Short answer
You make money on TikTok through TikTok Shop commission (from 1,000 followers in the US), LIVE Gifts (1,000 followers to go LIVE), Creator Rewards (10,000 followers, videos over a minute) and brands paying for videos, which needs no audience at all on UGC platforms. In our calculator run, 100,000 qualified views of a 75-second video pay about $70 in Creator Rewards; 17 sales of a $29.99 product at 15% commission pay the same. Under 10,000 followers, Shop commission and paid UGC videos are the routes that pay.
What are the ways to make money on TikTok?
Five that TikTok runs or that small creators use most: TikTok Shop affiliate commission, Creator Rewards, LIVE Gifts, brand deals through TikTok One, and UGC videos a brand runs on its own accounts.
| Route | Who pays you | Minimum to start | What one video earns from |
|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok Shop affiliate | The seller, through TikTok | 1,000 followers, 18+, US-based | Sales from your shoppable video, minus returns |
| Creator Rewards Program | TikTok | 10,000 followers, 100,000 views in 30 days, 18+ | Qualified views of videos over 1 minute; nothing until $50 builds up |
| LIVE Gifts | Viewers, as Gifts that become Diamonds | 1,000 followers to go LIVE (may vary by region), 18+ | A LIVE, not a posted video |
| Brand deal on your account (TikTok One) | A brand, through TikTok | 1,000 followers to join projects, 18+, where TikTok One has launched | A flat fee or a revenue share, per project |
| UGC video for a brand's own ads | A brand | No followers on several UGC platforms | A flat fee per video |
Older guides still give 10,000 followers for TikTok's brand marketplace. TikTok's own sign-up page for TikTok One, updated July 2026, says projects need 1,000+ followers, with more for some projects.
How many followers do you need to make money on TikTok?
None for paid UGC, 1,000 for TikTok Shop commission and LIVE, and 10,000 for Creator Rewards, which also wants 100,000 views in the 30 days before you apply.
- 0 followers: sell the video to a brand
UGC platforms pay per video because the brand posts it. Billo's creator page says no following is required to start, and Clip's FAQ puts its campaigns at $25 to $250 per video. Our content creator jobs map compares more of them.
- 1,000 followers: TikTok Shop, LIVE and TikTok One open
In the US you can apply as a Shop affiliate at 18 with 1,000 followers. TikTok's help center gives the same 1,000 for going LIVE (Gifts need you to be 18, or 19 in South Korea), and TikTok One projects ask for 1,000+ too.
- 10,000 followers and 100,000 views: Creator Rewards
Apply in TikTok Studio. Only videos over a minute earn, and TikTok pays out once your balance passes $50.
Other countries' rules are in our TikTok affiliate program guide and Creator Rewards guide.
What does one TikTok video earn from Creator Rewards?
About $70 per 100,000 qualified views at a $0.70 RPM, and nothing at all if the video is 45 seconds long, however many views it gets.
TikTok publishes no rate. Our calculator's low and high RPMs ($0.40 and $1.00 per 1,000 qualified views) come from third-party reports of creators' payouts; the typical $0.70 is their midpoint, which is our assumption. We ran its estimate for one US video at five view counts, at 75 seconds and at 45:
| Qualified views | 75-second video, typical (low–high) | 45-second video |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $7 ($4–$10) | $0 |
| 50,000 | $35 ($20–$50) | $0 |
| 100,000 | $70 ($40–$100) | $0 |
| 500,000 | $350 ($200–$500) | $0 |
| 1,000,000 | $700 ($400–$1,000) | $0 |
Cut every video to 45 seconds and none of them earns Creator Rewards, though YouTube's Shorts pool can pay them. A single video also needs about 71,429 qualified views at the typical RPM (50,000 at the high end, 125,000 at the low) to reach the $50 payout on its own.
How many TikTok Shop sales pay the same as Creator Rewards?
At 100,000 views, 17 sales of a $29.99 product at 15% commission, with 8% of orders returned, earn what Creator Rewards would. That's about 1 sale for every 5,882 views.
We ran the commission calculator's three worked examples (their return rates are its defaults, not measured ones) against the same Creator Rewards figure: $29.99 at 15% with 8% returned, $19.99 at 10% with 10% returned, and $49 at 20% with 5% returned. The break-even rate moves a lot with price and commission: the $19.99 product needs a buyer every 2,564 views, because you keep only $1.80 a sale.
Those ratios count every view as qualified. Your analytics show public views, only some of them qualify, and we found no TikTok page giving a typical share, so we re-ran the $29.99 case on 100,000 public views:
| Share of views that qualify | Creator Rewards, typical | Sales of the $29.99 product to match | 1 sale per |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | $70.00 | 17 | 5,882 public views |
| 75% | $52.50 | 13 | 7,692 public views |
| 50% | $35.00 | 9 | 11,111 public views |
If 1 in 5,882 viewers or more buy that product, commission wins whatever share qualifies; below 1 in 11,111, it loses even if only half qualify. Length matters: a shoppable video can be any length, so a 45-second demo that sells earns commission while the same cut earns no Creator Rewards.
Our pick under 10,000 followers: make short shoppable videos for products you already use, because at our default inputs 1 sale per 5,882 to 11,111 views pays what Creator Rewards would, and Creator Rewards pays nothing before 10,000 followers anyway. If your videos sell less than that once you're eligible for both, make the minute-plus videos for Creator Rewards instead.
When does a paid UGC video beat both?
When your videos get fewer than about 250,000 qualified views or 43 sales of a $29.99 product: our UGC rate calculator's default beginner video, priced with no paid ad usage, comes to $175 ($100 to $300), paid whatever the video does.
- Against Shop commission: it equals 43 sales of the $29.99 product, 98 of the $19.99 one or 19 of the $49 one.
- The rate's basis: Insense puts beginner videos at $50 to $400 and JoinBrands at $150 to $400 per piece; our calculator's beginner base of $175 sits inside both.
A UGC fee is paid once, while a shoppable or Creator Rewards video keeps earning as long as it gets views. The fee goes up when the brand runs your video as an ad, and that's where a UGC creator's rate moves most:
| UGC offer | Typical (low–high) | How it's built | Creator Rewards views for the same |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video only, the brand's organic use | $175 ($100–$300) | 1 × $175 (beginner base $175) | about 250,000 |
| Plus 30 days as a paid ad | $228 ($130–$390) | +30% of the content fee | about 326,000 |
| Plus 90 days as a paid ad | $263 ($150–$450) | +50% of the content fee | about 376,000 |
The uplifts follow SideShift's guide, which puts paid ad use at 25 to 50% of the base rate for a 30- to 90-day window. Quote it as its own line, and price the whole quote line by line.
What about the other ways to make money on TikTok?
Other guides list four more. None pays per video, so we didn't run them:
- Selling your own product on TikTok Shop, which needs stock and a seller account; our selling guide shows what one sale leaves after fees.
- Affiliate links outside TikTok Shop, from a store's own program in your bio: the store sets the rate, and buyers leave the app to check out.
- LIVE Subscriptions and paid Series, charged to your viewers. We couldn't open TikTok's current help pages for either, so we don't quote their rules.
- Licensing a clip, coaching or consulting, which have no TikTok entry rule.
Which route should you start with?
Start with the route your follower count opens today, and film so one session feeds two routes: a 30- to 45-second shoppable cut and a 75-second version of the same demo.
- Under 1,000 followers
Make 3 sample videos on products you own, apply to a no-minimum UGC platform, and post the same samples to your account.
- 1,000 to 9,999 followers
Apply as a TikTok Shop affiliate and post shoppable videos for products you'd buy. Track sales per 10,000 public views: for the $29.99 example, 1.7 or more beats Creator Rewards even if every view qualifies.
- 10,000+ followers with 100,000 views a month
Join Creator Rewards and make some videos past the minute (we used 75 seconds). Keep the shoppable ones as short as they need to be.
- Disclose, then test openings
Label every paid or commission video: the FTC says to disclose any financial relationship with a brand. Then post two or three versions with different hooks, and after a day keep the one with the longest average watch time in its analytics.
What didn't we check?
We didn't earn any of these figures on a real account: each is our calculators' code on stated inputs, and your RPM, sales rate and fees can sit far from ours. The RPM range rests on creators' reports with no sample size.
We couldn't find a TikTok page that says whether a shoppable video can also earn Creator Rewards, so the comparison treats them as two different videos. We left out LIVE Gifts' earnings because TikTok's pages give no Diamond-to-cash rate (third-party guides quote one; we didn't use it), and Subscriptions and Series because we couldn't open TikTok's help pages for them. The rules are US ones; other countries' Shop and Creator Rewards rules differ.
