How Much Does TikTok Pay Creators?

Currently, the only way to get paid directly by TikTok for video views is through the TikTok Creator Rewards Program. Unfortunately, TikTok doesn’t clearly state their pay rates. Online estimates and user reports are incredibly varied, but most fall in the range of $0.20–$2.25 per thousand views.

Here’s a simple breakdown of the TikTok pay scale:

• Pay per view: $0.0002–$0.00225.
• Pay per thousand views: $0.20–$2.25.
• Pay per million views: $200–$2,250.

There’s a reason you’ll find so much conflicting information about how much TikTok pays creators. For starters, TikTok’s pay rates vary from one user to the next based on a wide range of factors. But that’s not all—they also vary for individual creators from one video to the next.

TikTok really doesn’t make it easy to figure out how much you can get paid as a creator. In fact, their terms and conditions even forbid creators from sharing details about their earning metrics. Nevertheless, some TikTokers have shared details about their earnings in the spirit of transparency, as you can see in the table below.

User-Reported Earnings from TikTok Creator Rewards

When does TikTok start paying you?

Sadly, you won’t automatically get a payout if one of your TikTok videos go viral, and TikTok’s new pay rates won’t apply to old videos. You need to already be enrolled in their monetization program before TikTok will pay you for views. You also need to meet the minimum payment threshold of $50 before you can withdraw the funds.

How does TikTok pay?

Once you’re enrolled in the TikTok Creator Rewards program, TikTok will give you payouts based on the number and quality of views you get on each of your qualifying videos. Although TikTok used to offer bank transfers, you currently need to have a PayPal account to get paid.

Since PayPal has an age requirement of 18 years old, that’s how old you need to be to get paid by TikTok. Once you’ve linked your PayPal account, you’re good to go. The funds will accumulate instantly, and you’ll be able to withdraw them once you’ve earned enough meet the minimum withdrawal threshold.

Does TikTok pay for likes?

No, TikTok does not pay creators for likes on their videos. TikTok only pays per view. With that said, they won’t pay you when a viewer dislikes your video content.

The TikTok Creator Rewards Program (formerly known as the Creativity Program Beta) replaced the original TikTok Creator Fund in 2024. Eligible content creators get paid by TikTok in the form of rewards per qualifying 1,000 views, or revenue per mille (RPM).

It’s important to understand that not everybody can get paid by TikTok. For starters, TikTokers can only earn money from the Creator Rewards Program in certain countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, and Brazil. There are also several other eligibility requirements that you should be aware of if you want to get paid by TikTok.

Requirements to Get Paid on TikTok

As this table shows, you need to hit at least 100,000 views in 1 month to make money on TikTok. Additionally, although TikTok doesn’t pay per follower, you need at least 10,000 followers before TikTok will start paying you.

TikTok Creator Fund vs. TikTok Creator Rewards Program

Even though it’s tough to pin down exactly how much TikTok pays creators now, it’s clear that the new TikTok Creator Rewards Program pays much more than the old Creator Fund. The new program pays an estimated $0.20–$2.25 per thousand views, whereas the old TikTok Creator Fund payout was only $0.02–$0.04 per thousand views.

It was these low TikTok Creator Fund pay rates that sparked frustration among creators and prompted TikTok’s upheaval of their monetization program. MrBeast, for instance, is one of the top social media influencers in the world. Through TikTok’s Creator Fund, he was only making about $25 a day for over 1 billion views.

Getting paid by TikTok through the TikTok Creator Rewards Program isn’t the only way to make money off TikTok. It isn’t even necessarily the best or most lucrative way to earn money on TikTok.

TikTok creators can and do earn a lot of money, but a lot of their income is attained through other means. Here’s a summary of other TikTok monetization strategies and how much they pay.

TikTok LIVE Gifts and Diamonds

TikTok has its own virtual currency called TikTok coins. Users use real-world money to buy these coins. They then use these coins to buy Gifts, which they are able to send to content creators during TikTok LIVE videos.

Gifts are later converted into Diamonds, which creators can exchange for cash. But that’s not the only way to earn Diamonds. TikTok rewards creators with Diamonds for making popular content.

To be eligible, you need to have 10,000 followers and at least one video published in the last 30 days. How much you can make on TikTok LIVE depends on your number of viewers, but their engagement level is an even more critical factor.

How much you can earn: Anywhere from $0 to $100+ per LIVE video.

Brand partnerships and sponsored content

TikTok has a networking solution called the TikTok Creator Marketplace. This platform facilitates the connection between each content creator who wants to get started as an influencer and brands looking for influential social media personalities to promote their products.

To make money this way, content creators collaborate with brands that their audience would be interested in. They get paid for each campaign. To qualify, you need to have at least 100,000 followers and 100,000 video views from the last 30 days.

If you have a sizable audience that’s super engaged with your content, it would be a wise move to go down the path of brand partnerships and sponsored content. This is one of the most lucrative money-making strategies for content creators. It’s how influencers make up to $20,000 per post and how top earners on TikTok make seven figures or more each year.

In addition to getting paid to promote their brand, product, or service in your content, this kind of content helps creators grow their own channels. In turn, this increases your earnings per view as well as when you go live.

Average Sponsored Post Earnings for Content Creators

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub.

How much you can earn: $10–$20,000 per video, depending on your niche and follower metrics.

TikTok Series

TikTok has a feature called Series. It enables content creators to create a collection of content that sits behind a paywall. Within this collection, TikTokers can place up to 80 videos. They can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes long.

To access a Series, users purchase access directly from TikTok. As a creator, you must have 10,000 followers and 1,000 views in the last 30 days to be eligible. You also need to sell at least $50 worth of Series content before TikTok will pay you.

Back in 2023, TikTok said it wouldn’t take a commission from Series earnings. However, this was only meant to be for a limited time. There’s no information readily available today regarding what share of a creator’s Series revenue TikTok currently takes.

Alternatively, you can offer premium content behind a paywall using an outside service like Patreon. This way, you have more control and there’s no cap on how much you can earn.

How much you can earn: $0.99–$189.99 per membership (you set your own prices).

TikTok Shop

Whether you have your own e-commerce shop already or are looking to start selling products, you can use TikTok Shop to sell your products directly inside of TikTok in the form of shoppable videos or live streams.

Even if you don’t have any products to sell, you can make money with TikTok Shop through affiliate marketing. Simply find brands already in TikTok Shop that you want to promote, and then add their products to your videos. You then earn a commission every time someone buys one of these products from your videos.

There are no follower or video view requirements. You just need to prove that you have a United States passport or driver’s license and a Social Security number.

TikTok introduced new TikTok Shop seller fees in April 2024. Currently, they charge a 6% referral fee on each order. It’s possible that they will take an even bigger cut at some point in the future. These fees will eat into your profits and affect how much you earn overall.

How much you can earn: Anywhere from 5% to 20% of the total sales price for affiliate products or 94% of the revenue if you’re selling your own products.

To maximize your earnings, it’s important to understand all the factors that will affect how much money you make from TikTok.

Follower count and engagement rate

It’s not enough to have thousands of followers on TikTok. It’s all too easy these days to buy followers or fill your audience with disengaged viewers. However, having a high number of genuine followers does matter. Engagement is what brings in the money.

For example, creators only get paid by the Creator Rewards Program for qualified views that are over 5 seconds long. So simply having someone pause on your video as they scroll through their feed isn’t enough.

The same goes for LIVE Gifts and Diamonds. If your audience is full of bots, you’re not going to receive any rewards during your LIVE videos. That’s why TikTok has strict requirements about who can use these monetization features in terms of follower and view counts.

Advertising value

TikTok has explicitly stated that one of the factors that directly influences how much they pay creators per view is the advertising value of their videos. Simply put, this refers to how long viewers spend watching ads on each video.

There’s no simple method for increasing the ad view time among your audience. However, it’s safe to say that viewers will be more inclined to stick out an ad if your videos are captivating from start to finish.

Niche

How much engagement you get can be affected by what niche you’re in and what kind of content you create. You’ll find a lot of conflicting information online about what counts as a good engagement rate, but certain niches are known for having higher rates of engagement, such as beauty and fashion, food and beverage, and financial services.

That doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily earn more in one of these niches—it’s possible that TikTok pays out different rewards per view depending on the type of video you’re posting. You don’t need to ditch what you’re doing now and move into one of these categories.

Authenticity is an important part of what makes people follow certain accounts over others. Plus, there are other ways to improve engagement, even within niches that might not generally be as popular as others.

Geographic location

TikTok pays content creators different rates for views and ads depending on where the creator lives and where their viewers are located. Unfortunately, they don’t explicitly state which countries earn the most or the least.

Content quality

The quality of your content also affects how much you earn. From using proper lighting to adding the right captions and hashtags, everything you put into creating your videos can make or break how TikTok users feel about it.

That’s not all. Content creators are only allowed to participate in some of TikTok’s monetization programs so long as the content meets certain requirements. To get paid by TikTok, your content has to be original. That means you can’t use Duets or Stitches to generate income. Additionally, your content has to be non-promotional.

Want to make more money than the average content creator on TikTok? Here are some strategies that can help.

1. Build a strong personal brand

Branding for an influencer or social media content creator isn’t all that different from branding for a company. You want to craft an identity that’s memorable and relatable. This includes everything from your physical appearance to the style of videos you create.

That said, authenticity is key.

Consumers are smart. They can tell when someone has created an artificial persona simply to profit from it. What’s more, it’s much more difficult to commit to and stay consistent with a fake persona.

By staying true to who you are, you’ll have a much easier time drawing in followers and creating content that connects with them. Also, when you respond to and engage with your users, you’ll be able to create a stronger bond with them.

2. Leverage multiple revenue streams

There are so many TikTok monetization methods you can use. If you qualify for them, take advantage of as many as you can. Not only that—you should also diversify your income streams.

Try one of these off-platform money-making strategies:

• Adding a tip jar
• Selling merch
• Promoting your products or services
• Doing affiliate marketing
• Selling premium content subscriptions
• Running ads for your business

Diversifying your revenue is valuable for several reasons. For starters, when you’re new to TikTok, you won’t have access to all those TikTok features. You could work for free, but why do that when there are other ways to make money in the meantime?

Plus, there’s no guarantee that an algorithm shift won’t suddenly drop your view count below the eligibility line, making it impossible to make money directly from TikTok. There’s also no guarantee that brands you once worked with before will come back for more campaigns. Using a combination of strategies will help keep the money coming in.

3. Stay consistent

Unless you’re a celebrity, there is no such thing as overnight success on TikTok. So you need to be willing to commit yourself to creating high-quality content on a regular schedule.

Consistency in content creation will help you build an audience. For example, a consistent look and feel will strengthen your brand identity, giving random passersby motivation to follow someone they can relate to.

Following a consistent and predictable content creation timetable will also improve your trustworthiness and attractiveness as a creator. TikTok users want to follow people who provide ongoing value, entertainment, education, and so on.

In addition to audience-building, the TikTok algorithm will reward you for consistency. Much like how TikTok is selective about which creators get to monetize their content, they’re also selective when it comes to who they show on the highly coveted “For You” page.

4. Track your performance

In any sort of serious marketing endeavor, analytics tracking is a must. It’ll do so much more than just give you an idea of how your page is performing overall.

Here’s what you can learn from analytics:

• Which of your posts are most popular
• Which of your posts are least popular
• When your audience tends to engage with your content
• The monetization strategies that have the highest ROI
• The kinds of followers that appreciate your content most

There’s a lot you can learn from your analytics. Regularly reviewing your performance data will allow you to more confidently switch up your strategy.

It will also give you the confidence to create more of what your users like. You can spend less time stressing over how the content will perform and more time on making it look and sound as good as possible.

Yes, TikTok is one of the best platforms for content creators. In terms of revenue, you might not be able to make as much money on TikTok as you can on platforms like Instagram or YouTube. However, you can still build a sizable and loyal audience that’s willing and able to reward you for your work.

The fact is this: Unless you’re looking to make a small bit of cash on the side, you need to put in a lot of work to get substantial earnings from TikTok. Even then, there’s no guarantee about how much you’ll make on TikTok or if your revenue or monetization options will suddenly change.

However, if you have a solid strategy for what kind of content you’re going to create and you know how to maximize your earnings from it, this can become quite the lucrative gig.

How much can you realistically expect to earn on TikTok?

Not every TikToker earns money, and you need to establish a solid presence on the platform before this will be a realistic side hustle for you. However, you can certainly earn a bit of extra cash. If you’re lucky and you use a combination of monetization methods, you can even earn a full-time income from TikTok.

To give you an idea, the typical income of a content creator is around $3,500–$6,400 per month. However, a survey by NeoReach showed that creators earned less on TikTok than most other social media platforms in 2023, including smaller platforms like Pinterest and Snapchat. This is a discouraging sign.

It’s possible that 2024 statistics on TikTok creator earnings will look a bit different in light of TikTok’s new payout program. But for now, the data shows that TikTok may not be the best platform for content creators to earn money.