a creator agreeing. Affiliate revenue takes longer, because it depends on the 15 to 25 percent conversion accumulating. One programme tripled within two months of launch, but plan on a quarter before the affiliate layer is producing meaningfully.

Is a nano influencer the same as a UGC creator?

No. A nano influencer posts to their own audience, so you are buying reach plus content. A UGC creator is paid to produce content you post yourself, with no audience involved. The two are often confused because the content looks similar, but only one of them reaches anybody on its own.

Let's talk

If you are weighing a nano or micro programme against paid creators and want the numbers checked against your own product cost and margin, let's talk. Augmentum Media builds seeding, affiliate and paid amplification programmes for health and wellness DTC brands, and the strategy guide covers the model in full.