How much money do TikTokers actually make on TikTok?
TikTok one of the fastest growing social media platform at around 800 million monthly active users.
Just like any other social media platform, TikTok is free publicity which gives you the opportunity to promote things.
So, it isn’t common for TikTok creators to make thousands of dollars utilizing the platform; especially the ones with millions of followers.
This article shows you how much TikTokers make, how they make money, and more.
Table of Contents
1. How much money do TikTokers make?
2. How much does TikTok pay their creators?
3. How do TikTokers make money?
4. How much does Charli make per TikTok?
6. Can you make money on TikTok?
7. Conclusion
How much money do TikTokers make?
So, how much money do TikTokers make on TikTok?
The answer is, it depends. A TikToker with 100k+ followers can make anywhere between $200 to $1,000+ a month, while a TikToker with 1m+ followers can make anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000+ a month.
However, you should take this statement with a grain of salt because how much a TikToker makes depends on several different factors.
Some of the factors include how often they go live, if they sell merchandise, whether they have a YouTube channel, affiliate links, brand deals, and so on.
Hence, there is no definite answer on how much TikTokers make per post. Even if there is, it’ll be extremely inaccurate.
The vast majority of TikTokers are not making any money at all.
In fact, the vast majority of TikTokers (under 1 million followers) aren’t making any money at all.
This is because most TikTokers aren’t monetizing their audience.
Most TikTokers are using TikTok for fun/entertainment purposes only with no intention/thought of actually monetizing it.
The ones that are actually making money on TikTok are using it as a marketing channel to drive traffic to their products, services, etc.
How much does TikTok pay their creators?
A very common question that many people ask is, “How much does TikTok pay their creators?”.
The answer is $0. TikTok does not pay its creators.
TikTok does not pay its creators from ads. Unlike YouTube where the ads are shown in the video, TikTok ads are shown in between videos. Hence, they can’t track how many ad clicks/impressions a video gets.
This is unlike YouTube where you can monetize your channel by joining the YouTube Partner Program.
TikTok does not have a program that shares ad revenue with their creators.
This is because of the way their ads are shown. TikTok ads are shown in between videos.
This means that they cannot track how many clicks or impressions an ad gets from a single video.
However, TikTok does have a creator program for popular creators that allows brands to collaborate with creators.
Because TikTok knows that those creators bring in more users to their platform every single day.
When you reach a certain number of followers (min. 100k+ followers), you will be invited to join the TikTok creator program.
Now, you might be wondering, “What if I bought 100k followers?”.
If you bought followers, TikTok will know because they can track your engagement rate and rate of your growth.
Hence, if you bought fake followers, you will not be invited to the creator program.
How do TikTokers make money?
Since TikTok does not pay their creators from ads, how do TikTokers make money?
TikTokers make most of their money ‘outside’ of TikTok.
TikTokers can make money from doing brand deals, going live, selling merchandise, and so on.
Doing brand deals, running a YouTube channel, and selling merchandise are a few strategies they make their money using TikTok.
Let’s get into detail for each one of these strategies.
1. Going live
The first way TikTokers make money is by going live on TikTok.
You can earn money going live on TikTok when you receive donations from your viewers.
To go live, you need a minimum of 1,000 followers.
However, you’re only going to make money by going live if you really engage with your fans.
For instance, you need to know every single one of your fans (e.g. their names, where they’re from).
Secondly, you need to provide them with a lot of value. You need to provide an incentive to encourage someone to donate.
Otherwise, it’s highly unlikely for someone to donate.
TikTok also limits how much you can make from a livestream, so you can’t make too much from it.
TikTok has a time-limit for Livestreaming so the maximum amount of money TikTokers can make from a Livestream is somewhere between $2,000 to $4,000.
It’s a lot of money, but it’s still little as compared to how much you can be making from other sources.
TikTokers earn money from livestreams through coins that can be converted into diamonds.
These diamonds can then be converted into real currency. It’s kind of like a game.
For example, if you have a TikTok account with a decent number of followers, you can go live on TikTok and users watching your live stream can buy coins and donate them to you.
Once you have enough coins, you can convert them into diamonds, then into money. After that, you can transfer your earnings to your PayPal account.
2. Selling shoutouts
The second way TikTokers are making money from TikTok is by selling shoutouts.
Similar to the first strategy, you can go live and encourage people to donate to you by telling them that you will give them a shoutout if they do.
On the other hand, you can get other people to pay you to shout them out on your account.
In order for you to find people that will pay you for shoutouts, you have to reach out to them via direct message.
Simply send them a message saying, “Hey, I’m doing shoutouts for $x, my videos average x amount of impressions and x amount of likes. Let me know if you’re interested”, and you’re all set.
You may get 9 rejections out of 10 direct messages. But as long as you get 1 person to accept your offer, it outweighs all of the rejections.
3. Doing brand deals
The third way TikTokers make money on TikTok is by doing brand deals.
To understand how much TikTokers make from brand deals, you’ll have to understand how CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions/views) works.
Essentially, brands pay influencers $x per 1,000 views on TikTok.
Let’s suppose a video gets 10 million views.
Typically, YouTube and Instagram’s CPM is around $5 to $30 depending on different factors.
However, TikTok’s CPM is much lower because it’s a fairly new platform and brands don’t know how to measure their ROI (Return on Investment).
Because of this, TikTok’s CPM is much lower as compared to other social media platforms.
Let’s suppose that a brand pays a TikToker $3 per 1,000 impressions.
Here’s how much the TikToker gets with 10 million views:
10,000,000/1,000 x 3 = $30,000.
A TikToker that gets roughly 10 million views per video can earn approximately $30,000 per sponsored post.
Do note that this is just an estimate. It could be much more/less depending on other factors.
Some TikTokers with over a million views get less than $1,000 per sponsored post.
Most brands are unsure about how much they should pay influencers on TikTok, so some of them might charge way lower than average.
As long as an influencer accepts the deal, they’ll do it. This is why so many TikTok influencers get undercharged.
3.1 Brand deals: Breakdown
Charli D’Amelio recently did a brand deal with the American fashion company, Ralph Lauren.
Charli has over 70 million followers on TikTok and averages around 20 million to a 100 million views on her videos.
Let’s use one of her videos that has 50 million views as an example.
Of course, not everyone will buy a product that she wears, so let’s suppose that 0.5% of them actually buys the product.
So if 50 million people watches a video and 0.5% of them buys the product, that’s still 250,000 people.
And 250,000 people is a lot.
If the jacket that she wears costs $50, and 250,000 people purchased it from that video, Ralph Lauren earns $12,500,000 in revenue.
If Ralph Lauren paid Charli $50,000 for the video wearing their products, that’s a massive ROI.
This is the number one thing that advertisers think about.
3.3 Brand deals: TikTok Creator Program
There is a creator marketplace on TikTok where brands can collaborate with creators.
The program is invite-only and they will invite you from the TikTok app through your notifications once you have a large enough following (above 100k).
There are TikTokers who make thousands of dollars through the creator marketplace, and even more.
This creates the possibility of making tens of thousands of dollars every month from the marketplace alone.
But don’t forget that you can also make brand deals outside of the creator marketplace.
You can do so by creating a media kit showing your engagement, demographics, etc., to allow brands to determine whether they want to work with you.
Simply link it to every of your socials (e.g. Instagram, YouTube) so that people can easily access it.
4. Having a YouTube channel
Some TikTokers earn a lot of money from YouTube.
TikTok is a great marketing channel for them to promote their YouTube channel.
These TikTokers can convert their TikTok followers to other socials such as YouTube where they can generate income from.
They do so by adding their YouTube channel in their profile and sometimes prompting users to subscribe to their channel.
Unlike TikTok, YouTube has a partner program where ad revenue is being shared.
Almost every most-followed TikTokers have a YouTube channel. Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, and Zach King — just to name a few.
This makes absolute sense because you’ll be surprised how much YouTubers earn.
YouTube takes about 45 percent of the ad revenue while creators take 55 percent.
That being said, YouTube still pays their creators anywhere between $1 to $5 per 1,000 views.
Let’s take Zach King as an example.
Zach King has close to 8 million subscribers on YouTube and his videos get anywhere between 100k to 25m views.
He only publishes 1 to 4 videos every month but that generates around $15,000 to $246,000 per month.
However, converting TikTok followers to YouTube subscribers is very challenging.
You need to strategically mention your YouTube channel in your videos.
5. Selling merchandise
Most of the biggest TikTokers sell their own merchandise.
Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio, the two most followed accounts on TikTok has their own merch.
This comes as no surprise because owning a company is the best way to make a lot of money.
Instead of partnering with a brand and earning only a small chunk of profit, starting a merchandise company allows these TikTokers to earn maximum profit.
Addison’s store has products ranging from $10 to $50.
She’s driving traffic to her store by linking her shop in all of her socials.
TikTok is one of her main marketing channels as she’s sitting at 50m+ followers as of mid 2020.
Based on her followers, she’s probably making around $25,000 a month just from selling merch.
This is just an estimation, so it could be way less or way more.
Nevertheless, a merchandise store can go a long way.
Another example is a popular YouTube channel, Nelk. They generate most of their income from selling merchandise because almost all of their videos are demonetized.
Their products range from $10 to $175 and all of them are always sold out after each drop. This is due to the fact that they effectively marketed their merch from all of their socials (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.).
They have around 2.7 million followers on TikTok and almost all of their videos get above 1 million views.
Although they don’t make any money from TikTok, it drives a ton of traffic to their merchandise store and email list.
When their drop goes live, they announce it through their email list and all of their socials. This drove 275,000+ active visitors on their site at one go.
6. Events
The final way TikTokers can earn money from TikTok is by hosting or going to live events.
Charli D’Amelio charged $100 per meet and greet in one of her events and donated all of the proceeds to charity.
However, even if she didn’t make any money from events, it’s a great way to build awareness for her personal brand.
If you’re meeting hundreds or thousands of people, you’re going to make more sales.
How much does Charli make per TikTok?
In mid 2019, Charli hit 100,000 followers on TikTok. 6 months after, that rose to 5.2 million followers.
As of mid 2020, she hit 70 million followers on TikTok.
This overnight success simply took consistent posting (once every day).
When you have millions of followers on social media, there are tons of opportunities to make money from it.
Charli makes most of her income from brand deals.
So, how much does Charli make per TikTok from sponsored posts?
With 70 million+ followers and 10 to 50 million average video views, Charli can make anywhere between $50,000 to $150,000+ for a sponsored post on TikTok.
Charli can make anywhere between $50,000 to $150,000+ per sponsored post.
This is based on her 20 to 50 million average video views.
But of course, not all of her videos are sponsored. So she doesn’t make money from doing brand deals only.
She has other sources of income from YouTube, merchandise, live streams, and more.
Her merchandise store has products ranging from $25 to $50. Because of her massive audience, she has the ability to make a lot of sales.
Hence, the store has the ability to make around $15,000 to $30,000 a month.
Now, let’s talk about her YouTube channel. Charli has more than 5.5m subscribers on YouTube.
Although she doesn’t upload much on YouTube (once a month), she still earns a lot from Adsense as all of her videos are above a million views.
She can earn anywhere between $2,000 to $10,000+ a month from YouTube ads and much more if she uploads more frequently.
Putting this all together, Charli has the potential to make well over $100,000 a month, with a net worth of over $4m.
Highest paid TikTokers
If you’ve read this far, you should already know that TikTokers can make a lot of money through brand deals, merchandise, and so on.
But how much is a lot?
Here are the top 10 highest paid TikTokers and their estimated earnings per sponsored post.
1. Charli D’Amelio
With over 70 million followers on TikTok as of mid 2020, Charli is the most followed TikToker.
Her videos have generated over 5 billion likes.
She can make anywhere between $50,000 to $150,000+ from a sponsored post.
2. Addison Rae
Addison is the second most followed account on TikTok at over 50 million followers.
Her videos have generated over 3 billion likes.
She can make anywhere between $40,000 to $100,000+ from a sponsored post.
3. Zach King
Zach has over 45 million followers on TikTok.
His videos have generated over 500 million likes.
He can make anywhere between $20,000 to $50,000+ from a sponsored post.
4. Loren Gray
Loren has over 45 million followers on TikTok.
Her videos have generated over 2.5 billion likes.
She can make anywhere between $15,000 to $40,000+ from a sponsored post.
5. Baby Ariel
Ariel has over 34 million followers on TikTok.
Her videos have generated over 1.8 billion likes.
She can make anywhere between $10,000 to $30,000+ from a sponsored post.
Highest paid TikTokers (Compiled data)
Here’s a compiled table of data that estimates the earning potential of TikTokers per sponsored post.
These estimates are based on their average video views on TikTok.
| Highest paid TikTokers | Estimated earnings per sponsored post |
| 1. Charli D’Amelio | $50,000 to $150,000+ |
| 2. Addison Rae | $35,000 to $125,000+ |
| 3. Zach King | $20,000 to $100,000+ |
| 4. Loren Gray | $10,000 to $30,000+ |
| 5. Baby Ariel | $5,000 to $20,000+ |
Can you make money on TikTok?
Making money on TikTok is very possible as mentioned in the sections above.
But how effectively you utilize it as a distribution channel is the question.
There are many other ways you can make money using TikTok as mentioned in the earlier sections.
As a start, you need to have at least 1,000 followers to start making money on TikTok.
Here’s a recap. The general idea is to utilize TikTok as a marketing channel to promote your website, products, services, and more.
Alternatively, you can make brand deals with companies and get paid from posts.
Since ads are placed in between videos, TikTok doesn’t pay their creators.
So you can only make money within TikTok from going live by getting donations from viewers.
Here are the various ways you can make money using TikTok:
- Brand deals
- Going live
- Doing YouTube
- Selling Merchandise
- Paid shoutouts/duets
For TikTok, you have to be very smart about how you put out your content.
Unlike YouTube where you generate videos through ads, making money from TikTok is more challenging.
TikTok is more of a content distribution platform where you need to strategically promote your other socials.
For that to happen, you need to create high quality content to grow your followers.
Only then you can go live, collaborate with brands, and start making money.
Brand deals
Doing brand deals is the first way you can make money on TikTok.
Moreover, TikTok has a creator marketplace that connects you with brands.
However, you need to have at least 100,000 followers to be invited to join the creator program.
Otherwise, you’ll have to source for deals or wait until someone contacts you.
Going live
You need to be 16+ and have a minimum of 1,000 followers to go live on TikTok.
The best time to go live on TikTok is if one of your videos are currently trending on the For You Page.
This is because more people will be able to see you live than normal.
TikTok live is a great way to make money when people donate to you.
Doing YouTube
YouTube is definitely worth it.
If you have a YouTube channel, TikTok can be used as a marketing channel to drive traffic to your channel.
Additionally, TikTok has a function where you can add your YouTube channel on your profile.
By strategically promoting your YouTube channel in your videos, you can drive a ton of traffic to it.
Selling merchandise
Selling merchandise is another way you can make money from TikTok.
However, you need a huge following to be able to make sales.
Most of the most followed TikTokers have their own merchandise store which generates thousands of dollars per month.
Unlike brand deals, selling your own merchandise allows you to make maximum profit, and not just a cut.
Paid shoutouts/duets
Paid shoutouts/duets is the final way you can make money on TikTok.
In order to get paid for doing shoutouts or duets, you have to reach out to people.
Simply send targeted people a direct message saying that you’d give them a shoutout/duet them for $x.
However, you need at least 1,000 followers and a decent engagement rate to do this. Otherwise, no one would be interested as your audience is too small.
Conclusion
It’s no surprise that the most followed TikTokers are making bank.
TikTokers with consistent videos above a million views can easily make thousands of dollars from a sponsored post.
As long as you have a huge, supportive and engaged audience, monetization comes easy.
However, content creation is hard, and not everyone can make it ‘big’ on TikTok.
But the ones that do, reap its benefits.
Further reading
> Hot ? How to Get on The For You Page on TikTok
> The TikTok Shadowban: Everything You Need to Know
> How to Duet on TikTok With Sound
P.S. If you liked this article, feel free to join our follow for follow community for Instagram: https://www.followchain.org — it’s free!
Grow your Instagram audience
Self-promote your Instagram link on Followchain — a follow for follow community for Instagram.
Author: Lim How Wei. Lim How Wei is the founder of Followchain, a community that simplifies growth and networking for Instagram users. Feel free to follow him on Instagram.
