Cuban model Ana Maura, who identifies as Azúcar Morena, revealed on Instagram which jobs are the highest and lowest paid within the modeling industry in Cuba, exposing an economic reality that she described as "very sad."
In the video, the young woman, who has been working as a model on the island for several years, detailed with names and figures the huge gap between earnings in Cuban pesos and those obtained from working with foreign clients.
The lowest-paying jobs are in fashion shows, he stated bluntly. According to his testimony, fashion shows featuring little-known Cuban designers used to pay only 75 Cuban pesos a few years ago, paid via check through an association with the Actuar agency, with delays of two to three months to cash them.
In second place among the lowest paid are music videos, which are also very poorly compensated. The model recalled that with one of those first payments, she had to finance a school trip to Matanzas: "With that money, I went on a school trip to Matanzas and went to parties, having to stretch that payment as if it were the longest chewing gum of my life."
The situation changed when Azúcar Morena joined an exclusive agency as a model for Planet Talent. "Now I'm with an exclusive agency that does come with its privileges," she noted.
Among the highest-paying jobs, the model highlighted photo shoots with foreign photographers, who come to Cuba drawn precisely by the low costs of local modeling compared to Europe. "Many photographers are interested and know that here the cost of a model will be much lower than the normal cost of a model in Europe," she explained.
For those sessions, a model can earn between 100 and 300 dollars, as she explained, "depending on the type of session you do, depending on whom you work with, and depending on how professional the person is who comes to work with you."
Her best photoshoot earned her about $300, but the highest-paying job of her career was a promotion for Havana Club, the internationally renowned Cuban rum brand. "A promotion I did for Havana Club paid me around $400. It was two days of work for $400," she stated.
This figure contrasts sharply with the average monthly salary in Cuba, which is around 6,830 Cuban pesos —about 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate— according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information for 2025.
The testimony of Azúcar Morena illustrates the economic duality that defines the Cuban labor market: while the state sector pays in pesos with minimal purchasing power and delays of months, the connection with foreign clients or photographers opens access to foreign currency that represents incomparably higher income, a gap that the dictatorship has neither managed to close nor seriously attempted to do so in decades.
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