IPO subscription explained
An IPO's shares are divided into buckets for different investor types. 'Subscription' is how many times each bucket was bid for.
Updated 17 October 2026
Every IPO reserves a fixed share of the offer for each category of investor. As bids come in, the exchanges publish, several times a day, how many times each bucket has been applied for. "12x subscribed" for a bucket means the demand there was twelve times the number of shares on offer.
1x, 10x and 100x: a simple example
If a category offers 1,000 shares, bids for 1,000 shares mean 1x, 10,000 shares mean 10x and 100,000 shares mean 100x. The calculation is shares bid for divided by shares available in that category.
100x is not a 100% return and does not directly establish a 1-in-100 personal allotment chance. Application sizes, valid applications, category rules and the final basis of allotment matter. A subscription reading is demand at a point in time, not a guaranteed outcome.
See Retail vs NII vs QIB for category context.
The buckets
- QIB — Qualified Institutional Buyers. Mutual funds, insurers, banks, FIIs. Usually up to 50% of a mainboard book-built issue. QIB bids mostly arrive on the last day and cannot be withdrawn.
- NII / HNI — Non-Institutional Investors. Anyone applying for more than ₹2 lakh. Split into sNII (₹2–10 lakh) and bNII (above ₹10 lakh), each with its own sub-quota. Typically 15%.
- Retail (RII). Individuals applying up to ₹2 lakh. Typically 35%. Allotment here is by lottery when oversubscribed.
- Employee / Shareholder. Some issues carve out a small reserved portion, often at a discount.
- Anchor. Large institutions allotted the day before the IPO opens, at the issue price, with a lock-in. Anchor take-up is an early confidence signal.
Reading the numbers
Strong QIB and NII demand is often read as institutional and high-net-worth conviction. A weak retail number can signal low public interest. But subscription is about demand for allotment, not a promise of a listing gain — heavily subscribed issues have listed flat, and lightly subscribed ones have risen. Read it together with the price band and the RHP, not on its own.
On Platform
The subscription tracker shows the live QIB / NII / retail / total figures for every open and just-closed IPO, auto-refreshing, with the update time. Figures move fastest in the final hours before close.
Related reading
Platform is an independent aggregator, not affiliated with NSE, BSE, SEBI or any registrar. This article is general information, not investment advice. See the disclaimer.