Creators negotiate the number and sign the rest. That is understandable — the rest is dense and nobody enjoys it. But the number is only the starting point, and five specific clauses decide how much of it reaches you.
1. The clause that decides 10% or 2%
The brand will deduct TDS from your fee. Whether that is 10% or 2% is determined by how the service is described in the contract, not by what the work actually involved.
Described as professional or technical services — the old Section 194J, now within Section 393 — the rate is 10%. Described as contractual work under the old 194C, it is 1% for individuals and HUFs, 2% for others.
Both are creditable against your final liability, so this is not money lost. It is cash flow, and on a year of brand income the difference is significant. If your contracts are silent or inconsistent, you will find brands defaulting to whichever rate their finance team prefers.
2. Whether the fee is inclusive or exclusive of GST
A contract that says "₹2,00,000 inclusive of all taxes" and one that says "₹2,00,000 plus GST as applicable" are two very different deals. On the first, you are absorbing the 18% — your actual fee is roughly ₹1,69,500. On the second, you invoice ₹2,36,000 and remit the tax.
Brands will not correct this for you. "Inclusive of all taxes" is standard procurement language and it will appear in the template unless you change it.
"Inclusive of all taxes" is not a formality. On a ₹2 lakh deal it is roughly ₹30,500 of your fee.
3. How retained product is valued
If the deal includes product you keep, the contract should say what it is worth. Left unstated, two things happen.
Under GST, you have supplied a promotional service for non-monetary consideration, and 18% applies on the value of that service. Under income tax, once benefits you retain cross ₹20,000 in the year, the brand must deduct 10% of fair market value — the old Section 194R, now Section 393(1) Sl. 8(iv).
If nobody agreed a value up front, it gets determined later — possibly by an assessing officer, using the brand's public retail price rather than anything you would have accepted. Getting the value stated in the contract, contemporaneously, is how you avoid arguing about it three years later with no contemporaneous record.
The practical advice we give: if the brand would have paid you cash for this post, that cash figure is your value. If they genuinely would not have, think carefully about whether keeping the product is worth the tax on it.
4. Whether you are being asked to indemnify claims you cannot verify
This one is not tax, but it sits in the same paragraph and is worth naming.
Brand contracts frequently ask the creator to warrant that all claims made about the product are accurate, and to indemnify the brand if they are not. ASCI's disclosure rules and the CCPA endorsement guidelines attach liability to the endorser, personally — not only the brand. Penalties for misleading endorsements can run to ₹10 lakh for a first offence and ₹50 lakh for repeats, with endorsement bans attached.
You should not be warranting claims you have no way to verify. We flag these and route them to a lawyer, because advertising law is not our practice — but the clause is usually sitting in the same page as the tax terms, and it is worth seeing.
5. Payment timing, and what triggers it
"Net 60 from invoice" and "net 60 from campaign completion" are different by weeks. So is "on submission of deliverables" versus "on publication" versus "on approval", where approval has no defined turnaround.
The tax angle: GST is payable on the earlier of invoice or payment, so a contract that delays payment but requires early invoicing puts you out of pocket on the tax before the money arrives. On a large deal that matters.
Before you sign
- Does it state which TDS section applies?
- Is the fee inclusive or exclusive of GST — explicitly?
- If product is retained, is a value stated?
- Are you indemnifying claims you cannot independently verify?
- What event starts the payment clock, and is that event within your control?
Why this is worth systematising
A single contract review takes under an hour. The value is not in any one review — it is that once every brand deal routes past someone before signature, these five things stop being variable.
Creators who do this find the conversation with brands changes too. A creator who asks for the TDS section to be specified reads as someone with an organised business, and brands treat them accordingly.
This article is general guidance as at 5 August 2026 and is not advice on any specific situation. References reflect the Income-tax Act, 2025 (in force from 1 April 2026), the CGST and IGST Acts as amended, and GST rates effective 22 September 2025. Please obtain advice on your own facts before acting.