India’s influencer marketing spend pegged at ₹10,000 crore: Report

India’s influencer marketing sector may be significantly larger than current public estimates, according to new data released by KlugKlug, an influencer marketing SaaS company. The firm’s internal analysis estimates the market at more than ₹10,000 crore in real annual deployment, far exceeding the widely quoted ₹3,000–4,000 crore range that has shaped industry benchmarks in recent years.

The findings have triggered extensive discussion across marketing leaders, agencies, and digital-commerce networks, highlighting long-standing gaps in how the sector is measured. The data circulated quickly across professional forums, drawing attention to shifts in brand–creator relationships and the increasing role of in-house creator functions.

According to KlugKlug’s assessment, only one-quarter of India’s influencer marketing outlay flows through visible, organised structures such as agencies or third-party platforms.
The remaining 75% occurs through direct brand-to-creator transactions, a pattern the report suggests has led to consistent undercounting in formal industry estimates.

The analysis also notes that India’s expanding direct-to-consumer (D2C) ecosystem is reshaping spending behaviour. More than 100 D2C brands reportedly deploy upwards of ₹20 crore annually through internal creator teams, bypassing agency-led processes entirely.

These shifts, combined with founder-led campaigns, product seeding and barter collaborations, have generated high earned media value without registering as conventional advertising expenditure.

Industry observers say the attention generated by the report reflects broader questions around the creator economy’s true scale. Micro and nano creators, in particular, have become a large source of digital commerce conversions, yet much of their impact remains outside formal reporting structures.

The analysis arrives at a time when marketers are increasingly relying on performance-led creator activity to drive sales, and when AI tools are reshaping discovery, analytics and campaign optimisation. Stakeholders say the discrepancy between formal estimates and real deployment underscores the need for updated measurement frameworks.

The traction received by KlugKlug’s findings has led to calls for greater transparency and more comprehensive data standards in the sector. Agencies, brands and investors are now debating whether current industry models adequately capture the economic influence of creators, particularly in fast-growing regional markets.

The report also points to an ecosystem where digital commerce and creator-led marketing are becoming tightly interlinked, with brands allocating larger portions of their media budgets to influencer-driven performance channels.

Kalyan Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, KlugKlug said, “Influencer Marketing has fundamentally changed in the era of AI, automation, and precision targeting. What we are witnessing now is not just growth but a structural shift in how commerce, content, and consumer intent converge. Agile brave young brands are taking away market share across consumer categories within months of launch and there's a ton of e-commerce correlated data that underscores the data scienced power of Influencer and Content Marketing. With intelligent influencer marketing platforms, and KlugKlug leading that story, brands finally have visibility into what truly works across the creator landscape. This is a turning point for the industry and it's much larger already.”

Vaibhav Gupta, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Klug Tech Private Limited said, “The gap in India’s influencer marketing numbers has existed largely because the industry relied on limited, agency-visible datasets that never reflected the full picture. With this new analysis, we tried to bring much-needed clarity to the industry. This data is not just a correction but the beginning of a transformation in how influencer marketing is measured, understood, and valued in India. Our goal is to enable a more transparent, data-driven foundation for the ecosystem moving forward.”