newsletter issue 339

“Since I started content creation in 2023, I’ve gotten around ₹8,00,000 in deals, but of that ₹3,50,000 is still pending payment,” says Neha Tanti, 22, a lifestyle content creator in Gurgaon with 101K followers. “In the three years of doing this, only one brand has paid me on time. I’ve even chased an invoice for one and a half years.”

In April, Tanti took her story to Instagram in a Reel that has almost 600K views. In it, she says people are being given “false hope” about how lucrative content creation really is. “Every day, at 11 am, I message every brand I’ve worked with for money I have earned. It’s been months—there’s no payment,” she says. Like Tanti, several Indian content creators say brands and agencies exploit them with complicated contracts, unprofessional conduct, delayed payments, and barter deals that include no monetary payment at all. From the outside, India’s influencer economy looks like a gold rush—it’s growing 18 per cent year on year and is expected to impact $1 trillion in spending by 2030. However, among the millions of creators looking to get rich, only a handful at the top are actually cashing in. Scroll to know more about creators who are struggling to grow followers, land brand deals, and get their invoices processed.