India's highest-paid OTT star charged ₹18 cr per episode, out-earned Shah Rukh, Salman; it's not Jaideep, Manoj Bajpayee

India's highest-paid OTT star earned ₹125 crore for a single season, more than the full-film fees of even superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

Updated on: Mar 26, 2025, 14:45:44 IST

By Abhimanyu Mathur

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

When streaming began in India, the shows were smaller in scale, largely made up of micro-episodes streaming for free on YouTube. As OTT platforms arrived, original content got bigger in scale with larger budgets and bigger stars. Saif Ali Khan starred in Sacred Games for Netflix, and Vivek Oberoi appeared in Inside Edge for Prime Video. Naturally, these actors charged a sizable fee. But as bigger names entered the OTT space, the stars' fees began touching astronomical amounts, with the highest-paid of them all charging over ₹100 crore for one season.

India's highest-paid OTT star

In 2021, Ajay Devgn signed on to star in the Indian adaptation of the hit British show, Luther. Taking over the mantle from Idris Elba, Ajay starred in Rudra: Edge of Darkness, as a cop with a dark side. Bollywood Hungama reported that Ajay charged a whopping ₹125 crore for the seven episode season, which meant that his per episode fees came out to around ₹18 crore, the highest-ever in Indian entertainment history.

Just how big this payday was can be gauged by the fact that the top stars were not charging this much for films at that point. Shah Rukh Khan had reportedly charged between ₹90 and ₹100 crore for his films Raees and Zero. Salman Khan charged a similar amount for Bharat, as per reports. Ajay Devgn's higher fees reflected a greater runtime as the show's seven episodes were looked at as two films. According to Bollywood Hungama, the deal also included 'some cross-promotional activities for the Star Network like promo shoots, social media posts, appearances on reality shows'.

Other big OTT stars

Given that no actor of Ajay Devgn's stature has appeared in a fiction show on Indian streaming, it isn't surprising that he tops the list of India's highest-paid OTT stars. As per reports, Saif Ali Khan is the next name on the list, having charged ₹15-20 crore for Sacred Games season 2. Varun Dhawan also reportedly earned between ₹12-15 crore for Citadel: Honey Bunny. GQ reported that actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, and Samantha Ruth Prabhu charged somewhere between ₹5-10 crore for their big shows.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhimanyu Mathur
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

Get World Cup ready with Crick-it! From live scores to match stats, catch all the action here. Explore now!.

Get more updates from Bollywood, Taylor Swift, Hollywood, Music and Web Series along with Latest Entertainment News at Hindustan Times.