Methodology
Every HDBND value is a range, built from the deliverable up: a base rate for one post, adjustments with published values, then a campaign and a year. This page shows each step and its numbers, so you can check our work.
Fair market value is what an unaffiliated brand would pay a comparable athlete for the same deliverables. That is the question NIL Go, the College Sports Commission's clearinghouse, asks of a deal, so HDBND prices each deliverable (one post, one reel, one story) and compares it with athletes on the same platform with a similar audience.
Two things follow. The unit is the deliverable, not the athlete, because a deal is reviewed line by line. And "comparable" is a claim about a group, so each rate is ranked against athletes of the same platform and follower tier and carries that percentile.
Every figure is a low, middle and high range. The method never returns a single number without the range around it, and it returns no number at all when it isn't confident enough (see How sure we are).
The base rate for each deliverable comes from the first of three sources we have: a market price range for that athlete's account, the middle of comparable athletes' prices, or a transparent CPM model built from followers and engagement. The market midpoint is the same suggested price the free value calculator shows.
| Source | Low / middle / high | When we use it |
|---|---|---|
| Market | The account's priced range for that deliverable; middle = midpoint | The account has a market price range (from our audience-data provider, InsightIQ) |
| Comparable athletes | 25th / 50th / 75th percentile of comparable athletes' market midpoints | No market range, but enough athletes on the same platform and follower tier |
| CPM model | Estimated reach × $15 (low) to $40 (high) per thousand, × the deliverable factor | Neither of the above |
The CPM model estimates reach as 3% of followers, scaled by engagement (engagement rate ÷ 2, capped at 2×), and never below 1% of followers. It prices one static post. Other deliverables scale from it: a carousel is 1.1×, a reel 1.4×, a story 0.35×, a video 1.5× and an X post 0.6×.
Follower tiers are the usual influencer bands: under 1,000; 1,000 to 10,000 (nano); 10,000 to 50,000 (micro); 50,000 to 500,000 (mid); 500,000 to 1 million (macro); and over 1 million (mega).
Three multipliers adjust the base rate: competition level, recent follower growth and, for the CPM model only, audience quality. Each one is 1.0 when we don't have its input, so missing data never moves a rate. Rates round to the nearest $25.
| Multiplier | Value | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Level | College 1.0, pro 1.5, high school 0.75, other 1.0 | Every source, unless the comparable group was already matched by level |
| Momentum | 1 + 0.5 × follower growth over the last 3 months, kept between 0.85 and 1.25 | Every source |
| Audience credibility | Credibility ÷ 0.75, kept between 0.5 and 1.1 | CPM model only |
| US audience share | 0.5 + 0.5 × (US share ÷ 0.6), kept between 0.5 and 1.15 | CPM model only |
The audience multipliers apply to the CPM model alone because a market price range already accounts for credibility and location. Applying them twice would double-count.
Momentum is bounded so that one viral month can't triple a rate, and a falling audience can't erase one.
A campaign is a fixed bundle of deliverables per platform, and a year is six campaigns. On Instagram a campaign is one static post, one reel and two stories. The yearly figure rounds to the nearest $100.
| Platform | Deliverables per campaign |
|---|---|
| 1 static post, 1 reel, 2 stories | |
| TikTok | 2 videos |
| YouTube | 1 video |
| X | 4 posts |
| 2 posts | |
| Any other platform | 4 of its highest-priced deliverable |
Deals an athlete closed in the last 12 months pull the yearly estimate toward what they were actually paid, but harder upward than downward. Closing more than the rate card predicts proves demand. Closing less usually means the athlete undersold, not that the audience is worth less.
The pull grows with the number of deals, reaching full strength at four. At full strength the estimate moves 70% of the way to the realized total when deals beat the rate card, and 30% of the way when they fall short. A deal split between several athletes counts as each athlete's share.
A deal recorded by a brand that the athlete hasn't confirmed is a claim, not realized money, so it doesn't count.
Each result carries a confidence score from 0.05 to 0.95. It starts from the best source we had and moves with corroborating deals, data age and audience size. Below 0.30 the result is "not enough data" and no dollar figure is shown.
| Starting point | Score |
|---|---|
| 3 or more realized deals | 0.90 |
| Market price range | 0.70 |
| Comparable athletes | 0.50 |
| CPM model | 0.30 |
| A deal within 0.5× to 2× of the yearly estimate | +0.10 |
| Audience data older than 180 days | −0.20 |
| Under 1,000 followers | −0.15 |
A college athlete with 50,000 Instagram followers, 4% engagement and market price ranges of $500–$900 for a post, $800–$1,200 for a reel and $150–$250 for a story comes out at $2,100 per campaign and $12,600 a year at the middle of the range.
| Line | Low | Middle | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static post | $500 | $700 | $900 |
| Reel | $800 | $1,000 | $1,200 |
| Story | $150 | $200 | $250 |
| Campaign (1 post, 1 reel, 2 stories) | $1,600 | $2,100 | $2,600 |
| Year (6 campaigns) | $9,600 | $12,600 | $15,600 |
Add four deals totalling $30,000 in the last year and the yearly middle moves to $24,800 (70% of $30,000 plus 30% of $12,600), with confidence 0.90. The same athlete as a professional would be $1,050 per static post.
This is an estimate of market value, not an appraisal, an offer or a prediction of what NIL Go will decide. Several values above are starting assumptions we are still calibrating against real deals, and we will update this page when they change.