Influencer marketing in India: the complete guide for brands (2026)

Influencer marketing is the practice of paying or partnering with independent creators so that their audience hears about your product from a voice they already trust. In India the work mostly runs on Instagram Reels and YouTube, in Hindi, English and regional languages, and is paid per post, per campaign, per sale or in product. Done well, it gives a brand the reach of an ad with the credibility of a recommendation.

This guide is for brand managers, marketing heads and founders about to spend money. It covers how influencer marketing works in India, what it costs, how to pick creators, what the law requires and how to judge whether a campaign worked. Rupee figures come from published Indian rate cards, and every rule and statistic is cited.

What influencer marketing is, and what it is not

For a brand, an influencer is anyone whose audience acts on their recommendations, from a Reel creator with 8,000 followers in Indore to a cricketer with 30 million. The brand gives a brief, the creator makes content in their own style and posts it on their own account, and the brand pays in cash, product or commission. The creator keeps the voice; the brand controls claims, links, dates and rights. That split separates influencer marketing from models it is often confused with.

Three of these comparisons come up in almost every first meeting.

Versus celebrity endorsement. A celebrity is bought for fame and sold through a licence; a creator is bought for a specific audience and format. The edge blurs at the top: published rate cards put A-list names at ₹25 lakh and upward per post, and a mega creator behaves like a celebrity in price and contract. See celebrity and macro influencers for when that spend makes sense.

Versus UGC. In UGC the creator is a content producer, not a distribution channel: they shoot the video, and the brand posts it or runs it as an ad. Many campaigns do both with one video. The UGC versus influencer marketing post covers the trade-offs, and UGC creators shows how we run it.

Versus affiliate. Affiliate is a payment model, not a media type: the creator earns commission on tracked sales or installs. It sits inside influencer marketing, usually blended with a flat fee. See performance influencer marketing.

Why influencer marketing works in India now

Audiences moved to short video, creators multiplied, and consumers began treating creators as a source of product advice. Where a source below sells influencer services itself, we say so.

The market, and why the estimates differ

Nobody publishes audited spend, and the most-cited estimates use different definitions. Quote the source and year, never "the market".

All three point the same way: a market in the low thousands of crores growing 22 to 25 per cent a year. The same 2026 report puts e-commerce at about 23 per cent of influencer spend and FMCG at about 19 per cent. Its 2025 edition called Diwali the peak season, with most brands planning two weeks to a month ahead.

The creator base is deep

The 2026 report counts 4 to 4.4 million active creators, 3.3 to 3.7 million of them on Instagram. EY separately reports more than 4 million influencers, up from about 962,000 in 2020. Of the creators surveyed, 61.1 per cent are nano (1,000 to 10,000 followers), and only 15.2 per cent are registered as a business or GST individual, which matters for invoicing.

Meta says India has the largest community of Instagram creators and produces more Reels each week than any other country. On YouTube, Oxford Economics estimates that more than 18,000 Indian channels have passed one million subscribers.

The audiences are already there

DataReportal counts 1.03 billion internet users in India (70 per cent) and 500 million social media user identities. IAMAI and Kantar's Internet in India 2025, using a different method, counts about 958 million active users and says about 588 million people (61 per cent) watched short-form video in 2025.

These are modelled ad-reach estimates, not monthly active users. Use them for relative size, not exact counts.

Consumers act on what creators say

A WPP Media and Kantar study (June 2025) found that 69 per cent of Indian consumers use influencers for product information, 63 per cent for discovery and 60 per cent to act, for example by buying. On the brand side, 70 per cent cited trust and credibility as the reason to use influencers, 72 per cent preferred long-term partnerships, and 85 per cent were moving from follower counts to content quality.

Creators are plentiful. What is scarce is the right creator for your buyer, a clean process for contracting and paying them, and honest measurement.

Creator tiers: reach, engagement, cost and best use

Tier is set by follower count, but price is set by engagement, niche, audience location and the rights you ask for. Use the table to place a creator, then check their real numbers.

Rates and engagement figures are indicative asking prices and benchmarks from published Indian rate cards, with no audited method behind them, and the same follower band is often quoted two times or more apart. Use them as a sanity check on a quote, not a price list. Our cost guide shows how the ranges were built.

How to combine tiers

Most programmes that work use more than one tier, because each does a different job. Micro and nano creators give trust and coverage across cities and languages; mid-tier and macro creators give reach and hero content; a celebrity gives a moment, if the budget exists. EY's 2024 survey found 47 per cent of brands preferred micro and nano creators for lower cost per reach, and an influencer-analytics firm reported that micro and small-to-mid creators drove more than 51 per cent of posts and engagements in 2025 film promotion.

A common starting split for a funded launch is most creators at nano and micro, a smaller group at mid-tier, and macro names only if reach matters more than conversion. That is a planning habit, not a statistic. Our micro versus macro comparison walks through the decision, micro and nano influencers shows how a 50 to 500 creator programme runs, and engagement rate benchmarks cover the numbers.

Platforms and formats: what each is good for

Choose the platform from where your buyer makes the decision, not from where your team spends time.

Instagram: the default platform

In one 2026 brand survey, 93.1 per cent of brands named Instagram their main influencer platform. The formats do different jobs. A Reel reaches people who do not follow the creator, so it is the discovery format. A Story set (3 to 5 frames) reaches existing followers who will tap a link sticker, and one published rate card prices it at roughly 40 to 60 per cent of a feed post. A carousel earns saves for educational content, and a Collab post appears on both profiles.

Partnership ads are now mainstream: the creator's post is run as an ad from the brand's account, and Meta says thousands of Indian advertisers use them. In March 2025 Meta added AI creator discovery and keyword search across 20 categories to its creator marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub, which has since been renamed the Creator Marketing Hub. For a platform-specific plan, see Instagram influencer marketing.

YouTube, including Shorts

YouTube is slower and more durable. A long review keeps being found by search after it goes live, which suits phones, appliances, finance products and courses, where people research before they buy. The two main formats are a dedicated video and an integration of 60 to 180 seconds inside the creator's own video. Shorts are priced close to Reels by most published rate cards and are the cheapest way to test a message.

A quick professionalism screen: a channel in the YouTube Partner Program has met either 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 public watch hours in 12 months, or 1,000 subscribers plus 10 million valid public Shorts views in 90 days, per YouTube Help. One published benchmark quotes regional-language channels 40 to 60 per cent cheaper than Hindi or English ones. See YouTube influencer marketing and YouTube versus Instagram.

Regional apps, Snapchat and Facebook

Snapchat says it has passed 250 million monthly active users in India, about 90 per cent of daily users are aged 13 to 34, and it is focusing on regional creators. Partnership ads can run on both Facebook (403 million advertising audience) and Instagram.

For ShareChat, Moj and Josh, company-reported user numbers conflict with independent reporting, so we quote none. If a regional app fits your audience, run a small pilot and ask creators for platform analytics.

LinkedIn and X

LinkedIn has 170 million Indian members, and one published rate card says creators there charge two to three times Instagram rates for a similar following. It suits B2B software, hiring, fintech and services. Compliance matters: ASCI found 121 LinkedIn violations in FY25 where professionals did not disclose paid partnerships. See LinkedIn and B2B creators.

X has a small and shrinking Indian ad reach (22.2 million, down 12.3 per cent) but is still where launches, cricket and news are discussed live. Use it for conversation, not conversion.

Podcasts, streams and meme pages

Published rate cards price a host-read podcast mid-roll at ₹30,000 to ₹3 lakh for shows with 20,000 to 200,000 downloads an episode. Live streams suit gaming launches, as the NESCAFE example below shows. For film promotion, one influencer-analytics firm says ₹1 lakh can buy 10 to 20 meme-page posts with more than 500,000 organic views (one vendor, one category).

Campaign types, and when each one fits

The platform tells you where to run; the campaign type tells you what creators are for. Each of the seven has its own page.

Awareness. Get one message in front of many of the right people cheaply. Spread creators across cities, languages and sub-niches, and judge on views, reach and cost per 1,000 views. Micro-influencer campaigns are the usual vehicle.

Product launch. A launch is a sequence: seed product two to three weeks ahead so reviews are ready, release teasers, concentrate posts in the first 72 hours, then run a second review wave. Stock and landing pages must be ready before the first post. See product launch campaigns.

Performance and affiliate. Creators are paid for outcomes through codes, links or install tracking. Pure commission recruits few strong creators, because they carry all the risk; a flat fee plus commission works better. Set up tracking before briefing anyone. See performance influencer marketing.

Gifting and seeding. You send product and invite posts, with no guaranteed deliverable unless you agree one. It is cheap and good for volume, but a free product is a material connection that needs an ASCI label, and one the creator keeps can attract TDS under section 194R past ₹20,000 a year. See gifting and seeding and the barter collaboration guide.

Ambassador programmes. A creator posts for you for 3 to 12 months and becomes known to their audience as someone who uses the product. In the 2026 brand survey, 62.1 per cent agreed that long-term creator deals give better ROI. See creator ambassador programmes.

UGC. You commission videos to run in your own ads and on your site, priced per video plus usage rights. The creator needs the skill to make content that looks native, not a large audience. See UGC videos for ads.

Creator ads and whitelisting. The brand runs a creator's post as a paid ad through the creator's handle. In the 2026 survey, 76.6 per cent of brands had run partnership ads with influencers, 23.3 per cent regularly. Snitch reported a 53 per cent ROAS rise after amplifying creator posts this way, a brand claim relayed by Meta. Published benchmarks suggest whitelisting adds 60 to 120 per cent to a post's fee, with media typically two to four times the creator fee. See creator ads and whitelisting.

Two more formats: creator events and meetups compress a week of content into a day, and a strategy audit suits brands that have run campaigns and cannot tell what worked.

Three public campaigns and what they teach

Garnier Men, "Bassi vs Garnier Men Facewash" (2025). The L'Oréal brand worked with agency BBH India, comedian Anubhav Singh Bassi, Harsh Gujral and more than 100 other comedians, and won a Bronze Lion in the Social and Creator category at Cannes Lions in June 2025. BBH India's chief creative officer reported that sales rose 44 per cent, the product sold out on the top three quick-commerce platforms, and Google search interest went from 0 to 100. The lesson is format fit: comedy is native to Instagram, so the creators sold without sounding like an ad. It also shows why stock must be ready before the creator wave.

NESCAFE and Minecraft (2025). To launch a cold coffee, Nestlé's NESCAFE used GamerFleet and 27 other Minecraft streamers. Trade press reported 1.2 million views and 6.6 million impressions on GamerFleet's launch stream over a weekend. The lesson: match the format to the audience. Gamers watch live streams.

POCO F7 5G launch (July 2025). Xiaomi sub-brand POCO used 250 tech micro-influencers on Instagram and YouTube, plus a launch film with Akshay Kumar. The agency and brand reported 15.15 million Instagram Reels views and a Day 1 sell-out, without a figure. The lesson is layering: a celebrity film for reach, hundreds of small tech creators for the comparison and review content buyers look for.

Read these as design patterns, not benchmarks: none of the sources publishes cost or creator mix by tier.

How to build an influencer marketing strategy, step by step

A strategy is a handful of decisions made in the right order.

1. Pick one job for the campaign. Awareness, consideration, conversion or content for ads. Campaigns that try all four measure none. Only 13.3 per cent of surveyed brands tie influencer work to formal revenue targets, and 46.4 per cent judge campaigns one at a time.
2. Define the buyer, not the audience. Write down city tier, age, language, price point and where they buy: your site, a marketplace, quick commerce or a shelf. The right followers with the wrong buyer is how budgets get wasted.
3. Set the budget and work backwards. Decide how many creators the money buys at which tier, then add usage rights, ad spend, GST and any management fee.
4. Choose tiers, platforms and languages. Match the mix to the job, and choose language by buyer.
5. Fix the offer and the tracking. Codes, links, a landing page, UTM parameters and stock. Decide how you will know a sale came from a creator before any creator is booked.
6. Write the creative direction. One message that must land, two or three hooks the creator can adapt, claims that are allowed and banned, and the disclosure label.
7. Plan backwards from the live date. The table below shows a typical timeline, including the second round: decide in advance what earns a rebooking.

A typical micro-influencer campaign goes live two to three weeks after plan approval; celebrity deals usually take four to six weeks because of negotiation and legal review. For festive campaigns, start earlier than feels necessary.

For a template you can fill in, see how to build an influencer marketing strategy. Category-specific plans are on our D2C brands and beauty and skincare pages.

How to find and vet creators

Finding is easy; vetting is where the money is saved. About 83 per cent of brands in the WPP Media and Kantar study struggle to find the right creators (95 per cent in BFSI), and the struggle is mostly a vetting problem.

Where to look

• Your own tagged posts and comments. Customers who already post about you cost less than strangers.
• Platform search. Reels and hashtag search in your category, plus Meta's creator marketplace and AI discovery.
• Booking platforms and databases. Good for volume; verify everything they show.
• An agency network. Useful for many creators, several languages or fast contracting.

See finding influencers in India for each route in detail.

What to check, in order

1. Audience location, age and gender. Ask for insights screenshots from the last 30 days.
2. Follower growth over 90 days. A sudden spike with no matching content is a warning.
3. Views per follower on the last 10 Reels or videos. A creator whose followers rarely see their posts is expensive at any price.
4. Engagement rate against tier. Engagement is interactions divided by followers (or by reach, which is stricter) times 100. Ask which formula a creator's number uses, then compare with the tier table or run it through the engagement rate calculator.
5. Comment quality. Generic comments or emoji strings suggest pods or bought engagement.
6. Past brand work. Did sponsored posts perform near organic ones, and were they labelled?
7. Brand safety. Recent competitor deals, past controversies and the tone of the comments.

Our guide to spotting fake followers shows what each red flag looks like.

The Gully Score

We turn those checks into a single 100-point score for every creator we propose. It is the same framework we describe on how we work.

We shortlist creators who score 70 or more and drop anyone below 60, however large their following. You can run the same process yourself in a spreadsheet.

Briefs and contracts

A good brief is short enough to be read and specific enough to follow. Creators know their audience better than you do, so one clear page beats a ten-slide deck.

What goes in the brief:

• The objective and the one message that must land.
• The product truth: what it is, who it is for, the proof you can substantiate.
• Claims allowed, claims banned and anything that needs approval.
• Deliverables, formats, lengths and dates.
• Mandatory elements: handles to tag, link or code, hashtags, the disclosure label.
• What is flexible: tone, hook, setting, storyline.
• Examples of content you admire and content you do not want.

Our influencer campaign brief template has a ready format.

Only 39.3 per cent of surveyed brands route influencer contracts through legal review, which suggests many campaigns run on informal agreements. A contract does not need to be long, but it needs these clauses:

Our guide to influencer contracts in India explains each clause in plain language.

Budgets and costs

The honest answer to "how much does it cost" is a range, because the same follower band is quoted two times or more apart across published rate cards. One agency's published benchmark (a single, low-confidence source) puts monthly budgets at ₹1.5 to ₹3 lakh for a starter programme, ₹4 to ₹10 lakh for growth and ₹12 to ₹25 lakh or more for scale, before agency fees, and says overhead eats most of any programme below about ₹2 lakh a month.

The table below shows indicative asking prices per post, per creator, from the medians of nine published Indian rate cards in 2026.

What moves the price

Agency and platform costs sit on top. Published benchmarks suggest management fees of about 15 to 25 per cent of creator spend, project fees of ₹50,000 to ₹5 lakh per campaign (8 to 30 creators) and retainers of ₹1.5 to ₹6 lakh a month for 15 to 40 activations. These trace to one published source, so ask for quotes rather than assuming them.

Judge price by cost per result, not by fee. One published rule of thumb says a creator is competitive if their cost per engaged view is within 1.5 times your own paid-media cost per engaged view, and overpriced at three times or more. For a full breakdown by format, see the influencer marketing cost guide for India, and to price your own plan use the influencer cost calculator.

The rules every brand must follow in India

Four bodies matter: ASCI for advertising content, the Department of Consumer Affairs for consumer protection, the tax authorities for payments, and SEBI for investment advice.

Disclosure under ASCI

ASCI's Guidelines for influencer advertising in digital media (released May 2021, effective for ads from 14 June 2021) require a clear label whenever an influencer has a material connection with the advertiser. That includes money, free or discounted products even if unsolicited, gifts, trips, barter, awards, and family or employment ties. An honest opinion still needs a label; a product the creator bought and likes does not.

The label must be upfront and prominent: not only in a bio, not at the end of a post, not behind a "more" click and not buried in hashtags. On images and Stories it is superimposed. On video of 15 seconds or less it stays on screen for at least 3 seconds; on video over 15 seconds and under 2 minutes, for one third of the video; on longer video, for the whole section that mentions the brand.

Permitted labels include Advertisement, Ad, Sponsored, Collaboration, Partnership, Employee, Free gift and Affiliate, or a platform's disclosure tool, in English or the language of the ad. Responsibility is shared: the influencer must disclose, and the advertiser must make sure the post follows the ASCI Code.

Enforcement is real. ASCI investigated 1,015 influencer ads in FY2024-25, and 98 per cent needed modification. In FY2025-26 it processed 1,609, of which 97.3 per cent needed modification, and more than 54 per cent promoted prohibited or restricted categories, led by illegal betting. A check of Forbes India's Top 100 Digital Stars 2024 found 76 per cent failed disclosure norms. Read the full detail in our ASCI influencer guidelines guide, or on ASCI's own page.

Consumer protection law: DoCA and CCPA penalties

The Department of Consumer Affairs released Endorsement Know-hows! on 20 January 2023. It tells influencers to disclose any material connection prominently, in simple words such as "advertisement", "sponsored" or "paid promotion", and not to endorse what they have not used or checked. Health and wellness rules followed in August 2023: certified practitioners must say so, and others presenting as health experts need a clear disclaimer.

Penalties sit under the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022 (notified 9 June 2022), made under the Consumer Protection Act 2019. The Central Consumer Protection Authority can fine manufacturers, advertisers and endorsers up to ₹10 lakh, and up to ₹50 lakh for subsequent contraventions. It can bar an endorser for up to one year, and up to three years for repeat offences. Endorsers carry due-diligence duties too (PIB release).

Tax: TDS under 194R, and GST

TDS on benefits. Section 194R of the Income-tax Act 1961, effective 1 July 2022, requires 10 per cent TDS on benefits or perquisites given to a resident in the course of business or profession, whether or not convertible to money, once the total in a financial year passes ₹20,000. A product sent for a shoot and returned attracts no TDS; one the creator keeps does, valued at fair market value. Individual and HUF payers are exempt if prior-year business turnover was up to ₹1 crore or professional receipts up to ₹50 lakh.

The Income-tax Act 2025 came into force on 1 April 2026 and consolidates TDS provisions, so confirm the current section number with your CA. Cash fees fall under a different provision from benefits in kind; practitioners cite section 194J or 194C depending on how the work is structured, so agree the treatment before the first payment.

GST. One CA's guide gives the rate on influencer services as 18 per cent. Per CBIC material, registration is needed once annual turnover passes ₹20 lakh (₹10 lakh in special-category states). The same guide counts free products at market value as turnover, but whether free products or barter attract GST is unsettled, so take advice. Only 15.2 per cent of creators are registered as a business or GST individual, so check they can issue a GST invoice. Our TDS 194R and GST explainer covers the mechanics.

Finance, health and children

SEBI's circular of 22 October 2024 bars SEBI-regulated persons and their agents from any direct or indirect association with anyone who gives securities advice without registration, or claims returns without permission. Its FAQ circular of 29 January 2025 (updated 8 May 2026) says "association" covers money or money's worth and client referrals (SEBI circular).

ASCI's Addendum II (6 March 2025) requires influencers giving technical advice in BFSI or health and nutrition to hold relevant qualifications and state them upfront; for stocks and investments, that means SEBI registration with the number shown. An April 2025 update limited this to content giving technical information or advice. See fintech and BFSI and health, wellness and fitness.

For children, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and Rules require verifiable parental consent and bar tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children. The main duties phase in around May 2027. This matters for parenting and baby campaigns.

AI-generated content

ASCI signed its Guidelines for Responsible Labelling of Synthetically Generated Content in Advertising on 17 September 2026. A label is mandatory where AI-generated content materially influences consumer decisions, including synthetic influencers or ambassadors and replicating a real person's likeness or voice, even with consent. Labels such as "created using AI" are acceptable; routine edits and decorative backgrounds need none. The guidelines take effect three months after publication, which we read as roughly mid-December 2026. Separately, the IT Rules amendment of 10 February 2026 defined "synthetically generated information" and put labelling duties on platforms; we expect creators to see declaration prompts at upload.

In practice, put the exact label and its placement in the brief and the contract, check every health and finance claim against what the brand can prove, agree GST and TDS treatment before payment, and review each post within 24 hours of going live.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Measuring results and ROI

Design measurement before launch, because the codes, links and landing pages that make attribution possible must exist before the posts do.

Attribution in India is messy because many buyers see a Reel, search the brand, and buy on a marketplace or quick-commerce app where no link exists. Last-click tracking undercounts creators. Close the gap with unique codes, a "how did you hear about us" question at checkout, branded search trends and sales lift on marketplace listings during the campaign window. The Garnier Men campaign above also cited Google search interest as a signal.

We have not found a reliable published India CPM or CPV benchmark for creator sponsorships, so be wary of any number quoted as an industry standard and set your own from the first campaign. Cost per view is the creator fee divided by expected views; compare it with your own paid social cost.

Work out ROI from total cost, not creator fees alone. ROAS is attributed revenue divided by total cost; ROI is revenue minus total cost, divided by total cost. Total cost includes creator fees, usage rights, ad media, any GST you cannot recover and the management fee. A ROAS of 2.0 sounds healthy, but at a 40 per cent gross margin, ₹2 of revenue earns ₹0.80 of margin against ₹1 of spend. Awareness programmes should be judged on repeat purchase and cost per new customer over time.

Report weekly while live and once at close, ranking creators on cost per result. Our guide to measuring influencer marketing ROI covers the set-up.

Common mistakes

1. Choosing by follower count. Look at views per follower and buyer fit first. As a hypothetical, a creator with 40,000 followers whose Reels average 30,000 views reaches more people than an account with 400,000 followers that averages 10,000.
2. No single goal. A campaign for awareness, sales and reviews at once is judged on none.
3. Paying before the contract. Money moved against a chat message is hard to recover if the post is late or non-compliant.
4. Forgetting usage rights. A post that performs can be boosted only if the rights cover paid use.
5. Treating disclosure as an afterthought. A label hidden in hashtags is a compliance failure, and ASCI found that 97 to 98 per cent of the influencer ads it processed needed modification.
6. One-and-done campaigns. Audiences need repetition to remember a brand, and 62.1 per cent of surveyed brands agree that long-term deals give better ROI.
7. No tracking. No codes, no landing page and no stock plan means no learning.
8. Starting festive campaigns late. Peak-season slots fill weeks ahead, and published benchmarks put turnaround under 48 hours at 25 to 40 per cent extra.
9. Not amplifying the winners. Running the best organic posts as ads is often where the lowest cost per click comes from.

Regional and city strategy

India is closer to a dozen markets than one. A Tamil creator in Coimbatore can move a buyer that a Delhi Hindi creator cannot, at the same follower count. In the 2026 platform report, tier 3 and 4 cities showed the highest engagement (4.5 to 5.5 per cent) at the lowest cost per campaign (₹35,000 to ₹90,000), against metros at 3 to 4 per cent and ₹3.8 to ₹4.5 lakh; tier 2 sat at 3.5 to 4.5 per cent. These are one vendor's survey numbers, but the direction is clear, and more than 62 per cent of surveyed creators also report more regional-language briefs.

Three planning rules: choose language by buyer, test in two or three tier-2 cities with micro creators before committing metro budget, and book festival moments early. Our regional language influencer marketing page covers how we cast across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam and more.

Our reach extends into 200+ cities; the influencer marketing agency by city hub lists every market with its own page.

In-house, agency or platform: an honest comparison

Many brands blend them: in-house for ambassadors, an agency for launches. Before signing with any agency, ask for a sample shortlist with audience data, a creator contract and a closing report. Our guide to choosing an influencer marketing agency has a longer checklist.

Where Influencer Gully fits: we are a New Delhi agency working across India, launched in 2026 by a team that has served 100+ brands, run 250+ campaigns and built a network of 50,000+ creators. We reply within 2 working hours, send a creator plan (shortlist, content plan, cost estimate) within 48 hours of the brief call, and name one strategist per client. Creators pay us nothing. Pricing is creator fees at cost plus a management fee, a fixed campaign fee, or a monthly retainer, explained on our pricing page. Browse everything we run on the services page, or send a brief through our contact form.

Trends for 2026 to 2027

• AI labelling becomes routine. ASCI's synthetic content rules take effect around mid-December 2026, and a MeitY draft of 30 March 2026 proposes labels that stay visible throughout a video (we have not seen it notified). Ask creators to declare AI use in the brief.
• Creator ads become the default. With 76.6 per cent of surveyed brands already running partnership ads, the question is how to contract rights up front.
• Regional gets bigger. More than 62 per cent of surveyed creators report more regional-language briefs.
• Long-term deals gain ground. Brands say they want them (72 per cent) and that they pay back (62.1 per cent), so expect more retainers and fewer one-off posts.
• Measurement catches up. With 85 per cent of brands moving from follower counts to content quality, but only 13.3 per cent tying work to revenue targets, we expect finance teams to push for sales-linked reporting.
• Enforcement tightens. ASCI's counts, DPDP duties from around May 2027 and CCPA penalties point towards less tolerance for sloppy disclosure.

For a longer outlook, see our influencer marketing trends in India for 2027. For definitions of any term in this guide, the influencer marketing glossary explains each one in plain English.