In recent years, TikTok has emerged as a veritable source of revenue for influencers, thought leaders, and creatives all over the world. And with TikTok royalty like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae pulling in millions of dollars annually, it’s easy to start imagining just how much money you can earn as a TikTok creator. Of course, those kinds of numbers are a TikTok creator’s dream! But while they’re the exception to the rule, there’s still a massive number of smaller TikTok creators and micro influencers who are able to make money through the social media app.
Even in 2023, TikTok is still a relatively new platform and, currently, doesn’t offer creators a standardized, cut-and-dry way to earn money through the app. Revenue brought in from brand deals can vary wildly depending on a number of factors. This makes it tricky as a TikTok creator to figure out how much revenue you can make through the platform.
That’s where our TikTok Money Calculator comes in. This easy-to-use tool calculates how much revenue you can make on TikTok based on a few key metrics — all in the click of a button. Are you ready to see how much you stand to earn as a TikTok creator? Jump to use our TikTok Money Calculator.
How much money can you make on TikTok?
There’s no limit to how much money you can make on TikTok, but there’s also no standard to exactly how much revenue you can bring home per post.
While platforms like YouTube pay creators a set rate for ad placements on their posts, TikTok doesn’t yet compensate the majority of its creators for running ads on their videos. Because of this, TikTok creators and third-party brands don’t have an an intermediary or any set rates to follow if they decide to work together. Without this standardization and support from TikTok, the revenue brought on from brand deals and sponsored posts can vary widely depending on a number of factors.
However, one thing’s for sure in almost all cases: TikTok influencers get paid more if they have both a high engagement rate and a high number of followers.
Your TikTok engagement rate is the percentage of TikTok users who engage with your content through likes, comments, shares, and follows. Engagement rate is one of the key metrics brands look at when creating their influencer marketing campaigns. A high TikTok engagement rate is highly valued by these brands, and influencers with more TikTok engagement will earn more money through these brand partnerships.
TikTok Engagement and Earnings Calculator
So, you might be thinking, “How do I figure out my engagement rate? And what’s a good TikTok engagement rate?” Our TikTok calculator does all this work for you, calculating your TikTok engagement rate based on your follower count and the total number of likes you’ve received on your TikTok account.
Using these metrics, our TikTok Money Calculator shows you your estimated earnings from different sources, per post or per month. It’s important to note that our TikTok Money Calculator provides you with only estimations of your TikTok earnings from the TikTok Creator Fund, brand sponsorships, and digital product sales.
In other words, our TikTok Money Calculator gives you an idea of how much you could make from the TikTok Creator Fund per video, what to charge brands for a single sponsored post, and average sales you could make per month by marketing your digital products on TikTok. Use our calculator’s estimated amounts as a reference to guide you as you negotiate with brands about a potential brand partnership, or as you prepare to launch your own digital product.
How to make money on TikTok
TikTok is a massive social media platform with enormous reach. Because of this, the opportunities for making money on TikTok seem endless. It’s true: there are many ways to make money on TikTok, including more obvious avenues like brand partnerships, as well as selling merch and digital products, and even going live!
If you’re a creator looking to start earning money on TikTok, or if you’re a TikTok influencer looking to diversify your income streams, read on to discover the many different ways to make money on TikTok.
Partner with a brand
Brand partnerships are one of the most popular and sought-after ways to earn money as a TikTok creator. On TikTok, a brand partnership is a collaboration between a TikTok influencer and a third-party brand, where the influencer is paid to promote the brand’s products or services through sponsored posts.
These sorts of influencer marketing campaigns take many different forms depending on the circumstances. Typically, the brand and the creator will agree on a set rate per sponsored TikTok video.
How much do brand sponsorships pay on TikTok?
Brand partnership rates vary according to a number of factors, namely a creator’s average engagement rate and follower count. Naturally, popular TikTok influencers with more followers and higher engagement can earn more money from brand partnerships, and are able to negotiate a higher dollar amount per sponsored post.
To maximize your earnings through partnerships, focus on increasing your TikTok engagement and growing your follower count. Our TikTok Money Calculator can help you figure out your current engagement rate, so you can get an idea of how much work you’ll need to put in to reach your revenue goals. If you’re looking to gain more TikTok followers, keep reading to find out how!
Join the TikTok Creator Fund or Creativity Program Beta
In the last few years, TikTok has launched its own set of programs to help creators earn money through the app. These include the TikTok Creator Fund and the newly launched Creativity Program Beta.
These programs allow TikTok influencers to make money directly through the app without having to deal with third-party brands. Sounds great, right? According to a number of creators, the TikTok Creator Fund and Creativity Program Beta both arrive with their own lists of pros and cons, with some arguing that the cons may even outweigh the pros.
So, are the TikTok Creator Fund and Creativity Program Beta worthwhile ways to make money on the app? Let’s dive in.
What is the TikTok Creator Fund?
As its name suggests, the TikTok Creator Fund is a monetary fund for TikTok creators. Rather than an ad revenue-sharing program or a grant, the TikTok Creator Fund rewards creators based on a combination of factors, such as the number of views and the engagement level of their content. In July 2020, TikTok estimated that the fund would grow to over $1 billion in the U.S. over three years.
How much does the TikTok Creator Fund pay?
TikTok has been notoriously tight-lipped about exactly how much the Creator Fund pays its users. However, the gist is that users are rewarded for creating popular TikTok videos, with payouts calculated based on a video’s views and engagement rate, and more.
While TikTok hasn’t publicly divulged how much it pays creators through the Creator Fund, the consensus among many of the program’s top contributors is that TikTok pays between $0.02 and $0.04 per 1,000 views, which adds up to only $20 to $40 per 1 million views.
Once you’ve earned at least $10 from the Creator Fund, you can withdraw the payout through a service like PayPal or Zelle.
Who can join the TikTok creator fund?
Currently, the TikTok Creator Fund is only available for TikTok users based in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. In addition to your location, there are a few other requirements creators must meet in order to join the Creator Fund:
- You need to have least 10,000 followers.
- You need to have racked up at least 100,000 views in the last 30 days.
- You need to be at least 18 years old.
- Your videos need to follow TikTok’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.
Is the TikTok Creator Fund worth it?
While the TikTok Creator Fund provides influencers with limitless opportunities to earn cold hard cash directly through the app, many TikTok creators have expressed their disappointment with the fund.
According to some users, the Creator Fund’s biggest downside is its low payouts. In order to earn a good amount of money, creators need to generate an enormous amount of high-performing, high quality videos. No easy feat, and one that can easily turn a dream job into a big stressor.
That being said, TikTok launched its Creator Fund to encourage users to push themselves creatively and, ultimately, to raise the bar for content across the platform. If you’re willing to embrace the challenge that the Creator Fund presents, then this program might be a worthwhile way to earn some extra income.
How to join the TikTok Creator Fund
Applying for the TikTok Creator Fund is easy and can be done in a few simple steps:
- Open your account settings in the TikTok app.
- Then, select Creator tools.
- Finally, click TikTok Creator Fund to start your application.
TikTok will inform you whether it has approved your application. If you get rejected, don’t worry, you can re-apply in 30 days.
What is the TikTok Creativity Program Beta?
In light of users’ complaints about the Creator Fund, TikTok launched the Creativity Program Beta in February 2023. According to TikTok, this new monetization tool is designed to help “generate higher revenue potential and unlock more exciting, real-world opportunities” for creators.
As of May 2023, the Creativity Program Beta is available to all eligible TikTok creators based in the U.S. Like the Creator Fund, the Creativity Program Beta is only available to users aged 18 and older, and those that are in good standing on the app.
As the Creativity Program Beta is so new (and, as it name suggests, is only in beta), TikTok hasn’t released any information about how much money TikTok creators stand to make with this new program. Only time will tell, but it seems promising!
Sell merch
Selling merch is another great way to make money as a TikTok creator. Merch (short for “merchandise”) are branded products sold to the fans of a person, group, or brand. Essentially, anyone with an audience can sell merch. This means that, like sports teams and music groups, TikTok influencers can also make and sell merch.
Selling merch is a great way to monetize your social media following, and provide your TikTok fans with a way to show their support. Basically, if you can stick your branding on it, it’s merch! From T-shirts to coffee mugs, the possibilities for creating merch are seemingly endless. Here are some of the most popular forms of merch:
- T-Shirts and apparel
- Baseball hats, socks, and accessories
- Tote bags
- Mugs and water bottles
- Pins
- Stickers
- Phone cases
Selling merch is a quick, easy, and fairly inexpensive way to make money on TikTok, because of the wide range of print-on-demand (POD) services available to creators. These services take a lot of the effort out of selling merch: all you have to do is create your slogans and designs, and the POD company will print the product and ship it off to the buyer. This saves creators a lot of effort in terms of sourcing products, stocking an inventory, and shipping orders, giving them more time to create the videos their fans love.
Sell digital products
Are you looking to earn even more money on TikTok? Get into the digital product game. Creating and selling digital products is one of the best and easiest ways for creators to monetize their social media following.
What is a digital product?
In short, a digital product is anything you can sell online that your customer can download. Think templates, e-books, online courses, and yes, even knitting patterns.
Selling digital products is a great way to maximize your profits, as they require pretty low overhead costs to produce and maintain, like renting a brick-and-mortar storefront or maintaining a physical inventory.
Compared to physical goods, selling digital products save on time and effort, including logistics and production. Creators only need to produce a digital product once and can sell it over and over. You also don’t need to worry about things like shipping or supply chain issues. Once it’s been uploaded to your online storefront, a digital product becomes a source of passive income, allowing you to spend more time on things you actually want to do, like creating content or taking some much needed R&R.
What digital products can I sell as a TikTok creator?
There’s a whole world of digital products out there to sell. However, the kind of digital product you’ll want to sell will depend on your specific niche and your audience’s needs.
For example, if you’re a creator specialized in career advice, you could sell an interview prep guide to your TikTok followers. If you’re a food creator, you could publish an e-cookbook. And if you have knowledge to share about a specific topic, you could even build and sell an online course about it.
Here’s a list of digital product ideas to get you started:
- Templates (for websites, resumes, invitations, budgeting, and more)
- Ebooks
- Online courses
- Subscriptions and memberships
- Printable art and craft patterns
- Stock music
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Go live on TikTok
Did you know you can make money by going live on TikTok? TikTok’s LIVE Gifting feature allows creators to essentially monetize their livestreams.
By activating the LIVE Gift feature on their TikTok account, creators are able to begin collecting gifts from fans. Among these gifts are TikTok Diamonds, which can be redeemed for money. Pretty cool, right? Head over to TikTok to learn more about how to enable LIVE Gifting and start monetizing your live videos.
How to get more followers on TikTok
Having a large, dedicated following goes a long way in terms of making money on TikTok. Brands typically pay more money to influencers with a larger follower count. Additionally, having a larger fan base means more potential customers for other income streams, like selling physical merch and digital products.
Looking to grow your audience? Here are a few things that will help you get more followers on TikTok.
Define your target audience
To build a substantial audience, it’s important that you first understand that audience. Step one in growing your TikTok following is to define your target audience. The kind of audience you’re targeting will depend on the type of content you want to crate, and the niche you want to occupy. For example, a TikTok creator looking to create pilates content will likely be targeting an audience of fitness-oriented individuals.
Understanding your intended audience, as well as their interests and needs, will help you create more engaging TikTok videos and a more cohesive body of content. This will help attract new followers and make your existing following want to share your content with others, organically expanding your reach and growing your audience.
Experiment with TikTok trends
If there’s one thing TikTok-ers love, it’s trends. And creators can leverage TikTok memes and trends to increase their following.
By creating content around trends and adding trending hashtags to your TikTok videos, you could increase your chances of being discovered by users who are perusing the platform’s powerful For You page (FYP), or taking a deep dive into a trending hashtag’s videos.
Use the right hashtags
On that note, using the right hashtags can help you up your follower count. By using relevant hashtags, you’ll drive new users who are interested in your niche towards your content through TikTok’s search function.
However, don’t over do it. Using tons of hashtags will make your videos look spammy, and using irrelevant hashtags will definitely lead to more confusion than more followers.
Want to boost your engagement? Download our free TikTok SEO Cheat Sheet for tips get more visibility for your content.
Optimize your TikTok bio
In addition to optimizing your videos, you’ll also want to optimize your profile for TikTok’s search and discovery functions. This means adding relevant hashtags and keywords to your bio, and linking to your other social channels. By doing this, you’ll increase the likelihood of new followers finding your TikTok channel.
FAQ
Stuck on how to use our TikTok Money Calculator? Don’t sweat it. Here are a few frequently asked questions to help you get a handle on it.
How do I calculate my TikTok engagement rate?
Our TikTok Money Calculator calculates your TikTok engagement rate for you. Simply enter your follower count, your total TikTok likes, and your total number of videos, and our calculator will generate your engagement rate percentage along with your estimated earnings from different sources, per post or per month.
What is a good engagement rate on TikTok?
TikTok is the social platform with the most overall engagement. Because of this, what would be considered a good engagement rate on TikTok is a bit higher than on other platforms. While the idea of a good engagement rate is subjective, typically, a good average engagement rate for TikTok is somewhere between 4.5% to 18%. You can use our TikTok Money Calculator to see if your engagement rate falls within this range.
How much should I charge for sponsored posts?
Our TikTok income calculator provides you with an estimate of how much you should be charging per sponsored post based on your TikTok account’s average engagement rate. These numbers are just an estimate, but can be helpful when you’re trying to figure out how much revenue you can generate through TikTok.
So, how much can you really earn as a TikTok creator?
There are many different ways to make money on TikTok, from brand partnerships to selling products, or even hosting live videos. How much you can make really depends on how much time, effort, and ingenuity you’re willing to put into your TikTok content.
All in all, the revenue you can make on TikTok is highly dependent on your audience and your engagement rate. Working on building a large, dedicated audience by creating engaging, relevant content is the best way to maximize the amount of money you can make on TikTok. From there, the sky’s the limit!
Ready to start earning? Download our free guide on How To Make Money on TikTok for more tips.
