What 40,000 Paid Placements Tell Us About Fair Creator Rates in 2026

Most brands price a creator deal against one data point: the number the creator sends back. Harpper prices it against 40,000.

That's the size of the paid placement dataset behind every fair-rate calculation in the platform — real deals, real deliverables, real spend, refreshed continuously as new campaigns close. It's the difference between negotiating from a single anecdote and negotiating from a market.

Three things the index makes obvious that a single quote never will:

Rate cards are aspirational, not historical. The number a creator sends is what they'd like to earn, not what comparable creators with comparable audiences are actually being paid. Across mid-tier fitness creators (100–250K followers) in Q2 2026, the median ask sat at £6,000 for a single Reel and three Stories. The market median for that exact deliverable set, drawn from placements that actually closed, was £4,900. The benchmarked fair rate — adjusted for audience overlap and in-market percentage — was £4,200.

Follower tier explains less than you'd think. Two creators at 180K followers can have fair rates £1,500 apart once you control for engagement rate, CPM, and how much of their audience is actually in your target market. Tier-based rate cards flatten all of that away.

The gap compounds across a program. One overpaid deal is a rounding error. Twenty overpaid deals a quarter, at the average £1,780 gap Harpper sees between asking rate and fair rate, is real budget — often the difference between funding three more creators or not.

The index isn't a ceiling. It's a floor for the conversation: a number you can defend in a negotiation, and one your finance team can defend in a budget review.

See what your own past campaigns should have cost. Start the 14-day trial — we'll re-price three deals you've already signed.