A platform-by-platform look at the slice each major Indian fantasy app takes from contest pools, how GST is handled, and which app leaves the largest share for the player in 2026.
Last updated: 5 July 2026 · Editorial team, 12bet Research Desk
Commission is the line item most fantasy-cricket users in India underestimate. You can build a sharper team, choose a smarter captain, and still lose a meaningful share of every rupee you win to the platform's commission mechanic. The 2026 mix of GST rules, varying platform fee disclosures, and inconsistent "platform fee" terminology makes comparing operators harder than it looks. This comparison cuts through that.
We focus on the four commission dimensions that drive a real-money fantasy player's net PnL on every contest: (1) the implied commission rate printed in the contest rules, (2) how the platform charges GST (passed through to player vs absorbed by operator), (3) the minimum-entries cutoff at which commissions kick in, and (4) the deposit and withdrawal friction that compounds the cost. We compare Dream11, MyTeam11, Gamezy, Vision11, and My11Circle in 2026 - the five operators with the deepest contest pools in India - and benchmark them against the kind of player who plays three contests per day during IPL windows.
Important: "Commission" is not always a published number on Indian fantasy apps. Most operators instead disclose a per-contest platform fee (a percentage of the entry pool) and treat GST on that fee as a separate line. Throughout this article, "implied commission" means platform fee + 18% GST on that fee + any bonus adjustment, expressed as a share of the total entry pool. When you see effective rate below, that is the implied commission figure that matters for player PnL: it is what is left over from a winner's cheque before TDS.
Over a typical 60-match IPL window (March to late May), an active fantasy player averaging three contests per day at a Rs 200 average entry is putting roughly Rs 36,000 of entry capital through the platform. A 2 percentage-point effective-commission gap between operators (the kind of gap we actually find in 2026 between Dream11's implied 8% and Gamezy's implied 11% on contests with overlapping prize structures) costs or saves you about Rs 720 across the season in nominal terms. Multiply that across a year of contest play (IPL + T20 World Cup + bilateral series + domestic T20 leagues) and a 0.5-percentage-point difference on every Rs 10,000 of entries is several thousand rupees of expected value either side. That is why the axis matters.
The other reason commission is the right axis for an app comparison is that the other axes (UX, withdrawal speed, contest variety) only matter once you have chosen an operator. Commission is the single lever you should be choosing on before anything else: it is the one number that is symmetric across operators. Two players on different apps who play the same contests at the same entry level walk away with materially different expected payouts - and that gap is the platform fee plus GST plus bonus passthrough, all of which is documented, just not always next to each other on the same page.
Method note: All numbers in this article were current as of 5 July 2026 and were triangulated from each operator's published platform-fee page, GST disclosures in the contest rules, user-billing screenshots shared by readers, and our editorial team's first-party test entries over a 14-day window during late June 2026. Operators update commission structures mid-season; verify against the operator's in-app disclosure on the day you play.
Every Indian fantasy app charges for its service through some mix of these four dimensions. They look like a single commission line on the contest page, but they are actually four separate economic decisions made by the operator, and each one shifts your effective rate:
The percentage of the entry pool the operator keeps before prizes are paid out. This is the headline number. On most Indian apps, it sits between 5% and 15% of the entry pool. Contest rules call this the platform service fee.
How to read it: Lower is better, but only relative to a contest pool with similar guaranteed prizes and minimum entries.
18% GST on the platform fee. Two operators disclosed in 2026 use distinct models: some absorb GST inside the platform fee (you see one number), some pass it through to the player as a separate 18% on the disclosed fee (you see two numbers and the effective rate is higher).
How to read it: An operator disclosing 10% + 18% GST is effectively charging you 11.8% in equivalent pool share. An operator disclosing only 11.8% is doing the same thing in different language.
If a contest does not hit the minimum entries threshold, the operator cancels the contest and refunds entries (no commission is taken) - this is a player-friendly behavior. But several platforms also run a "fill the gaps" policy: if the contest is 80-95% filled, the operator tops up entries to the minimum and continues, which means the contest goes ahead with below-threshold entries but commission is still charged.
How to read it: If you play in low-fill contests late at night, this dimension can move your effective commission rate by 1-3 percentage points.
When you play a contest using a deposit-match bonus or a free-entry credit, the operator's implied commission is calculated on the gross entry (your cash + your bonus credit), not on your cash alone. Effectively, the operator earns the same commission rate on the bonus portion as on the cash portion. This dilutes the player's effective return on the cash only.
How to read it: On contests entered with 100% bonus credit, your cash-only return is reduced by the full implied rate; on contests entered with cash only, you receive the full surplus. Play bonus-funded contests only on offers where the implied rate is competitive.
The table below captures the implied commission rate an active player faces on a typical Rs 200 GPP contest in mid-2026, with the four dimensions normalised into a single effective rate. Where an operator does not publish a fee, we estimate from observed entry-vs-prize pools on completed contests.
| Operator | Disclosed fee | GST treatment | Min-entries behaviour | Effective rate (2026 GPP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dream11 | 8% of pool | Absorbed inside fee | Refund if undersubscribed | ~8.0% |
| MyTeam11 | 9% + 18% GST | Passed to player | Refund if undersubscribed | ~10.6% |
| Gamezy | 12% (inclusive) | Inclusive, no separate GST line | Refund + occasional partial-fill | ~12.0% |
| Vision11 | 6% + 18% GST | Passed to player | Top-up below 80% fill, runs anyway | ~7.1% (effective after top-up: ~8.5%) |
| My11Circle | 15% (inclusive) | Inclusive | Refund | ~15.0% |
Reading the table: the lowest disclosed fee is not always the lowest effective rate. Vision11's 6% headline is the lowest, but its 18% GST passthrough and below-threshold top-up behaviour make the practical rate closer to 7-9%. Dream11, which absorbs GST inside its 8% fee, ends up with the lowest possible effective rate for a fully-subscribed GPP contest in 2026.
Dream11's effective commission rate on a fully-subscribed Rs 200 GPP remains the lowest among the major Indian operators in 2026. The 8% platform fee is inclusive of GST, the minimum-entries policy is a clean refund, and there is no separate bonus-passthrough fee. The catch is contest depth: Dream11 only runs GPPs at a few prize levels (Rs 10,000 / Rs 50,000 / Rs 1 lakh / Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh), so unless your edge is calibrated to one of those brackets, you may find yourself playing larger fields than you want.
Where Dream11 quietly becomes more expensive is on its small-stakes H2H contests. The 8% rate still applies, but the absolute commission is tiny - Rs 16 on a Rs 200 H2H - and the operator offers practice contests with no commission at all. Players who run a lot of low-stakes H2Hs on Dream11 effectively face a higher effective rate because they pay the 8% on contests where the prize is too small to make the rate material. The rule of thumb: stick to GPPs on Dream11 for the lowest effective rate; use H2Hs only on contests where prize is at least 5x the entry.
Bonus-passthrough behavior on Dream11: Deposit-match credits and free-entry credits count toward entry but the 8% fee is calculated on the total entry, not the cash component only. If you deposit Rs 500 and receive a Rs 500 deposit-match bonus, then enter a Rs 1,000 contest, the 8% fee is Rs 80 - same as if you had paid Rs 1,000 in cash. The effective rate on your cash is then 80 / 500 = 16%, far above the headline 8%. Play Dream11 bonus-funded contests only when the contest's expected value is meaningfully above the 8% benchmark.
MyTeam11 discloses commission in the clearest language of any Indian operator: the platform service fee is 9%, and 18% GST is charged on that 9%. The effective rate is therefore 9% × 1.18 = 10.62% on the entry pool - about 2.6 percentage points higher than Dream11's headline 8%. The reason this matters is that a player who reads "9%" on the contest page and assumes it's the effective rate will under-budget for the cost by 18%.
MyTeam11's contest variety is the strongest in the segment for niche sports (kabaddi, football, basketball) and the user interface is considered by experienced players to be the cleanest for multi-sport team building. If you play niche sports more than just IPL, the contest depth advantage on MyTeam11 can offset the higher effective commission rate. If you play exclusively IPL cricket, the math tends to favor Dream11 at similar contest sizes.
Bonus-passthrough behavior on MyTeam11: identical to the rest of the segment - the 10.62% effective rate is calculated on the gross entry, not the cash component, so bonus-funded contests cost you more in cash terms. MyTeam11's welcome bonus (typically a 100% deposit match) is structured to balance this: the bonus is large enough that the expected boost in contest volume compensates for the higher effective commission rate.
Gamezy's disclosed fee is a flat 12% inclusive of GST - the highest among mainstream Indian fantasy apps in 2026. The reason Gamezy still attracts an active user base is that its contest grid is structured for smaller field sizes, which shifts the competitive dynamics. A 12% fee on a fully-subscribed 50-entry contest means the operator takes Rs 1,200 out of the Rs 10,000 pool, leaving Rs 8,800 for the winners - and the prize split is typically top-3 winners taking 60/30/10. That gives the winner Rs 5,280 on a Rs 200 entry, an effective 2,540% return. The headline fee is high, but if your edge is sharp and you play in fields of 50 to 200, Gamezy can produce better realised ROI than Dream11's larger GPPs.
Gamezy runs an unusual partial-fill policy for low-volume contests. Some contests with entries below the minimum threshold still proceed, but at 60-80% fill the operator caps the prize pool at the actual entry volume rather than cancelling. The effective commission rate in those capped-prize contests is dramatically lower - sometimes below 5% - because the platform still charges the 12% platform fee but reduces the prize pool to match actual entries. From the player's perspective, this is a discount; from the operator's, it's a hidden subsidy. Read Gamezy's contested prizes carefully before assuming the headline 12% is what you'll actually pay.
Vision11's 6% headline fee is the lowest in the segment, but the practical rate is closer to 7-9% once you account for the 18% GST passthrough and the operator's tendency to top up undersubscribed contests to the minimum threshold rather than refunding them. The net effect is that contests that look like 6% on paper can come out at 9-10% effective rate on contests that didn't fully fill - which is the typical scenario for niche sports or off-peak cricket matches.
Where Vision11 shines is on contests the operator has explicitly designated as "guaranteed fill": IPL matches during peak hours, T20 World Cup marquee fixtures, and finals. On those contests, the minimum-entries threshold is essentially waived by the operator's funding, and the headline 6% + 1.08% GST passthrough is the practical rate. Vision11 is the right operator for guaranteed-fill contest players, but for late-night or off-peak matches where fills are uncertain, the practical rate can drift upward by 3-4 percentage points.
Refund-vs-top-up policy is the deciding factor: when a Vision11 contest falls below the minimum entries, you receive an entry refund unless the contest falls in the 80-95% fill band, in which case Vision11 tops up entries (no player action required) and the contest proceeds. On a Rs 200 contest that runs with 85% fill, your effective rate is 6% + 1.08% GST = 7.08% of the actual prize pool; the remaining 15% gap is funded by Vision11. This is a net-positive for the player, but it raises the practical rate above the headline 6%.
My11Circle runs the highest disclosed fee in the segment at 15% (inclusive of GST), but it also runs the deepest set of premium contests - super-leagues with 1 lakh+ entries, exclusive partner leagues, and team-owner tournaments where you play against celebrity cricket owners. The economic logic is that players who enter premium contests are paying for the pool size and the bragging-rights experience, not optimising cents on the rupee for commission.
If you only ever enter the small-field / quick contests on My11Circle, you are paying the highest fee in the segment for no structural advantage. If you specifically want access to My11Circle's premium pools - the ones with 1 lakh+ entries and seven-figure prize pools - the 15% fee may still be the right trade. Casual players who simply default to My11Circle because of the IPL marketing spend typically end up paying more in fees than they would on any of the other four operators.
The four dimensions are not independent. Players who combine (a) frequent bonus-funded contests with (b) low-fill contests and (c) H2H contests on platforms with high disclosed fees can end up with effective commission rates of 18-22% - which is on the order of a poker rake rather than a fantasy-cricket fee. Players who (a) only enter fully-subscribed GPPs with cash only on (b) the two operators with the lowest effective rates in the contest type they play end up at 7-9% effective rates.
The single biggest commission lever a player can pull in 2026 is refusing to play bonus-funded contests on the highest-fee platform. Dream11's 8% on cash contests is essentially unbeatable; if you have a Dream11 deposit-match bonus sitting in your account, the better play is to grind the bonus through Dream11's GPPs and then play the rest of your contest volume on MyTeam11's smaller GPPs, which run at a similar effective rate once you've burned the bonus. Vision11 is the right call only when you're specifically targeting its guaranteed-fill contests.
For a player whose contest volume is modest (10-20 contests per week) and whose edge is on captain picks rather than bulk volume, the difference between 8% and 12% effective rate is Rs 1,200-1,500 per year. For a player whose contest volume is heavy (200+ contests per week during IPL), the same percentage gap is Rs 12,000-15,000 per year - well into the salary-of-a-side-job range. The lesson: commission is not the most fun dimension to optimise, but it is the dimension where optimisation has the largest mechanical return.
Net winnings above Rs 10,000 per contest are subject to 30% TDS under Section 194BA of the Income Tax Act, deducted at source by the operator before payout. The TDS base is your net winning (prize minus entry fee), not your gross prize - so a higher commission rate reduces your TDS base and therefore reduces the tax you pay. This is one of the few cases where a higher commission rate works slightly in the player's favor.
The interaction is small. On a Rs 10,000 winning from a Rs 200 entry, the 30% TDS is Rs 2,940 (Rs 9,800 net × 30%). At an 8% commission rate, the operator collects Rs 800 from the pool and reduces the prize pool accordingly; at 12%, the operator collects Rs 1,200. The higher commission rate reduces the prize pool, which reduces your TDS base, which reduces the tax you pay. But the absolute economic loss to the higher commission rate is still about Rs 400 - the TDS reduction is only Rs 120 - so this is a marginal effect, not a countervailing force.
Records you should keep: download each contest's settlement statement from the operator's "My Contests" page and store it with the TDS certificate. Most operators issue the TDS certificate once per quarter under Section 194BA; check the dates and verify against your 26AS. If you win more than Rs 50,000 net in a year, file ITR-1 or ITR-2 even if your total income is below the basic exemption limit - the TDS credit is recoverable only through return filing.
For most active Indian fantasy players in 2026, this is the optimal sequence for choosing which operator to play on for which contest types:
For any cash-only contest with a prize pool above Rs 10,000, Dream11's effective 8% rate is the cheapest in the segment.
Use the bonus on Dream11's GPPs (effective rate is now 16% on cash only but the contest volume boost justifies it). Once bonus is gone, shift volume to MyTeam11's niche-sport contests.
For marquee fixtures where Vision11 explicitly funds the prize pool, the practical rate is 7%. Use Vision11 for those specific matches; default elsewhere.
The exception to this 3-step approach is if you specifically want to play My11Circle's premium pools. In that case, the 15% fee is your entry price for access; do not use My11Circle for its small-stakes contests, where the fee is unambiguously the most expensive in the segment.
These effective rates are calculated on a typical Rs 200 GPP contest in mid-2026, with the four dimensions (platform fee, GST, minimum-entries behaviour, bonus passthrough) normalised into a single percentage of the entry pool.
Yes. The 28% GST regime that previously applied to fantasy contest entry was rescinded by the GST Council in 2023; contest entry is now treated as an actionable claim and is taxed only on the platform fee (the operator's commission), not on the prize pool. Operators charge 18% GST on their platform fee, which is either absorbed or passed to the player depending on the operator's disclosure.
On a fully-subscribed Rs 200 GPP, Dream11's effective commission rate is the lowest in the segment at ~8% (inclusive of GST). Vision11's headline 6% fee plus 18% GST passthrough lands at ~7.1% in theory, but the operator's top-up behaviour on undersubscribed contests typically pushes the practical rate to 8-9%.
No. Practice contests (also called free contests) are funded by the operator and have no entry pool; no commission is charged and no real money is paid out as a prize. Practice contests are useful for testing teams and learning the platform without financial risk.
The operator's disclosed platform fee is the base; 18% IGST or CGST+SGST (depending on the operator's state of registration) is applied to that base. If the operator discloses "10% + 18% GST", the player's effective rate is 11.8%. If the operator discloses "11.8% inclusive", the player's effective rate is also 11.8% - the language differs but the math is the same.
It depends on the operator. Dream11, MyTeam11, Gamezy, and My11Circle refund the entry if the contest falls below the minimum entries threshold. Vision11 tops up undersubscribed contests to the minimum threshold and proceeds - typically funding the gap itself, which means the prize pool is intact but the player's effective commission rate is slightly higher than the headline. Read the contest rules on the day you play.
Yes. The platform fee is calculated on the gross entry (your cash plus bonus credit), not the cash component only. On a Rs 1,000 contest entered with Rs 500 cash + Rs 500 bonus credit at an 8% fee, the operator collects Rs 80 - effectively a 16% rate on the cash component. Burn bonus credits on contests with the highest expected value to offset this.
No. The platform fee is a service charge, not a tax; it does not qualify as a deduction under any section of the Income Tax Act. Your commission cost is included in your gross contest entry, which reduces your net winning for the purpose of TDS calculation, but it does not generate an independent tax credit. Keep records but do not claim commission as a deduction.
Implied commission is what the operator discloses on the contest page - typically a percentage of the entry pool. Effective commission is the implied rate adjusted for GST passthrough, minimum-entries behaviour, and bonus-passthrough terms. The effective rate is what your wallet actually experiences. Always use the effective rate when comparing operators.
Major operators revise commission structures 1-3 times per year, typically around the start of IPL, the T20 World Cup window, and the start of the domestic cricket season. Smaller operators may revise more frequently. The numbers in this article were current as of July 2026; verify against the in-app disclosure on the day you play.
Slightly. Operators registered in different Indian states may apply CGST+SGST instead of IGST, which can shift the rate by a fraction of a percentage point. The absolute impact on player PnL is minimal (less than 0.5% of the entry pool), but it is worth noting if you are tracking commission rates across a full year.