The fix for creator payment delays? An Indian agency is paying in 48 hours

Indian talent management agency Opraah is taking brand payouts into its own hands, launching OPay, a policy that pays its exclusive creators within 48 hours of approving their post-campaign paperwork.

The initiative, which went live on September 4, is positioned as an answer to the wait creators face for brand money. Opraah's own campaign data showed creators routinely waiting between 45 and 90 days after a campaign wrapped, and in some cases more than 120 days.

"We'd hear the same story again and again, a creator delivering great work on time, and then chasing payment for months after. That gap between effort and reward felt broken to us, and we didn't want to just sympathize with it, we wanted to fix it," co-founder Pranav Panpalia told The Daily Influence.

Under OPay, creators do not wait for brands to pay Opraah before receiving their own money. Once a creator submits their content link and invoice, and Opraah approves them, the 48-hour clock starts. The agency absorbs the wait, and any dispute, on the brand side.

"The whole point of OPay is that the creator's payment timeline is completely decoupled from our own collection cycle with the brand. Whatever is happening on the brand side, however long that conversation takes, it stays entirely on our side of the table," he said.

The policy covers Opraah's full roster of more than 400 exclusive creators, and anyone signing as an exclusive before September 30.

Panpalia said the delays stem from "how large organizations are structured internally, approvals and processes that take the time they take, and that's simply the nature of doing business at that scale," rather than from brands acting in bad faith. 

"If more of the industry starts building in that same buffer for creators, the whole ecosystem gets healthier. We built OPay because we believe that shift has to start somewhere, and we're happy to be the ones pushing it."

Founded in 2017 by Panpalia, then a YouTube creator, and gaming influencer Mansi Panpalia, the agency's roster includes lifestyle creator Sourav Joshi, who has more than 40 million followers across platforms, gaming creator Mythpat and comedy duo Slayy Point.

Indian agencies are not alone in tackling the problem. In April, influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy launched Creator Payments, built with fintech platform Lumanu, alongside Early Pay, which lets creators draw earnings on completion of deliverables for a small percentage fee. At the time, uptake was limited with just 7% of creators choosing to go for Early Pay during a four-month US trial, with the highest take-up among those without talent representation.