Content creator and podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia recently claimed that content creators earn more than most Bollywood actors. He claimed that only select few in Bollywood make “real money” but in the field of content creation, many creators make a good living, even though they might be less famous than an actor.

Ranveer Allahbadia’s claim about content creators’ pay

“People assume the film industry pays better than content creation,” wrote Ranveer on his X handle on Tuesday evening. “It’s usually the opposite, only maybe thirty people at the very top of Bollywood make real money, while content creation has room for thousands of people to build something sustainable, most of them without ever becoming famous the way an actor has to,” he added.

However, being a content creator in India comes with its own fair share of risks. Ranveer, along with three fellow content creators, got ‘cancelled’ following his controversial joke on Samay Raina’s popular YouTube show India’s Got Latent in 2025. It led to FIRs being lodged against them, along with a drastic loss of work and reputation.

While Ranveer and Samay managed to reclaim some of their lost glory through a rebranded The Ranveer Show and comeback stand-up special Still Alive respectively, Apoorva Makhija aka The Rebel Kid can’t claim the same for herself. Though she appeared as a contestant on the first season of Prime Video India’s reality show The Traitors last year, she’s now relocated to New York City to pursue an MBA.

“I’m honestly really tired of getting cancelled now. It’s not fun anymore. I know everyone thinks I do it for views, clout, and fame, and I love getting cancelled. I don’t know that what I’m saying is the wrong thing to say. I truly believe in my heart this is also what other people say. I have no moral compass. So, when I get cancelled, I’m like, ‘Oops! I had no idea,'” confessed the content creator on the podcast Untriggered with AminJaz.

Some truth to Ranveer’s claim

Some Bollywood personalities have confirmed what Ranveer claimed about how much creators get paid vis a vis Bollywood. These include Farah Khan, who confessed she earned more as a YouTuber in a year than what she did when she was delivering hits as a filmmaker, like Main Hoon Na (2004), Om Shanti Om (2007), and Happy New Year (2014).

“I said it somewhere that in my entire career, maybe in a year, I’ve not made so much money, even though I’ve directed so many films and all,” confessed the filmmaker-turned-YouTuber on the podcast All About Her. She also claimed that becoming a content creator will help her fund the overseas higher education of her three children in the coming years.

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Even actors Archana Puran Singh and Parmeet Sethi somewhere Ranveer’s claims. The couple, who run a YouTube channel along with their sons Aaryamann and Ayushmann Sethi, has a following of over 1 million. “If we decide to make this our full-time career, it’ll pay us at least three times more than what films and television together pay us,” claimed Parmeet in an interview with Pinkvilla last year.