Influencer tiers by followers: how vexo.club sorts creators into Micro, Mid-tier, Mega and Celebrity

A creator on the vexo.club roster is placed in one of four tiers: Micro, Mid-tier, Mega or Celebrity. The tier is not a label the desk chooses. It is read from one number, the follower count of the creator’s largest single platform, and it falls in one of four bands: Micro at 10K–50K, Mid-tier at 50K–500K, Mega at 500K–5M and Celebrity at 5M+. This article is the rule in full: where each band starts and ends, how a creator is placed, what happens at an edge or when a count moves, and how a brand browses each tier. What the tiers tend to cost, engage and return is a different question, set out in micro vs macro vs celebrity influencers in marketing.

The four tiers, by followers

The bands are fixed. Micro creators have between 10K and 50K followers on their largest platform. Mid-tier creators have between 50K and 500K followers. Mega creators have between 500K and 5M followers. Celebrity creators have 5M or more followers. The lower edge of a band belongs to it and the upper edge belongs to the next: a creator with exactly 50K followers is Mid-tier, and one with a single follower fewer is Micro.

The bands step up by a multiple, not by an equal number of followers. Mid-tier starts at five times Micro’s floor, Mega at ten times Mid-tier’s, and Celebrity at ten times Mega’s. On a ruler, the first three bands would shrink to a sliver beside the start of Celebrity, so the figure below orders the tiers on a rail instead: on a logarithmic scale, equal distances are equal multiples.

Each tier does a different job, and the desk casts it for that job.

• Micro. Close audiences in one language, hobby or city. The desk casts Micro creators for a market that needs a language or a neighbourhood no single big name covers, for reviews and unboxings close to the sale, and for testing several creative routes side by side.
• Mid-tier. Consideration where the product sells. The desk casts Mid-tier creators in the languages and cities where the product sells, and for work with codes, tracked links or whitelisted ads, where the result can be traced to the post that drove it.
• Mega. Launches and awareness, at media-property scale. The audience is wider, more mixed and less personal, so the work is judged on reach, completion and the conversation that follows, not on cost per acquisition.
• Celebrity. A launch moment, with an audience that follows the person. Shoot calendars fill first at this scale, so the desk books early and agrees rights and exclusivity in writing before the shoot.

Fig. 03 · At a glance

What each tier is for

How a creator is placed

The rule has three steps, and the desk does not apply it by eye. Read every platform account on the record. Take the one with the most followers. Find the band that count falls in. The result is the creator’s tier, and the account that put them there is named beside it.

The count is the largest single platform, never a sum, because audiences overlap. The same person can follow a creator on Instagram and on YouTube, so a total of the two is a ceiling nobody reaches. The reasoning is the same one that keeps reach and followers apart, set out in what we count when we count reach. A second account on the same platform is its own row on the record and is not added to the first.

The tier is derived, not stored. Nobody types it into a record, and a creator cannot ask for a higher one. A profile prints the exact count, the platform it comes from and the tier as a chip beside it, in the form “Mega creator · 500K–5M on YouTube”.

Fig. 05 · At a glance

What a tier is counted on

Edge cases, and when a tier moves

Most creators sit well inside a band. These are the cases that do not.

• A creator on the line. The lower edge is inclusive. Exactly 50K followers is Mid-tier, exactly 500K is Mega and exactly 5M is Celebrity.
• One big platform, one small. A creator with a YouTube channel in the Mega band and an Instagram account in the Micro band is a Mega creator. The smaller account does not pull the tier down, and the larger one is not added to it.
• Two accounts on one platform. Each is its own row. The larger of the two is the one that counts, and the two are not combined.
• A count that moves. The tier moves with it: up when a count passes the next band’s floor, down when it falls under its own. Nobody moves a creator by hand.
• Under the floor. A creator with fewer than 10K followers on every platform has no tier: no chip and no tier page. The desk works with creators from 10K followers on one platform.

Where a count comes from decides how fresh it is. Instagram counts are entered by the desk and carry the date they were read. YouTube counts are read from the YouTube Data API and carry the date of the reading. A count with no date, or an old one, is flagged for the desk to re-check, and a sudden large fall in a YouTube count is held for a person to look at, so one bad reading does not move a creator down a tier. Saving a creator’s record refreshes the roster and the tier pages, so a new count moves the creator at the next refresh.

Fig. 06 · At a glance

What happens on a boundary

Why there is no nano tier

Many rate cards start with nano, the creators under about 10K. The roster does not. The desk works with creators from 10K followers on one platform, which is also the floor of the creator application, so Micro is the lowest tier and nothing sits beneath it. A creator under 10K has no tier at all. Why a brief of many very small creators costs more than it looks is set out in why nano creators are not cheap.

How the trade’s words map onto four bands

Nano, micro, macro, mega and celebrity are the words a brand hears. They are not a standard. Rate cards, platforms and agencies draw them in different places, and the roster’s bands are sized for Indian audiences, so five words and four bands do not line up one to one. The table gives the common reading each word carries and where it lands on the roster.

Read across and the overlap is plain. The trade’s “micro” covers the whole of the roster’s Micro tier and the lower end of Mid-tier. “Macro” covers the rest of Mid-tier and the lower end of Mega. “Mega” and “celebrity” are used loosely, and each can mean either of the two largest bands. When a brief says “micro” or “macro”, name the band you mean and the desk will read it as that band.

How a brand browses each tier

Start at the roster, where the four tiers are the first choice. Each tier with a creator has a page of its own: Micro creators, Mid-tier creators, Mega creators and Celebrity creators. A tier page lists the creators with consent on file for a public profile, says how the desk casts the tier and answers the questions brands ask about it. Under the list, “Browse by niche” links to the niches that tier’s creators carry, and each niche has a page too.

How many creators sit in a tier changes as the roster does, so the count is on the page and not in this article. A tier with no published creator has no page, and its card on the roster opens the brief with that tier named instead. The desk casts beyond the page as well: the roster shows creators with consent on file, and a brief can name a tier, a niche, a language and a city. How the roster counts is set out in what we count when we count reach.

Fig. 08 · At a glance

How a brand browses the roster by tier

Using a tier well

A tier tells a brand how large a creator’s largest audience is. It does not say whether that audience is the right one, in the right city and language, or whether its following is real. That is the audience check, and it comes before the tier does any work: how to check an influencer’s audience before you pay sets out the order. The tier then helps with the question it can answer, which job a creator of that size is built for.

The desk works this way on every brief: one operator from shortlist to last report, and a creator shortlist in 18 hours. Browse the creators on the roster, read the guide to micro influencer marketing if the brief is built on many small voices, or send the desk a brief with the objective, the budget band, the market and the timeline.

Questions brands ask

What are the influencer tiers on vexo.club? There are four, by the followers on a creator’s largest single platform: Micro at 10K–50K, Mid-tier at 50K–500K, Mega at 500K–5M and Celebrity at 5M+. Nothing sits under Micro.

How many followers does a micro influencer have? On the vexo.club roster, between 10K and 50K followers on their largest platform. Other rate cards cut the band differently, and the trade’s usual reading runs wider, so check which one a quote is using.

Does the desk add a creator’s followers across platforms? No. The tier reads the largest single platform and never a sum, because audiences overlap and a summed count is a ceiling nobody reaches. A second account on the same platform is its own row and is not added to the first.

Why is there no nano tier? The desk works with creators from 10K followers on one platform, so the desk lists no creator with fewer. Micro is the lowest tier, and a creator under 10K has no tier at all.

What happens when a creator’s followers cross a boundary? The tier is read from the record each time and is not stored, so it moves with the count, at the next refresh after the record changes. The lower edge of each band is inclusive, so a creator exactly on a boundary takes the higher tier.

Which tier should a brand start with? The job decides. Micro creators suit a market that needs a language or a neighbourhood, and work close to the sale. Mid-tier creators suit consideration where the product sells. Mega and Celebrity creators suit launches and awareness. Many plans use more than one tier, each judged against its own job.

Can I see every creator in a tier? The tier pages list the creators with consent on file for a public profile. The desk casts beyond them for a brief, so send the objective, the markets and a budget band, and the shortlist comes back in 18 hours.