NYC influencers: 37 New York Instagram creators, measured (2026)

These are 37 Instagram creators who live and post in New York City, from 1,500 followers to 1.3 million. Each one comes with numbers from posts we measured: followers, the engagement rate of a typical post, how often they post, and a recent post you can open. We picked them from 8,863 public accounts with an NYC location in their bio that Virev's crawler tracks, then read every profile by hand on October 2, 2026.

Most NYC influencer lists rank by follower count and stop there. The top search result for "influencers in NYC" lists 100 names with followers and growth, and hides contacts behind a paywall. It has no engagement rate, no example post and no note on which brand each creator suits. This list has all three, and it covers nano creators that the big lists skip.

The engagement rate in this article is the typical-post rate: likes plus comments on the creator's median post out of the 12 most recent, divided by followers. One viral reel does not move it. Run any other account through the same math with our Instagram engagement rate calculator.

Nano creators in NYC (1K to 10K followers)

Nano creators are neighborhood reviewers, teachers and community organizers. Their typical post reaches 3.37% of followers across all creators we track. Most of the eight below beat that.

Alexa Michelle (@heretoventinyc)

1.5K followers, typical post 10.6%, 2.2 posts a week. Short reels from Astoria and Forest Hills: new cafes, small restaurants, pilates studios and spa openings, each with the address in the caption.

Example: 2 Queens small businesses you need to try, Aug 11, 437 likes and 35 comments. Fits: A Queens restaurant, studio or spa that wants a local reviewer. She already writes in a review format with the business tagged.

Carli Geller (@carli.geller)

1.7K followers, typical post 6.4%, 1.7 posts a week. A private yoga and breathwork teacher on the Upper East Side who posts class news, short story-time reels and studio photos.

Example: Story time, 10 students today, Aug 17, 208 likes and 42 comments. Fits: Wellness studios, yoga wear and coffee brands that want a teacher with a real local class list, not a model.

Aleena (@aguiltybite)

2.1K followers, typical post 18.8%, 5.5 posts a week. A Yelp Elite food account that posts almost every day: Korean BBQ and bubble tea in K-town, handrolls in Williamsburg, dessert pop-ups.

Example: Handroll heaven in Williamsburg, Aug 21, 548 likes and 108 comments. Fits: Restaurant openings and tastings. Every recent post has 58 to 108 comments on about 300 likes; read who comments before you pay for reach.

Ellen (@ellyeats_)

2.1K followers, typical post 5.8%, 4.1 posts a week. Another Yelp Elite reviewer: Japanese openings in Manhattan and Queens, monthly favorite bites, and recent Maui travel posts.

Example: A cozy izakaya in Woodside, Queens, Sep 3, 106 likes and 9 comments. Fits: Japanese and Asian restaurant openings that want a careful written review more than reach.

Ying (@itsyingggg_)

4.3K followers, typical post 9.3%, 0.8 posts a week. Douyin-style makeup, hair and outfit reels, posted from NYC and Beijing. She also runs an ASMR TikTok with about 300K followers.

Example: Build a dreamy jewelry stack with me, Aug 19, 195 likes and 8 comments. Fits: Cute-aesthetic beauty and accessory brands. She grew from 4,252 followers at our read to 7,799 on October 2.

Ray Zawodni (@rayzawodni)

5.0K followers, typical post 2.3%, 2.8 posts a week. An NYC comedian from Pittsburgh. His reels are podcast-style drafts and blind rankings: action heroes, beers, Marvel teams.

Example: The Fast and The Furious changed dudes personalities, Sep 3, 5,384 likes and 200 comments. Fits: Beer, snack and streaming brands that fit a sports-bar sense of humor. Comment counts run high for a 5K account.

Grief, Sweat & Tears (@griefsweatandtears)

7.3K followers, typical post 4.5%, 1.7 posts a week. A community account by Betsy Kaplan that runs workouts for grieving New Yorkers with local studios. Most events fill and add a waitlist.

Example: We hosted 100 grieving New Yorkers, Aug 6, 722 likes and 74 comments. Fits: Fitness studios and wellness brands that want an event partner with a real audience in the room. Treat it as a community partner, not a typical influencer.

Liz (@lizlaughlovenyc)

7.8K followers, typical post 3.1%, 16.0 posts a week. Face-to-camera rants about city life: street parking, taxis, runners, toddlers. She posted 16 times a week in our sample.

Example: Street parking, I think I speak for all New Yorkers, Sep 2, 4,872 likes and 1,002 comments. Fits: Parenting, family and local service brands that can take a joke. Her parking reel drew 1,002 comments.

Micro creators in NYC (10K to 100K followers)

Micro creators have a format they repeat: a numbered food series, a makeover in parts, a weekly recap. The median micro creator's typical post reaches 1.36% of followers.

Brittany Gibson (@brigibson)

11K followers, typical post 14.9%, 1.1 posts a week. Day trips, speakeasies, perfume bars and new restaurants in New Jersey and New York, each in a list format with "follow for more".

Example: This perfume bar in NYC lets you create a custom scent, Jul 21, 2,290 likes and 134 comments. Fits: Venues and experiences across NJ and NYC. Her typical post reaches 14.9% of followers, more than ten times the micro median.

Chloe (@pickle.chlo)

18K followers, typical post 7.2%, 0.6 posts a week. A Taiwanese creator in NYC who writes food guides: Taiwanese spots, Restaurant Week picks, cafes.

Example: Another Taiwanese restaurant in town, Aug 9, 2,820 likes and 47 comments. Fits: Asian restaurants and Taiwanese food brands. She posts less than once a week.

Andrew and Serena (@andsercoffee)

21K followers, typical post 9.7%, 1.5 posts a week. A couple who build "coffee omakase" drinks at home: a pear miso tart coffee, a mocha from a real cacao pod, Japanese iced coffee.

Example: The Japanese Iced Coffee, Coffee Omakase Ep 18, Jul 23, 4,294 likes and 46 comments. Fits: Coffee, tea, and kitchen tools. The account grew from 20,677 followers at our read to about 48K on October 2.

Tahira Foster (@iamtahira)

21K followers, typical post 11.5%, 1.4 posts a week. Recaps of Lioness and House of the Dragon, red carpet fashion reviews, and some skincare empties. About 140K followers on TikTok as well.

Example: Emmys 2026 red carpet fashion review, Sep 15, 780 likes and 48 comments. Fits: Streaming launches and beauty brands. Her recap reels draw 180 to 480 comments on 21K followers.

Grayson McFarlin (@graysondrake)

22K followers, typical post 7.3%, 0.6 posts a week. An NYC runner who posts carousels of training days and races, including the London Marathon. A new post comes about every other week.

Example: Ideal track sesh, Aug 27, 1,739 likes and 46 comments. Fits: Running shoes, recovery and nutrition. The one Icy Hot paid post got a fifth of a typical post.

Greta Dopp (@gretadoppp)

28K followers, typical post 5.5%, 1.6 posts a week. A Peloton instructor based in NYC: Pilates and yoga clips, studio life and travel.

Example: Have you tried my newest 45 min Pilates class, Aug 12, 3,202 likes and 310 comments. Fits: Activewear and wellness brands. Her comment counts (35 to 494 a post) are high for 28K followers.

Bridget Marr (@bridgetmarrr)

48K followers, typical post 9.2%, 0.9 posts a week. Photo carousels only, no reels in our sample: NYC summers, weddings, a Jo Malone event. Captions are one-line jokes.

Example: Poured one out for Lady Liberty, Aug 6, 3,414 likes and 8 comments. Fits: Fragrance, travel and event brands that want a feed post with a funny caption. Her typical post reaches 9.2% of followers.

Hattie Aspin (@hattieaspin)

53K followers, typical post 2.8%, 1.4 posts a week. Life in a Brooklyn rental: kitchen makeovers you can undo, auction furniture finds, cozy corners.

Example: Part 2 of my NYC rental kitchen transformation, Aug 18, 579 likes and 31 comments. Fits: Home goods, paint, lighting and furniture brands that sell to renters. Multi-part makeover series fit a sponsored arc.

Alexander Mutammara (@mutammara)

83K followers, typical post 2.1%, 1.8 posts a week. Food series with episode numbers: restaurants where he is a regular, corporate lunch breaks, what he eats in a day.

Example: NYC corporate lunch break series, episode 3, Aug 18, 1,271 likes and 40 comments. Fits: Fast-casual restaurants and food delivery near Midtown offices.

Varun Rana (@the_varunrana)

90K followers, typical post 2.0%, 4.7 posts a week. Short sketches about burnt-out office life and tech. He has run paid posts for ChatGPT and an online degree program.

Example: I had to eat slop bowls at my desk for this decade, Aug 18, 1,877 likes and 65 comments. Fits: Software, AI and career products that want to reach young office workers. Both paid posts fell well below his typical post.

Elizabeth Fowler (@elizabethfowlerx)

93K followers, typical post 3.8%, 0.7 posts a week. Restaurants, hotel spas, pop-ups and date ideas in Manhattan, plus trip guides such as Newport.

Example: Cutest and most romantic spot in New York City, The Pierre, Aug 23, 3,170 likes and 35 comments. Fits: Hotels, restaurants and brand pop-ups. Her L'Occitane pop-up post did better than her typical post.

Mid-tier creators in NYC (100K to 500K followers)

At this size the gap between a creator's best post and their typical post gets wide. Read the typical-post rate, then look at how the big posts were made. The median mid-tier creator's typical post reaches 0.82%.

Bergen Flom (@bergenflom)

132K followers, typical post 0.9%, 3.7 posts a week. Reupholstered vintage chairs, apartment layouts, renter-friendly lamps and tips for finding a Brooklyn apartment.

Example: How I found my Brooklyn apartment, top 7 tips, Aug 16, 1,734 likes and 20 comments. Fits: Furniture, textile and home brands. Her typical post is 0.9%, about the mid median; one kitchen reel reached 61,551 likes.

Tinsley Crisp (@trendingwithtinsley)

142K followers, typical post 3.5%, 4.5 posts a week. A personal stylist who posts what she wears in NYC, small-wardrobe formulas and brand roundups. Most captions ask viewers to comment a keyword for links.

Example: Five brands to look cool without trying too hard, Aug 6, 33,152 likes and 2,637 comments. Fits: Fashion and accessory brands with affiliate links. The comment-for-link prompt lifts her comment counts, so judge her on likes and clicks.

Cookies N' Cream (@cookiesncreameats)

171K followers, typical post 1.6%, 0.6 posts a week. Two friends who try restaurants across the Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn and Flatbush, with the address in every caption.

Example: Are these the best cinnamon rolls in the city? A Lo Henny, Bronx, Aug 31, 2,735 likes and 42 comments. Fits: Neighborhood restaurants and food brands outside Manhattan. They post less than once a week.

Elena Joyce (@elenaajoyce)

191K followers, typical post 4.9%, 5.5 posts a week. Rainy NYC windows, Central Park walks, Brooklyn apartment prices and hotel guides for Japan and Vermont.

Example: What $4,950 gets you in a Brooklyn brownstone, Aug 12, 6,176 likes and 34 comments. Fits: Hotels, travel booking and home brands. Her typical post reaches 4.9% of followers, six times the mid median.

Eric King (@easygayoven)

200K followers, typical post 2.4%, 1.3 posts a week. A Brooklyn baker with a "United States of Cookies" series and corn desserts, with recipes on his newsletter.

Example: United States of Cookies, episode 3: Maryland, Jul 17, 78,492 likes and 2,621 comments. Fits: Baking ingredients and kitchen brands. His Lactaid ice cream cake post carried #Lactaid_Partner in the caption.

Dasom Lee (@explorewithdasom)

223K followers, typical post 0.8%, 3.5 posts a week. NYC mornings, free exhibits, day trips without a car and new brand pop-ups. She worked at Deloitte before this.

Example: $0 exhibit under Rockefeller, Aug 26, 1,990 likes and 40 comments. Fits: Brand pop-ups and launch events. One skyline reel reached 408,076 likes, but her typical post is 0.8%.

Kate Mackz (@katemackz)

253K followers, typical post 3.2%, 1.0 posts a week. She runs or walks with famous guests and interviews them: Broadway actors, athletes, Dancing with the Stars pros.

Example: Reece was just announced as Roxie in Chicago on Broadway, Aug 11, 26,934 likes and 22 comments. Fits: Sportswear and media launches that want a known guest on camera.

Melissa Male (@melissamale)

275K followers, typical post 2.0%, 3.0 posts a week. Coffee shops, Brooklyn walks in the fall, weekend stays upstate and Paris, in calm film-look reels.

Example: Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights in the fall, Sep 1, 10,721 likes and 72 comments. Fits: Coffee, hotels and travel brands.

Aba Asante (@abakasante)

275K followers, typical post 3.1%, 2.9 posts a week. Makeup tests on several skin tones, brow tutorials and an ADHD morning-routine series. Three paid posts in our window (NYX, L'Oreal, MAC).

Example: Glossier blush on 3 skin tones, Aug 14, 32,679 likes and 213 comments. Fits: Makeup brands with a shade range to show. Her three paid posts got 14% to 32% of her typical post.

Rachel Finley (@hydrationceo)

296K followers, typical post 0.6%, 7.7 posts a week. Acne and skincare routines, lip combos and Ulta hauls, posted almost 8 times a week.

Example: Trying to step out of my comfort zone with lip combos, Aug 15, 62,887 likes and 406 comments. Fits: Skincare brands that want volume and how-to content. Her typical post is 0.6%, under the mid median.

Mandy Ansari Jensen (@mandy)

392K followers, typical post 3.4%, 5.9 posts a week. A 40-something new mom and former therapist who posts memes, family moments and NYC nights out.

Example: Everybody watches women's sports, Sunglass Hut x NY Liberty, Aug 30, 12,504 likes and 36 comments. Fits: Baby, wellness and women's sports brands. She posts about 6 times a week.

Macro creators in NYC (500K+ followers)

Macro creators reach national audiences. All seven below name New York in their bio, and most of their content is shot there. The median macro creator's typical post reaches 0.57%.

Mei Liao (@daywithmei)

511K followers, typical post 5.0%, 1.0 posts a week. Two-time James Beard media nominee. Recipe reels on braises, steamed fish, fermented tofu and soy sauce, plus a cookware raffle that raised $37,260 for Feed the People Bed-Stuy.

Example: Infinite braise made with Lee Kum Kee soy sauces (#ad), Jul 15, 27,011 likes and 55 comments. Fits: Pantry, cookware and food brands with a story to explain. Her sponsored braise did better than her typical post (see the case below).

Jac (@lolfashiondump)

587K followers, typical post 1.5%, 5.1 posts a week. Bright outfits, nail days, flea markets and unboxings, posted about 5 times a week.

Example: Late night unboxing of the Kurt Geiger Wild Things collection, Aug 29, 4,730 likes and 28 comments. Fits: Fashion and accessory brands with loud designs.

Jully Patel (@just.jully)

727K followers, typical post 4.3%, 3.0 posts a week. Comedy reels and travel from Italy and India. Her Dunkin and NYX posts sat far under her typical post; her Jawai safari reel reached 234,088 likes.

Example: Orchard Street and a Dunkin' Pink Pineapple Refresher, Aug 4, 5,758 likes and 21 comments. Fits: Travel and hospitality brands that suit her own trips. Product placements did poorly in our window.

Kalita Hon (@kalitaku)

897K followers, typical post 2.0%, 0.6 posts a week. Wacky outfits, festival looks (Coachella, Gov Ball, the Met Gala) and style makeovers for her brother.

Example: Part 2 of giving my brother a style makeover, Aug 20, 4,411 likes and 41 comments. Fits: Fashion brands for event season. She posts less than once a week.

Jeffrey Harnish (@jeffrey_in_nyc)

1.1M followers, typical post 3.8%, 1.3 posts a week. Hidden rooftops, day trips by train, cheap eats in Chinatown, with exact directions in every caption.

Example: 3 free hidden NYC rooftops, Aug 5, 78,097 likes and 232 comments. Fits: Tourism, transit and experience brands. His Discover Boating day trip got 78% of his typical post.

Jumy (@jumybear)

1.1M followers, typical post 1.8%, 2.6 posts a week. Beauty treatments, NYC nights out, a first Yankees game and her own music, split between NYC and LA.

Example: First time at Yankees Stadium, Jul 22, 15,236 likes and 60 comments. Fits: Beauty and fashion brands that want a large NYC and LA audience.

Zachary Neman (@cheffinwithzach)

1.3M followers, typical post 1.6%, 1.1 posts a week. Restaurant-style dishes for home cooks: halal cart chicken, hash browns, Persian bread. Recipes live on his site.

Example: One-pot halal cart chicken over rice, Aug 24, 109,718 likes and 9,279 comments. Fits: Food, kitchen and grocery brands. The comment-for-recipe prompt gave this post 9,279 comments; his Graza paid post got 27% of his typical post.

NYC creators against all creators

New York does not have unusually engaged creators. We compared the 897 NYC accounts that Virev's profile model labels as individual creators with all 53,934 individual creators in our Instagram engagement rate benchmarks. In the three tiers below 500K followers, NYC creators sit within a quarter of a point of everyone else, and slightly below in two of them.

The average-formula columns use mean likes and comments over the same 12 posts, the formula most tools and our benchmark article use. They run higher because a few big posts pull the mean up. The macro row is the only one where NYC leads, and 32 accounts is too few to call it a pattern.

Fashion and music lead the NYC creator pool. Of the 897 labeled creators, 214 are in music and performance, 193 in fashion and style and 123 in food and drink. Beauty, fitness and travel each have fewer than 30, so a brand in those niches has a short list in this city.

Mei Liao's two sponsored posts

Mei Liao (@daywithmei) cooks Chinese home food for 511K followers from New York. Her typical post gets 24,332 likes and comments. Two of her summer posts carried #ad in the caption.

On July 15 she posted an infinite braise made with Lee Kum Kee soy sauces: beef shank, tofu and eggs, with the full recipe in the caption. It looks like any of her recipe reels. It got 27,066 likes and comments, 11% above her typical post. On August 3 she posted a tinned fish ice cream sundae with Patagonia Provisions and Straus Family Creamery. It got 8,728, about a third of her typical post.

Same creator, same summer, same disclosure. The sponsored post that looked like her normal cooking matched her normal reach. The novelty dessert did not. Three weeks after the sundae she ran a cookware raffle for Feed the People Bed-Stuy, a local food program, and her followers gave $37,260.

Across New York the pattern is the same. We found 773 posts with Instagram's Paid partnership label from 434 NYC creators. The median one got 48% of the likes and comments of the same creator's typical unpaid post, and 74% fell below it. The drop grows with size: nano creators kept 66% of their normal response, macro creators 25%.

Two paid posts in this list beat the creator's own median: Mei Liao's braise and Elizabeth Fowler's L'Occitane pop-up (124% of her typical post), which reads like her usual "free thing to do in NYC" reels. Jully Patel's NYX blush post (10%) and her #dunkinpartner post (17%) read like ads in a feed of comedy and travel. Before you book, open the creator's last paid posts and compare them with their normal ones. Our guide on checking a creator's sponsorship history walks through it.

How to use this list for brand work

• Compare a creator with their own tier. A 2% typical post is weak for a nano creator and strong for a macro one.
• Watch for comment prompts. Captions that say "comment LINK" or "comment recipe" send DMs and lift comment counts, as on Tinsley Crisp's and Zachary Neman's posts. Judge those accounts on likes and on clicks you can track.
• Read who comments when the count looks high for the account size. Steady comment counts on every post are worth a closer look.
• Ignore the one viral post. Dasom Lee has a 408,076-like reel and a 0.8% typical post. Our guide to comparing creators without letting one viral post dominate covers this in detail.

How we made this list and when we read the data

• Accounts: public Instagram accounts with 1,000 or more followers whose bio names New York City (NYC, New York, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Harlem, Astoria, Williamsburg or a pin with NY), or whose Virev profile summary says so. 8,863 accounts matched.
• Reads: Virev's crawler read the accounts between August 18 and October 1, 2026. We kept accounts with at least 6 measurable posts: 5,721. Of those, 4,315 are individual creators with NYC in the bio, by Virev's profile label or Instagram category, and 897 carry the full creator label used in the tier comparison.
• Posts: the 12 most recent feed posts at least 3 days old, not pinned, with likes visible, posted from February 22 to September 26, 2026.
• Engagement rate: likes plus comments on the median post, divided by followers at the read. Posts a week: the 12 posts divided by the days between the first and last.
• Picks: we sorted creators by niche and tier, dropped businesses, media pages, politicians and accounts run for children, and read the recent posts of each candidate. We kept creators who post about life in New York, posted in August or September 2026, and suit at least one kind of brand. On October 2 we opened all 37 profiles in a browser to check the bio and follower count.
• Contact details: this article shows public profile information only. It lists no emails or phone numbers.

Follower counts move. Andrew and Serena (@andsercoffee) went from 20,677 at our read to about 48K on October 2. Check the live count before you send an offer.

Find more NYC creators

The 37 creators above come from a pool of 4,315 measured NYC creators. Search NYC creators in Virev to filter that pool by niche, follower count and engagement, and see each creator's posts and business contact. Virev creator discovery explains what the search covers.