Non-Metro Creators in India Are Being Discovered Faster Than They Are Paid

Between 2020 and 2025, paid campaigns per metro creator rose from about 0.22 to 0.33. Outside the metros, the same ratio fell from about 0.37 to 0.10, according to the ISB and HashFame report. Metro creators are winning repeat work. Outside the metros, more creators get a first campaign and few get a second. 

This analysis is for creators in tier-2 and tier-3 cities whose skills could be paid more often, and for the brands and productions hiring them. It covers the data, the causes, and the opportunities for non-metro creators in India beyond brand deals. 

What the ISB Data Shows About Non-Metro Creators

Two-thirds of India's 4.12 million creators were based outside the eight metros in 2025, up from 44% in 2020, according to the Indian School of Business and HashFame. The study, Understanding the Canvas of India's Creator Economy, was published on 14 July 2026 by ISB's Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) and draws on Qoruz creator data from 2020 to 2025. Its eight metros are Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad. 

India's creator economy, 2020 vs 2025. Source: ISB SRITNE and HashFame, 2026. The report notes the campaign-per-creator ratios are approximations. 

The number of non-metro creators grew 6.4 times over the period, against 2.6 times in the metros. In 2025, 2.1% of non-metro creators completed five or more paid campaigns, a group the report treats as economically significant, as exchange4media reported. Regional-language creators make up 58% of the base, and Hindi creators 42%. 

Madhu Viswanathan, executive director of SRITNE at ISB, put the shift this way in the report's release: "India's creator economy is no longer defined by whether people can become creators." The open question is how more of them get paid more than once. 

Why Income Lags Behind Discovery for Non-Metro Creators

Non-metro creators in India earn less mainly because brands price a creator on the audience they reach, and audiences outside the metros have less to spend. "Brands pay for audiences they can reach," HashFame co-founder Anirudh Sridharan told the Economic Times. The fee follows the audience more than the address: a creator with mostly non-metro followers tends to get lower fees wherever they live, while a village-based creator whose followers are in the metros can charge more. 

Account size compounds it. More than 80% of creators outside the metros sit in the two smallest follower tiers, nano and micro, according to the ISB report. Smaller accounts get fewer briefs, and most creators run only one brand campaign a year. Repeat work has gone the other way: the rising metro ratio reflects brands returning to creators they have already used. 

Representation is a third factor. Creators in tier-2 and tier-3 cities are less likely to have a talent management agency, which brings metro creators brand access, pricing support and longer deals, Indian Television reported. Without one, a creator usually lacks the media kit a brand's approval process expects, a gap Agency Reporter calls packaging. 

Language is where matching breaks down most clearly. The report names Bhojpuri and Kannada as markets with many regional-language creators and few campaigns and asks platforms to build better language-specific search. Only 17.2% of brands surveyed by Kofluence keep a separate regional creator budget, Outlook Business reported. 

Digital marketing firms quoted by the Economic Times add content quality, arguing that storytelling lifts a creator's standing with brands. The engagement data suggests that is a smaller factor: the ISB report finds a consistent engagement premium for non-metro creators. Creator income trails discovery chiefly because pricing and matching run on audience spend, representation and language.

What Non-Metro Creators Can Do to Turn Visibility into Paid Work

A creator in a tier-2 or tier-3 city can build steadier paid work by selling the craft behind their videos as well as their reach, because productions hire people to shoot, edit, write, perform and dub on the strength of the work itself. The two routes look for different things. 

Two routes to paid work for creators in India. Compiled by Artisty from the ISB report and how Indian productions crew up. 

Language ability can be a hiring criterion for roles such as acting, voice work, scripting, translation, local coordination, and location-specific production support. The actual requirement depends on the role. 

To add the second route without giving up the first: 

• Name the craft separately from the channel. List what you physically do on each video, such as shooting, lighting, editing, scripting, performing or voice, because a production hires for one of those. Our guide to moving from content creator to filmmaker maps which creator skills transfer to which film roles. 
• Treat your language and your town as assets. Productions shooting away from the metros look for people who know the location and the language, as our guide to the regional film industry in India explains, and fluency in Bhojpuri or Kannada is now a production skill in its own right. 
• Turn every job into a credit: the project, your role and the date, for brand shoots, collaborations and music videos alike. On Artisty these go on your profile, and productions can also assign official credits at wrap. If your videos sit scattered across links, KalaAi, the profile builder inside Artisty, drafts the profile from what you already have. 
• Go back to the same client. The ISB report names repeat collaboration as the lever that moves a creator from one paid job to several, so ask each client what they shoot next. 

For networking in India's film and entertainment industry, the routes that work are creator collectives and vernacular-first talent agencies for brand work, LinkedIn for agency and in-house marketing roles, and Artisty for film, OTT, ad and micro-drama production, where productions look people up by role, city and language. 

How Brands and Productions Can Hire Regional Talent Beyond Metro Networks

Brands and productions find regional-language creators and crew in tier-2 and tier-3 cities by searching on language, city and craft rather than follower count, and by planning repeat work instead of one-off campaigns. The ISB report recommends treating creators as a portfolio across geography, language and category, and testing three-to-six-month partnerships, so creators move from one campaign a year to two or three. 

Write the brief in the language of the market and have someone fluent judge the content, since a team reviewing in English is poorly placed to assess a Bhojpuri comedy skit, as Agency Reporter points out. A production planning a schedule outside a metro can find talent on Artisty by role, city and language, then post the role with the shoot's language and location so matching profiles see it. That way a production can hire regional talent it has never worked with before. 

To check the work of someone you have never met, ask for dated credits with their role on each, a reel or a full uncut piece, and one reference from a past production. On Artisty, the Verified badge shows that a person has passed the KalaAi skill check and video interview for their craft. Our guide to hiring film crew in India covers the full vetting process.

Conclusion: The Second Paid Job Is the Real Gap

The ISB numbers show that non-metro creators are increasingly represented in India's creator economy, but paid brand campaigns have not kept pace with that growth. About 408,000 non-metro creators completed at least one paid campaign in 2025, while the majority did not. The challenge is not simply getting discovered; it is building repeat opportunities and making creative skills visible to the people who hire.   

For a creator, that means a record of work a stranger can read and a presence beyond the people who already know them. For brands and productions, regional matching built now reaches engaged audiences while the talent behind them is still under-booked. Your filmy network should reach a production searching from another city, and that is the network Artisty is building. Connect beyond metro-only networks: add your home city and the languages you work in to your Artisty profile. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Indian states have the most content creators? 

Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra together account for nearly a quarter of India's creators, according to the 2026 ISB and HashFame report. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat produce high numbers of creators relative to their populations. Bihar sits at the other end, with about 6% of India's creators against about 9% of its population. 

What is the difference between a nano creator and a micro creator? 

In the ISB and HashFame report, a nano creator has 1,000 to 10,000 followers and a micro creator has 10,000 to 100,000. Nano creators make up more than half of India's non-metro creator base and micro creators 28%. Because brand budgets tend to scale with audience size, creators in both tiers usually run few brand campaigns in a year. 

Can a creator from a small town get film, OTT or ad production work? 

Yes. Productions hire for the craft, so a creator who shoots, edits, writes, performs or dubs can go after those roles on film, OTT, ad and micro-drama shoots. Start by turning past videos into dated credits and choosing one role to pitch for. Our guide to going from content creator to filmmaker covers which skills transfer and the gaps to close before a first set. 

Is content creation a full-time career for most creators in India? 

For most, creator income is supplementary for now. About 15% of India's creators completed at least one paid campaign in 2025, up from about 9% in 2020, and about 7% completed two or more, according to ISB and HashFame. "For some, this will become a career. For many others, it will remain supplementary income," Madhu Viswanathan of ISB said, as quoted by Open magazine.