Short answer
Each seller sets its own rate, anywhere from 1% to 80%, and TikTok publishes no table by category; the guides that rank for this put beauty at 8 to 30% and electronics at 2 to 15%, without saying where the numbers come from.
The rate alone misleads: in our calculator run, 8% of a $65 product paid $4.78 an order after returns, more than 30% of a $12 one ($3.31). Compare pay per order, and check the Shop Ads rate before you film.
Who sets the commission rate, and how?
The seller does, product by product, anywhere from 1% to 80%, according to TikTok's guide to affiliate collaborations (updated July 16, 2026). Seller Center suggests a rate, which TikTok says is the median of the top 30% of products in the category over the last 30 days. Sellers see that number; creators don't.
The rates one $25 product can carry
Pet water fountain$25- The open rate: 1% to 80%
Any creator who adds the product gets it. A cut takes effect 30 days after the seller makes it.
- Shop Ads: at least a third
Optional, and paid only on orders that come through an ad made from your post.
- Carousels: 60% of the video rate
A photo carousel earns less than a video of the same product.
Two more can sit on top: a Target collaboration rate for creators the seller invites (an edit takes effect after 5 days), and tiered commission, at most two tiers past an order threshold, which can only go up.
A rate rise reaches you at once, but a cut waits: TikTok's commission page (updated September 14, 2026) keeps your old rate for 30 days if the product is already in your showcase, with a notice 2 days before it drops. A Shop Ads rate cut gets the same 30 days but no notice. And whatever the rate, the formula is (revenue − refunds) × commission rate, so a refunded order's commission comes off what you're owed.
What rates are typical in each category?
Nobody outside TikTok can say with data. The four ranking guides we read agree on the order (beauty high, electronics low) and disagree on the numbers.
Four ranking guides, four answers
Beauty
Electronics
Taken together they put beauty anywhere from 8 to 30% and electronics from 2 to 15%.
The often-quoted US average of 13.02% comes from Hamster Garage, which doesn't say where it got it. Our seller-mode run further down suggests why the order holds: a product that's cheap to make can afford a far higher rate.
What does each rate pay you on a $25 product?
Between $87.50 and $593.75 per 100 orders, mostly by rate, then by returns. A 15% rate with 30% refunded pays an effective 10.5%, closer to a 10% offer with few returns (9.5%) than to its own headline.
What 100 orders of a $25 product pay you
Should you pick products by the highest commission rate?
No: rank them by what one order pays you after returns. We ran 5 sample marketplace offers through the calculator with 8% of orders returned, and ranking them by pay per order put them in almost the reverse of their rate order. The 30% offer came last.
5 offers, ranked by rate and by what they pay
By commission rate
By pay per order after 8% returns
- 1Phone grip30% of $12
- 2Lip oil25% of $18
- 3Serum15% of $25
- 4Hair tool12% of $40
- 5Air fryer8% of $65
- 1Air fryer$4.78
- 2Hair tool$4.42
- 3Lip oil$4.14
- 4Serum$3.45
- 5Phone grip$3.31
The phone grip pays $3.60 a sale before returns at 30%; the serum at 15% pays $3.75 because it sells for $25, about twice as much. You need 44% more phone grip orders than air fryer orders to earn the same, and that's the question to ask before you film: will this sell that many more?
Our pick: sort offers by price × rate × (1 − share returned) and film the top of that list first: by rate alone, the 30% offer came first and paid the least.
When is a high commission rate a warning sign?
When the product is cheap: a high rate on a low price only adds up if the product costs the seller very little to make. In seller mode, with the calculator's default costs ($4.50 shipping, $0.50 packaging, 5% returns, a 6% referral fee), a $12 product paying 30% breaks even only if it costs $2.40 or less to make, 20% of its price. The $65 offer at 8% leaves room for a product that costs up to $50.59.
| Price | Costs 20% of price | Costs 35% of price | Costs 50% of price |
|---|---|---|---|
| $12 | 30% | 15% | None |
| $20 | 47% | 32% | 17% |
| $30 | 56% | 41% | 26% |
| $50 | 63% | 48% | 33% |
A 30% offer on a $12 item tells you its seller has about $2.40 to spend making it, so get a sample and use it on camera before you promise anything about quality.
How do Shop Ads and carousels change your rate?
They can cut it by up to two thirds, in step with the share of orders that come through the ad. When a seller runs your video as an ad, the orders from that ad earn the Shop Ads rate, which TikTok lets sellers set as low as a third of the standard rate. On our $25 product at 15% with the ad rate at 5% and 8% of orders returned, 100 orders pay $345.00 with no ads, $230.00 when half come through the ad and $161.00 at 80% (an effective 6.4%).
Carousels pay 60% of the video rate: the same 15% product pays 9% on a photo carousel, or $207.00 per 100 orders against $345.00 from a video. TikTok's ads help page (March 2026) calls a separate Shop Ads rate a feature for invited sellers, but its May 2026 Seller University page says Seller Center now fills in a recommended Shop Ads rate when products are added, so expect to see one on more products.
How do you check an offer before you add it?
Note both rates, work out pay per order, test the rate against the price, then watch it once it's in your showcase.
- Write down both rates
Note the standard rate and, if the product shows one, the Shop Ads rate: that's what a boosted video pays you.
- Work out pay per order
Multiply price by rate by (1 − share returned). With no return figure for the product, use 8%, the calculator's default, since a refunded order's commission comes off what you're owed.
- Check the rate against the price
Find the price in the ceiling table above. A rate above the middle column means the product costs under about a third of its price to make, so request a sample (TikTok's sample rules are in our affiliate program guide) and film with it.
- Add it and watch the rate
Once it's in your showcase, a cut waits 30 days from the day the seller makes it. A Shop Ads cut sends no notice, so check it weekly while you post for it.
- Ask for a target rate when you sell
After a few sales, message the seller for a Target collaboration. It overrides the open rate, but it can be lower too, and a cut to it takes effect after 5 days, not 30.
Commission isn't paid the day you sell: see how long TikTok takes to pay it out after delivery. To test several videos for one product, see our TikTok affiliate marketing plan.
What can't a calculator run tell you?
How many orders a product will sell, which is the half of the sum that decides your pay. The rest of what we left out:
- Every product is a sample we set. The prices, rates and costs are ours, picked to show the math, and no seller's real costs went into the ceiling table.
- The seller's costs are defaults. $4.50 shipping and $0.50 packaging per order is the calculator's starting point. A seller who ships for less can pay a higher rate on the same price.
- We can't see TikTok's recommended rates. They sit in Seller Center behind a login, so we couldn't compare the four guides' category numbers with TikTok's own medians.
- US rules only. Other regions have their own pages.
- What others do better. ttcalculator.net and ShortFormNation walk a seller through the full fee stack and rate tiers in more depth than this post, which is written for the creator picking products.
