We’ve all seen the rise of TikTok (and a brief fall in the US), from allowing creators to quit their jobs and create scroll-stopping content full-time, to answering your burning questions and recommending hot new products. And everyone wants a piece of the pie. But how easy is it to make money on TikTok, and how do you do it?
The TikTok Creator Rewards Program
Much like most social platforms, TikTok has its own Rewards Program for Creators, encouraging them to continue sharing videos/carousels to the FYP, boosting the time spent on the platform and increasing the number of users.
To get involved in the Rewards Program, TikTok shared the following criteria:
Creators must meet the following criteria to join and collect rewards under the Creator Rewards Program:
- Be based in one of the countries in which the Creator Rewards Program is available.
- Have a TikTok account in good standing, including no history of repeatedly or irresponsibly violating our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service policies and engaging in malicious or fraudulent activities.
- Have a Personal Account. Business Accounts and accounts belonging to political or government organizations are not eligible.
- Be 18 years of age or older (or 19 in South Korea).
- Have at least 10,000 followers.
- Have at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.
- Post original content that’s eligible for rewards.
- Post videos that are at least one minute long.
However, there’s even more to it than just entering the program. Creator Rewards are calculated by TikTok based on Qualified Views, which they’ve specified as: Qualified views are unique video views from the For You feed and excludes views with fraud, paid views, disliked views, views with less than 5 seconds watched, promoted views, and artificial views. Videos must reach 1,000 For You feed views to start generating earnings.
The payment thresholds for each Qualified Video can vary, however, research completed by the Influencer Marketing Hub in November 2024 found this to be between $0.02 and $0.04 per 1,000 Qualified views, so consistency in growth is key to bringing in the big bucks. (They’ve even created a handy calculator to help project your potential earnings).
So, how do you make money on TikTok?
Unfortunately, there’s no ‘quick win’ to reaching the criteria set by the platform – much like any other social account you have, growth to these levels will ideally need to be organic.
This means
- Posting engaging content consistently (this doesn’t have to be every day)
- Actively engaging with other Creators on the platform (be sure to say hello in the comments as a minimum)
- Testing and learning from different content types and focuses to find your audience
- Building an engaged community
As a Creator, it can certainly be worth it to build your online presence, an engaged community and reap the benefits, however, it’s rarely a quick path to success.
I’m a business owner, can I get involved?
At present, unfortunately, businesses are unable to enrol into the Creator Rewards Program to make money from TikTok directly – however, the platform is a powerhouse at growing awareness, encouraging sales via TikTok Shop & Lives and getting your brand name out there – so don’t be disheartened.
Brands such as Sisters & Seekers, Clomana and even Au Vodka have seen their businesses skyrocket in growth and revenue from a consistent and engaging presence on the platform. Mainly built with their expert teams at the heart of each video, being active in their communities and taking audiences on the journey of their brands – the leap may have been big, but it has certainly paid off.
If you’re on the search to use TikTok to grow your business presence online – we’d love to have a chat and explore how we can support you. Let’s start your journey today.
