Do small influencers in India actually make steady money?

Genuine question

I’ve been noticing a lot of creators around 5k–50k followers and it feels like most of them depend on random brand deals

like one month they earn something, next month nothing

and brands also keep complaining that influencer marketing doesn’t really give sales, just likes and views

so i’m just confused:

•	are people actually making consistent monthly income from this?

•	do affiliate links / commission stuff even work here or is it mostly useless?

•	would creators even be open to earning based on sales instead of fixed payments?

feels like both sides are kinda unsatisfied but still doing the same thing

maybe i’m wrong though

would like to hear from people who are actually doing this

Comments

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ishamalhotra09•3 months ago•1

Mostly inconsistent. Stability comes from retainers + affiliates + owned audience, not one-off brand deals.

ContentClawz•3 months ago•1

The 5k-50k range is actually the worst place for brand deal consistency, and that's not a coincidence. You're big enough that brands expect "professional" rates, but not big enough to have deal flow that fills a calendar. Feast-or-famine by design. Affiliate works, but it's heavily category-dependent. Finance, tech, fitness, edtech creators see real conversions because the audience has purchase intent. Lifestyle and entertainment creators mostly get likes regardless of what they promote, the audience came for content, not buying advice.

vibe-marketer•3 months ago•1

Yes, small influencers. For example, assuming that the small influencer definition is about having a nano or micro influencer who is having at least 100k followers on Instagram or having at least 50k followers on Instagram. They are still learning a good amount or at least having some perks compared to other social media creators.

  1. Having a domain authority in one niche so that makes your profile as unique as possible.
  2. Offline collaborations. The more you have a network and meet new people, the better you become known and the first choice for people who meet offline, so that will have much stronger impressions.
  3. Having consistency in your content pieces and experimental content ideas for the audience to react and engage and become share-worthy.

Yes, it is still about earning, because there are many more growing platforms or influencer networks and offline creative meetups that are helping creators to earn more opportunities, specifically in the media and digital marketing industry. It is pretty much growing because many tools and software are upcoming in India, so they are hand-picking the creators who have a high-value community and loyal followers.

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