Former All Black Dan Carter tops Instagram's rugby earners

If you thought Dan Carter's Instagram was just to keep you in the loop, you're mistaken - the former All Black earns about $5000 on those carefully constructed posts.

Carter is the highest paid global rugby player for his Instagram, earning up to $4,969.25 on average per Instagram post, according to  Liverugbytickets.co.uk.

The top three rugby players on Instagram are all from New Zealand, Sonny Bill Williams at $4083 per post and the Kiwi-born Quade Cooper at $2700 per post.

Australia's Nick 'Honeybadger' Cummins earns on average $1,923, since he appeared as Australian Rugby's first bachelor.

It's no secret these athletes often construct their Instagram posts around brand endorsements and products, with big companies capitalising on the star's fanbase.

Liverugbytickets.co.uk researched rugby player's accounts after seeing the earning power of UK footballers on social media.

To achieve this, the UK company inserted the Instagram handle of the largest rugby players of 2019 into the Instagram money calculator. This estimates how much each player might earn per post on average, on their Instagram account.

Carter's ever growing follower list has reached over 900,000, while Williams has 745,000.

England rugby league player Sam Burgess (346,000), also made the top five players with an average pay per Instagram post of $1380.

Others among the highest paid were Ireland's Brian O'Driscoll $1190, England's James Haskell  $1126, Leigh Halfpenny $949, Danny Cipriani $845 and Welsh player George North who earns on average $761 per Instagram post.