How to get brand deals in India

The question is usually asked as though there is a door somewhere. There is not. There are three routes, all of them unglamorous, and a long list of things that lose the deal after a brand has already said yes.

First, the thing that is actually blocking you

Most creators who cannot get brand deals have no place to send a brand.

A brand manager who likes your reel has to answer three questions before they can put you on a list: what else have you made, who watches it, and what do you charge. If answering those means reading your DMs for twenty minutes, you are not on the list.

This is the whole reason a creator page exists. Not as a link tree, as the thing that answers those three questions in ninety seconds. Before you pitch anyone, make sure there is somewhere to pitch them to. What a brand actually reads covers what goes on it.

Route one: be findable

The slowest and the one that compounds.

Name the category in your bio. "Creator" tells a brand nothing. "Street food, Bombay to Bareilly" tells them exactly which brands you are for. Brands and agencies search by category, and the search is usually a person typing into Instagram.

Tag brands you already use, unprompted. Not asking for anything. A brand's social team sees mentions, and a creator who posted something good about them without being paid is a warm name when the campaign budget appears.

Put your rates in public. This feels backwards and is not. A public rate card means the brands that write to you have already accepted the price, and the ones who cannot afford you never cost you a conversation.

Route two: pitch

The fastest, and almost nobody does it properly.

Who to write to. Not the brand's main Instagram account. Find the marketing or influencer marketing person on LinkedIn. For a smaller Indian brand it is often the founder, and founders reply.

What to send. One short message that contains a specific idea:

Hi Priya, I make street food videos in Bombay, around 60,000 views a reel, mostly women 22 to 34 in metros. I have been using [product] for a year. I would like to make a reel on [specific idea that suits their product] for your Diwali push. My work and rates are at neroex.com/yourname. Happy to send a rough script first.

That is it. Specific idea, your numbers, one link, an easy next step.

What not to send. A paragraph about your journey. A request to "collaborate" with no proposal. A media kit PDF attached to a cold email. Your follower count as the headline fact.

How many. Twenty, not three. The reply rate on cold pitches is low even when the pitch is good, and it is low for reasons that have nothing to do with you: budget timing, an agency on retainer, someone on leave.

Follow up once, after a week, in the same thread, two lines. Then stop.

Route three: platforms and agencies

Brands run campaigns through platforms where creators apply. In India the usual suspects are the influencer marketplaces and the brand's own creator programmes, and the work is real if unglamorous: low rates, high volume, but it is a credit on your page and a brand name on your work grid.

Agencies are worth it later. They take 15% to 25%, and below about 200,000 followers most of them will not generate inbound you could not have generated yourself. The right time is when the volume of inbound is more than you want to handle, not as a substitute for having any.

What to charge

Short version: price the work plus the audience, then add for usage rights, exclusivity, rush and extra revisions. For a creator whose reels get 20,000 to 75,000 views, Rs 15,000 to Rs 40,000 for a single reel is the normal band in 2026.

The long version, with the arithmetic, is in what to charge for an Instagram reel, and there is a calculator that does it for you.

Two things people get wrong at this stage:

Quoting a day rate. You are not selling time, you are selling access to an audience. A day rate caps you at what your time is worth and ignores what your reach is worth.

Forgetting usage rights. If the brand runs your video as a paid advertisement, that is a different product from an organic post and it is the single most underpriced thing in Indian creator work.

The five things that lose a deal after yes

1. Not asking what the budget is

Ask early and plainly: "What is the budget for this?" Brands have a number. The creator who asks gets the number; the creator who quotes first often quotes under it.

2. Agreeing to unlimited revisions

One round included, every round after it charged. Write it in the email. This is how a Rs 25,000 reel turns into two weeks.

3. No advance

Fifty per cent before you start is normal in India and is the only real protection against a brand that goes quiet after delivery. A brand that will not pay an advance is telling you something.

4. Nothing in writing

An email confirming deliverables, usage, timeline, revisions and payment terms is a contract. It does not have to be a legal document, it has to exist.

5. Missing the disclosure

Under ASCI's guidelines, a paid or gifted post needs a clear label where people can see it without tapping more. Getting this wrong is the brand's problem too, which makes it the thing that quietly ends a relationship. The rules, plainly.

Barter

You will be offered product instead of money, often before you are offered money at all.

A free product is taxable income in India under Section 194R, so it is a price, not a gift. Decide your position once, publish it, and never negotiate it in a DM. Why it is taxable and what it costs you, and a calculator for the arithmetic.

What the first year actually looks like

A handful of barter deals you probably should have turned down. Two or three small paid ones, from brands you pitched rather than brands that found you. One that goes well and becomes repeat work, which is where the money actually is, because the second deal with the same brand costs you a tenth of the effort of the first.

The creators who get there faster are not the ones with more followers. They are the ones who could answer the three questions in ninety seconds, and who asked what the budget was.

Make the page you send them. Free forever, and the rate card is part of it.