One good sync placement can earn more than a year of streams, and it can find you a new audience overnight. But India's sync market doesn't work like Hollywood's. Most of the money is in brand campaigns, not scenes in films. Here is where the deals are, what you need to own, and how to be the artist a supervisor can clear in 48 hours.

What "sync" means

Synchronisation is pairing music with moving pictures: an ad, a web series, a trailer, a game, a brand's Instagram reel. Every sync deal needs two permissions:

  • Master licence: permission to use the recording, from whoever owns the master.
  • Sync (publishing) licence: permission to use the composition, from the songwriters or publisher.

If you wrote and recorded the song and kept your masters, you control both, which makes you the fastest licensor in the room (Grootin, June 2026). That is a real advantage over many label-signed acts, and it's why the question of who owns Indian indie masters matters so much.

Where Indian sync money actually comes from

Writing for Music Ally in July 2026, a sync practitioner estimated that brand campaigns account for "likely upward of 80 percent" of India's sync activity. FMCG, telecom, e-commerce, beverage, auto, OTT and financial brands do most of the licensing (Music Ally guest column, 16 July 2026). The same column notes that contextual placements in film and series (your song playing during a scene) are "few and far between". When films and series do license music, it is mostly for marketing assets such as trailers, promos and campaign spots. That is the author's estimate, since there are no official figures, but it matches how the market is described elsewhere.

What this means for you: an indie artist chasing only Netflix scenes is aiming at the smallest door. Ad agencies and brand marketing teams are the bigger one.

OTT is opening up slowly

Bollywood's long-standing model is work-for-hire. The studio commissions a music director and owns the soundtrack outright. Mint Lounge's reporting describes streaming platforms, especially Netflix and Amazon, as "much more open to licensing pre-existing music". Their music teams help creators handle rights clearance, and Netflix has run workshops for India's small community of music supervisors (Mint Lounge). In the same piece, IPRS CEO Rakesh Nigam calls sync "both a powerful discovery tool and a significant revenue stream". Ankur Tewari argues that the chance to exploit your own rights makes "a little more sense to be an independent musician and not sign to a label right now".

What IPRS charges on ads (the composition side)

Beyond the one-off sync fee you negotiate, the Indian Performing Right Society publishes a tariff for musical works used in commercials. Its SNC tariff (effective from 1 April 2018, re-approved in the April 2025 EGM document) lists, per 30 seconds per year (IPRS tariff PDF):

  • TV commercials/promos (all channels): ₹45,000 per 30s, per annum
  • Radio jingles/ads (all FM/AIR): ₹25,000
  • Internet/website ads: ₹30,000
  • Digital out-of-home: ₹20,000 per city, per segment
  • Corporate videos: ₹20,000

There's a minimum of ₹20,000, and GST is extra. The tariff is explicitly in addition to the licensee getting a sync licence from the copyright holders. If you're an IPRS member with your works registered, that's royalty flowing to you as the writer. Not registered yet? Start with our IPRS, PPL and Novex explainer.

How to make your catalogue sync-ready

Supervisors and agency producers work on deadlines measured in days. They pick the track they can clear fastest, not only the one they like most.

  1. Clean rights. No uncleared samples. No leased beats you can't license exclusively. Written split sheets with every co-writer and producer.
  2. Stems and alternates. At minimum: full mix, instrumental, and a clean (non-explicit) version. Many briefs ask for 30s and 60s edits.
  3. Metadata. ISRC on the recording, writer names and IPI/IPRS details on the composition, BPM, mood and language tags, and one contact email that someone actually answers.
  4. One-sheet. Who owns what, in two lines: "Master: 100% [artist]. Composition: [writer A] 50% / [writer B] 50%, IPRS members." This alone wins deals.
  5. Know your floor. Decide your minimum for regional digital, national digital and TV before anyone asks, using the IPRS figures above as a reference for how the market values 30 seconds.

Where the opportunities come from

  • Ad agencies and production houses. Music producers at agencies often keep reference playlists. Getting into their inbox with a short, rights-clear link beats a big pitch deck.
  • Music supervisors. India's community is small, as Mint's reporting shows. Follow their credits on series you like and send short, specific pitches.
  • Sync libraries and distributor sync programmes. Several Indian distributors now advertise sync opportunities. Read the exclusivity terms carefully. Non-exclusive libraries can sit uneasily with Content ID (see our YouTube Content ID guide).
  • Brands' in-house teams for social-first campaigns, where a ₹ figure is often decided in hours.

Being visible helps too. Supervisors search for new sounds. An up-to-date electronic press kit, a clear release history, and coverage in Indian music publications make you findable.

Red flags in sync contracts

  • "In perpetuity, all media, worldwide" for a regional digital fee. Push for term, territory and media that match what you're being paid.
  • Buyouts of your composition dressed up as a licence. A licence lets them use the song. An assignment transfers ownership.
  • Fees "in exposure". Credit is welcome, but a brand campaign has a budget.
  • Re-titling schemes from libraries that register your track under new titles. These can collide with your own Content ID and IPRS registrations.

FAQ

Do I need a publisher for sync in India? No. If you wrote the song and own the master, you can license both sides yourself. A publisher helps mainly with pitching and admin.

How much does an Indian ad sync pay? It varies, and there is no official public rate card for the fee itself. IPRS's composition-side tariff runs from ₹20,000 to ₹45,000 per 30 seconds a year depending on medium, which gives a sense of scale (IPRS).

Is OTT sync realistic for indie artists? It is growing, mainly through trailers and promos and, increasingly, in-scene use on global platforms (Mint; Music Ally).

What's the single most important step? Clean, documented ownership. Speed of clearance wins deals.

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