Brand deals play a significant role in determining your success in today’s creator economy. Every creator is curious about how much brand partnerships pay in 2025, from popular YouTubers to nano-influencers on Instagram. Payments for brand deals vary greatly, depending on your platform, niche, number of followers, engagement, content quality, and even negotiating abilities. Rates and models are also changing as marketers shift from one-time influencer shoutouts to longer creator collaborations. In this blog, let’s examine the various aspects of brand deals and the amounts they are willing to pay in 2025.

What are the Key Factors that determine how much brand deals pay?

Follower Count

Your follower count is no longer the only thing attracting brands. These days, brands looking to collaborate value a high engagement rate, relevance, and most importantly, authenticity. With that being said, it remains an important factor in determining how much brands are willing to pay you. Here is how much a brand pays on average to every influencer in their respective category, according to the internet.

Avg. Pay Per Post (INR) for Separate Categories:

• Nano:1K–10K Followers – ₹1,000 – ₹5,000
• Micro: 10K–100K – ₹5,000 – ₹50,000
• Mid-Tier: 100K–500K – ₹50,000 – ₹1,50,000
• Macro: 500K–1M – ₹1.5L – ₹3L
• Mega: 1M – ₹3L to ₹8L

Most creators combine brand deals with ad revenue, affiliate links, digital products, or workshops to maximize income, whether it is through brand deals on YouTube or Instagram.

Engagement Rate

Running an account with a high engagement can do wonders when it comes to brand collaborations. Brands nowadays look at how much your audience interacts with you and pay you accordingly. A creator with 30K followers but a 15% engagement rate can easily earn more than a creator with 100K followers and 1% engagement rate.

Brands often calculate cost per engagement (CPE) and return on ad spend (ROAS) before committing. An engagement rate of above 3% on Instagram and above 7% on YouTube is generally considered good.

Platform Significance

Every payment that you see for various influencers varies across different platforms. This could be due to differences in engagement rates, content format, audience size, and the platform’s overall reach. Factors like follower count, content quality, and the scope of the partnership also play a significant role.

Platforms like YouTube are at the top with the highest payments. Brand deals pay anywhere from 10K to 10L, with Instagram in the second spot, starting at 3 or 4K up to 4L. Other than these, blogs with sponsored content make up to 50K, and newsletters make money up to a lakh.

A content creation masterclass often explains how to choose the right platform based on earning potential and audience fit.”

Industry and Niche

• The truth that creators face during brand collaborations is that some niches simply pay more than others. This is mainly due to the demand from the audience for the niche and, secondly, its popularity.
• High-paying niches include: Finance, tech, skincare, beauty, parenting, and real estate.
• Moderately-paying niches are: Lifestyle content, fashion, wellness, and motivational content are some examples.
• Low-paying niches (comparatively) are: Food, art, DIY content and meme pages, and book review content.
• Geography and Type of Collaboration

It might surprise some people, but your country does influence how much you get paid. Creators in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe often earn less for the same deliverables compared to those in the US or UK, largely because brand budgets are region-dependent. In our content creation course online, we break down how these dynamics work and share practical ways creators can position themselves better despite geographic limitations.

However, global campaigns these days (especially by D2C brands) now pay uniform rates based on value, not location.

When it comes to types, these are the main types of collaborations.

So, how can you increase your Brand Deal Value in 2025?

There are some pointers that you can keep in mind if you are looking to increase your brand deal value in 2025. Implement the following tips and stay consistent.

• Your goal must be to improve engagement and get closer to your audience and organically increase followers. Brands notice engagement more than anything.
• Create a professional media kit with metrics, and work on your pricing through your influencer rate card.
• Influencer brand deals are statistically better for niche creators rather than creators making general content. So your aim must be to try and build your niche authority.
• Stay active on multiple platforms to diversify your online presence and attract brands looking for you.