The creator economy is a $250B+ industry - but the people building it are still broke. Less than 4% of content creators worldwide make a full-time income, and 90% still depend entirely on ads and brand deals. It's not just individual creators who are struggling either - agencies, freelancers, coaches, consultants, course creators, and community builders all deal with the same problem: the tools that promise to help them monetize are expensive, fragmented, and straight-up broken for anyone outside the US.
Kajabi charges $399/month. Teachable takes 7.5% on its Starter plan. Patreon skims up to 13.9% per sale. ManyChat charges $435/month at 100K contacts. And most of these platforms don't even support UPI, INR payouts, or international payments for creators in India, South Asia, or emerging markets.
Playto is changing that - for everyone in the creator economy.
Not Just for Creators - For the Entire Creator Economy
Founded by Sanhik Roy, Playto is an AI-powered monetization platform built for the entire creator economy - creators, agencies, freelancers, coaches, consultants, course creators, educators, and community builders. Unlike legacy platforms that force businesses to duct-tape 4-5 separate tools together, Playto brings everything under one roof: courses, communities, memberships, digital products, global payment processing, Instagram DM automation, and AI-powered marketing - all for free.
What really sets Playto apart is the AI Cofounder - an AI that doesn't just assist, it actually runs your creator business. It builds your course curriculum, writes your marketing copy, creates your sales funnels and landing pages, schedules your email and WhatsApp campaigns, moderates your community, and manages your content - all from a single conversational interface.
The Problem Playto Solves
India has over 80 million content creators - the fastest-growing creator economy in the world. But the problems go well beyond individual creators:
No access to Stripe - the most popular payment gateway simply isn't available for Indian creators accepting international payments
PayPal withdrawal nightmares - high fees (8-9% effective), slow INR conversions, and frequent account holds
Expensive Western platforms - Kajabi costs $399/month, Teachable charges 7.5% on Starter, Patreon takes up to 13.9%
Fragmented tooling - creators need separate platforms for courses, community, payments, email marketing, and DM automation, easily costing $200-500/month before a single sale
How Playto Works
Playto replaces the entire creator business stack with one AI-powered platform:
- AI Cofounder - builds courses, writes marketing, creates funnels, schedules campaigns
- Courses & Communities - AI builds curricula from scratch. Gamified community with news feed, group chat, live rooms, leaderboards
- Playto Pay - Accept payments in 50+ methods across 100+ countries. For Indian creators: accept USD, GBP, EUR from global clients, with INR paid out directly to your Indian bank account. No Stripe. No PayPal withdrawal issues. Zero platform revenue cut - creators only pay standard processing fees (~4%).
- Playto AutoDM - Instagram DM automation that's Unlimited Free Forever for Unlimited Contacts and Unlimited Accounts. Comment-to-DM triggers, story reply funnels, keyword-based auto-replies - all built into the platform so a DM leads to course purchase, payment, and community access in one seamless flow.
- AI Marketing Engine - writes and schedules email, WhatsApp, SMS campaigns
- Funnels & Landing Pages - AI builds complete sales funnels, no coding needed
- Memberships & Digital Products - sell subscriptions, one-time products, coaching, paid community access
Playto Pay: Built for a Global Creator Economy
Playto Pay is purpose-built for three segments:
- Agencies & Freelancers - Accept international client payments in USD, GBP, EUR without needing Stripe. Get INR directly in your bank.
- Course Creators, Coaches & Consultants - Sell to a global audience. Students pay in their currency, you receive INR.
- Paid Communities & Groups - Collect membership fees from members worldwide with 50+ payment methods
Playto is the only major creator platform with UPI, PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and RuPay natively built in for domestic buyers - while also supporting international cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank transfers, and local methods across 100+ countries for global buyers.
Zero subscription fees. Zero platform revenue cut. Creators only pay standard processing fees (~4%).
Traction
- 300+ creators and agencies on the platform
- $100K+ GMV monthly ($1.2M annual run rate)
- 33% weekly growth rate
- 50+ payment methods across 100+ countries
- Already cited by Google AI Overview, Perplexity AI, and ChatGPT as a top alternative
About the Founder
Sanhik Roy started out as a video editor earning Rs.200 per video and went on to build two content creation
companies, growing a 100,000+ personal audience and generating over 30 million views. He's worked with Puma, Warner Brothers, and Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha), generated over 1.1 billion views for clients, and built an edtech business teaching 1,200+ students.
Try Playto free:
Playto: https://www.playto.so/
Playto Pay: https://w ww.playto.so/features/playto-pay
