Instagram Reels Stats and Performance Benchmarks By Industry

Short-form video and Instagram Reels continue to be one of the most powerful tools for driving reach and engagement on social media. But performance varies dramatically from one industry to the next. 

From engagement rates to views, shares, and saves, understanding how your category stacks up is essential for setting realistic goals and identifying opportunities to improve. 

To help marketers benchmark success, we analyzed Reels performance across 3.3K+ global brands to uncover the industries leading the way.

If one thing is true for Instagram Reels engagement rates, it is that expectations should vary by industry. While Reels are generally one of Instagram’s highest-performing content formats, the average engagement rates range from 0.1% to 0.5%, meaning some industries naturally generate 5x more engagement than others.

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Travel and Media and Entertainment lead the pack with the highest Reels engagement rates (0.5%). This is likely due to the visually driven, immersive content that has become a standard in these industries, alongside strong emotional triggers like aspiration, excitement, or humor. 

CPG, Food and Beverage, Publishing, and Luxury hold the middle ground between 0.3% and 0.4%, showcasing that these industries also have strong visual appeal, but face slightly different engagement dynamics. Product demos and sensory, crave-worthy content put these industries above the others. 

At 0.2%, Beauty, Retail, Wellness, and Children and Baby fall on the lower scale of engagement on Instagram Reels because these industries are very crowded and often face intense competition. Creative quality and authenticity are major differentiators that are needed for brands in these industries to stand out. 

The Home and Fashion industries see the lowest engagement rate at 0.1%. At first glance, this may be surprising because of how visual both of these industries are, but their low engagement is likely due to oversaturation in the market, longer purchasing cycles, and less frequent audience interactions.

While the average Instagram Reel generates 283K views, 182K reach, 1.3K shares, and 618 saves, performance (like engagement rate) differs significantly across industries. 

Media and Entertainment continues to lead on all fronts, demonstrating the potential of content designed for sharing. Publishing also performs exceptionally well, generating notable reach and the highest save rates, really showing the value of educational and informative content. 

Industries like Food and Beverage and Travel stand out for their shareability and save rates, while Luxury delivers above-average reach and views. Home and Wellness generate comparatively smaller audiences but still maintain solid save rates, indicating high-intent engagement. 

Fashion, Retail, and Children and Baby see lower overall distribution and engagement metrics. This could be reflective of the challenges of standing out in competitive or niche categories.

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The main takeaway? Instagram Reels success looks different across industries. Brands should benchmark performance against their category peers and prioritize the metrics that matter most to their audience.

For the latest round of Reels benchmarks, Dash Social pulled a sample of over 3.3K global brands on Instagram from July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025 to determine the average performance against predetermined KPIs below. 

These Reels benchmarks include organic, boosted, and promoted content (excluding ads) and apply to handles with at least 1K followers, spanning across customers and non-customers.

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If you want to take your brand's Reels strategy to the next level, Dash Social's Instagram Insights will take you there. With both Reels and Feed insights, Dash Social also gives you an understanding of which user-generated content performs best for your account. 

Another feature that marketers love for Instagram is LikeShop. This feature creates a seamless checkout experience from your feed to a custom shoppable gallery or landing page of your choice.

Of course, you'll need to measure your content strategy's impact on your goals and whether you meet or exceed your industry's benchmarks. Competitive Insights and Benchmarking provides custom data like Effectiveness Rate and Entertainment Score while tracking your competitors' content, so you have your finger on the pulse of everything happening in your social landscape.

How do you measure Instagram Reel performance?

You can measure the performance of your Instagram Reels in a few different ways. These all depend on which goals and business objectives you’ve identified in your Instagram strategy.

Some of the most common metrics to measure the impact of Instagram Reels are engagement rate, followers gained, reach, likes, comments, shares, and website traffic. Brands should also use average benchmarks and industry Reels performance measures, if available, to gauge their performance against competitors. 

How can I improve my Instagram Reel performance?

While there are many ways brands can improve their Instagram Reels performance, knowing what improvements will actually benefit your account is another story. 

Before tweaking your entire visual strategy, make sure you publish during the best times to post, optimize captions with trending Instagram hashtags and keywords, and dive into social media analytics and determine which content resonates best with your audience. Then, refine your strategy to create similar content.

Which industry receives the most Instagram Reels views?

According to Dash Social’s most recent benchmark data, the media and entertainment industry receives the most Instagram Reels views (545K) by a large margin. The next closest industry is publishing with 434K average views on Reels.

How does follower size affect Instagram Reels performance?

When it comes to follower size and Instagram Reels, larger audiences typically drive greater scale, while smaller audiences often drive stronger engagement. Success should be measured against competitors rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach when looking into performance. 

How do engagement rates vary across industries?

Across industries, engagement rates vary anywhere from 0.1% to 0.5%. Media and entertainment, publishing, travel, and CPG industries are on the higher end of the scale, while home and fashion industries are closer to the lower end.