Zerodha makes largest-ever referral payout, amount not revealed

Firm claims it has acquired nearly a fourth of its customers through its referral programme

The country’s largest brokerage Zerodha has made its biggest-ever referral payout to its customers.

“...over one million customers have referred their friends and family, and today, we just made our largest referral payout to our customers,” tweeted Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO, Zerodha on Wednesday.

Refusing to divulge the payout figure, Kamath told Business Standard that the discount broker has acquired nearly a fourth of its customers through its referral programme.

“The total outgo is a decent amount. We have acquired 20-25 per cent of our customers through this route,” he said.

Kamath said the money paid in this way helps the company add new customers. He termed it as one of the key factors behind Zerodha's success.

Zerodha pays 10 per cent of all brokerage generated from referred clients if certain conditions are met. The conditions, among other things, include that such referred clients must activate their demat within 60 days of being referred on Zerodha’s website or application.

And clients can withdraw money from their accounts only if the referral brokerage generated exceeds Rs 1,000 and a minimum of five completed referrals are mapped to the account. Several Twitter users acknowledged that they had received payouts.

Bootstrapped Zerodha is among the most profitable startups in the country. In FY22, Zerodha had posted a profit of Rs 2,094 crore, logging a jump of 87 per cent over the preceding year. In a recent interview, Kamath said that Zerodha was expected to post total revenue of nearly Rs 6,000 crore and net profit of over Rs 2,500 crore in FY23.

"It doesn't hit the profits much. The scheme has been in place from the beginning," Kamath said.