How Much Does TikTok Pay Its Creators? (How to Make Money)

If you’re looking for a side (or main) hustle, you may wonder how much does TikTok pay? Whether you’d like to open a TikTok shop, or have seen stories of creators who claim to have made money on TikTok, there’s potential for income from the popular app.

For example, stay-at-home mom Kenny Wilson was able to pay off her braces thanks to the TikTok Creator Rewards Program. For Kenny, the Creator Rewards Program is just one piece of a monetization strategy that includes selling merch and an ebook. 

In this guide, we’ll explain how the TikTok Creator Rewards Program works and why it’s important to have multiple revenue streams as a creator.

How much does TikTok pay per view?

TikTok payments vary widely, with creators reporting earnings ranging from a few cents to a few dollars per 1,000 views. Even at the high end, this translates to a fraction of a penny per view.

While this is how much you can make through TikTok’s own Creator Rewards Program, there are many ways to monetize your TikTok following, which we’ll get into later.

Factors affecting TikTok payments

The amount creators earn per 1,000 views is called revenue per mille (RPM). Your RPM depends on factors like:

• Video performance. The average watch time and finish rates of your videos. 
• Search value. The amount of search traffic generated by your videos.
• Location. Both your region and your viewers’ regions.
• Video engagement. How many viewers that engage with your content (such as commenting or liking).
• Advertising value. How much time your viewers spend watching ads on TikTok. 

TikTok calculates your payout based on the number of qualified views a video received and your RPM. For example, if your RPM is 2¢ and you have 38,000 qualified views, you can make $7.60. 

TikTok also offers an “Additional Reward” on top of what it calls its “Standard Reward.” TikTok gives this additional reward for videos it considers well-crafted, engaging, or specialized.

What is the Creator Rewards Program?

TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program compensates content creators for producing high-quality, original, longer-form content. Eligible creators must make all-original TikTok videos more than a minute long, and exclude duets or stitches.

To apply for the Creator Rewards Program, you must meet the eligibility criteria:

• Be at least 18 years old 
• Have a personal account (not a business TikTok account)
• Be based in one of the countries where the Creator Rewards Program is available
• Have at least 10,000 followers
• Have at least 100,000 video views in the past 30 days
• Make original videos one minute or longer
• Follow TikTok’s community guidelines

TikTok Creator Fund vs. Creator Rewards Program

Before 2023, TikTok paid creators through the TikTok Creator Fund, which paid between 2¢ and 4¢ per 1,000 views. 

Facing criticism for these low rates from notable figures like author and YouTuber Hank Green, who earned 2.5¢ per 1,000 views, TikTok launched the Creator Rewards Program, which promised to increase these numbers. 

While it’s difficult to pinpoint an average, users say with the Creator Rewards Program, their RPM ranges from a few cents to a few dollars. 

6 ways to make money on TikTok

• Sell merch
• Partner with brands
• Promote affiliate links
• Livestream to get gifts
• Create a paywalled series
• Add a subscription

Considering how little TikTok pays, creators need to find other ways to use TikTok to make money, like engaging in brand partnerships and selling merch. Social media consultant and author of the newsletter Link in Bio Rachel Karten describes TikTok and other social media platforms as “top of the funnel” for creators. 

“When you think about discovery and people who blow up on TikTok these days … it’s because the videos they’re making are opening up doors and ways of making money beyond [TikTok],” Rachel says.

Sell merch

A content creator can make money on TikTok by selling merchandise online. For example, Kenny of @kennyslifejourney shares her website in her TikTok bio. Kenny’s store sells print-on-demand items that feature phrases that represent Kenny, such as the “I can’t spell, but I can read people” tote.

This approach works whether you’re a TikTok creator with a million views per video, or if you’re a beginner creating content with a dedicated, niche audience.

One of the easiest ways to launch an online store is through a platform like Shopify. You can use pre-made templates and customize them to your needs to launch quickly. You can also connect your store to apps, like print-on-demand dropshipping platforms Printful or Printify. 

TikTok dropshipping keeps you from having to order large quantities of merch, saving you from needing to store or ship products. When a customer places an order, your print-on-demand partner creates the item and sends it to your customer. 

If you have an online store, you can also connect it to TikTok Shop, TikTok’s in-app shopping platform. Once you join TikTok Shop, you can use in-app features like live shopping and shoppable videos. If you’re not sure what to sell, check out this list of TikTok trending products.

Partner with brands

Successful TikTok creators can earn an income through brand partnerships. In this sponsored content, creators work with a company to create sponsored posts that promote its brand or products. 

A sponsored post can be a makeup tutorial featuring a brand’s products, a video modeling a company’s fashion line, or a quick video testimonial about a product.

“Creators who specifically have a recurring style or series that brands could then plug into is a really nice way to partner with brands,” Rachel says. 

For example, Sabrina Brier is a comedian known for her “that friend who” series on TikTok. When partnering with body care company Tree Hut, Sabrina made a video about “that friend who is not over her vacation.” This allows Sabrina to work with brands on TikTok marketing campaigns in a way that still feels authentic to her audience.

If you’re new to working with brands, Rachel recommends reaching out to companies whose products you actually use. “Brands like to work with creators who are already fans of the products,” Rachel says.

You can also find brands to partner with on the TikTok Creator Marketplace, which matches brands with creators, allowing you to negotiate a fair price based on your followers, engagement rate, and audience alignment. 

Promote affiliate links

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based strategy where a creator—i.e., an affiliate—earns money by promoting products or services for a brand. The affiliate uses custom affiliate links to guide their audience to the company’s online store. 

This link lets the brand track where a customer came from, so affiliates get paid when their referrals lead to sales. Unlike brand partnerships, where creators are paid to make content regardless of its impact on sales, affiliates only get paid when their content results in sales or other types of conversions. 

This makes affiliate marketing a great option for beginners, because you can start with a smaller following.

For example, when you sign up for TikTok’s affiliate marketing program, you might post a video featuring a brand’s new travel mug, and then share a link on your account where people can buy it. When someone purchases it through your unique affiliate link, you earn a commission.

Livestream to get gifts

In recent years, live video has become a popular way for content creators to engage their audiences, with platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok integrating livestreams for real-time viewer interaction. 

TikTok added the ability for viewers to give “live gifts”—digital stickers worth anywhere from a few cents to a few hundred dollars—to creators during livestreams. Users essentially can tip creators by sending credits, which they can then exchange for money within the app. 

Create a paywalled series

With TikTok’s Series feature, creators are finding new revenue streams by offering content behind paywalls. This feature also allows creators to upload longer videos of up to 20 minutes (double the standard 10-minute for in-app recording).

Creator Antonio Parlati, who posts about writing in English and Italian, uses the Series feature to sell a seven-video series on the international phonetic alphabet for $15.99. 

You must meet the following requirements to use the Series feature:

• Be 18 years old
• Have an account for at least 30 days 
• Have a public personal or business account
• Have posted three or more original public posts in the past 30 days
• Have 10,000 or more followers (negotiable if you meet the other requirements)
• Have reached 1,000 or more views in the past 30 days
• Be in good standing and follow the community guidelines

If you want more creative control, you can sell digital products like courses and downloadable worksheets from your Shopify store. By adding a link to your store in your TikTok bio, you can sell your content without needing to meet TikTok’s requirements, and you’ll gain valuable insights into your customer base with Shopify Analytics.

Add a subscription

On TikTok, you can also add a subscription and offer your most dedicated audience an opportunity to receive exclusive content, like subscriber-only videos or notes. Subscriptions can range from $2.99 to $99.99 a month per subscriber. The subscription option will appear on your profile beneath your bio.

User Lillian Zhang, who posts about financial content, uses the Subscription feature and offers users three perks. 

It’s worth noting that TikTok takes a cut of all subscription earnings (up to 50%). To keep more of your subscription earnings, consider setting up subscriptions through your own ecommerce store. 

Tips for making money on TikTok

• Create engaging content
• Find a niche
• Post often

To monetize your content on TikTok, you need to work on increasing views. While there’s no shortcut, there are some proven methods for building a following on TikTok and increasing your likelihood of getting paid:

Create engaging content

The most important piece of advice for building an audience and making money as a creator is to create engaging content people want to watch. TikTok users see many videos in a single sitting, so your videos have to cut through the noise. 

“Algorithms are really fickle, so you have to really stay on point with your storytelling,” Dieux Skin cofounder Charlotte Palermino says on an episode of Shopify Masters. Charlotte creates content for both her personal account and Dieux focusing on issues that interest her, like science and history, through the lens of skin care.

“If you feel like you could just talk about something for 10 minutes, then make a video on it and try to cut it down to two,” Charlotte says. 

To make your content as engaging as possible and increase your chances of going viral on TikTok, consider:

• Using trending sounds
• Telling a story in multiple parts
• Establishing a hook in the first three seconds
• Providing a behind-the-scenes look at your life or business
• Courting low-stakes controversy (like declaring Hawaiian pizza the best kind of pizza) 

Find a niche

One of the best ways to build an audience is to find a niche and create videos that align with your interests and fill that unique space. Whether it’s eco-friendly van life, makeup tutorials for a specific cosplay genre, or how-to videos on building musical instruments, the trick is to find something unique that you can speak to.

A good way to find a niche is to make a list of the things you’re passionate about. Then, write out the kind of content you can create for these niches. This helps to determine if there’s enough content you can post on a regular basis. Looking at other creators’ content can help inspire you.

Post often

Social media platforms reward creators who post regularly, so creating a lot of content is key to building an audience. And because you can’t guarantee a specific RPM per video, uploading more videos increases your chances of earning more income. 

Aim to post at least three videos a week and stay on top of your posting schedule by creating a content calendar.