It’s tempting to look at TikTok millionaires and imagine yourself quickly joining their exclusive crowd. But for every creator who goes viral on the platform, there are many hopefuls still searching for the limelight. Between those extremes is a living to be made as a TikTok influencer. How much can you make? To answer that question, you’ll first need to understand the ways to make money from TikTok – and know that most creators use a combination of them.
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Direct monetisation
If you post high-quality, original content and meet the program requirements, the TikTok Creator Rewards Program will pay you for every 1,000 views. The exact way payouts are calculated is complicated, and it varies by country. Some calculations put the amount around £0.30 to £0.76 per 1,000 views, which means you’d earn between £300 and £760 if your video reaches a million views.
Brand deals, sponsorships, and affiliate income
Getting a brand to sponsor you can quickly increase your income. It may be from you directly promoting their products or services in your content or through affiliate marketing, which is where you get a percentage of what customers spend with the brand if they use your link to access the brand’s website. There’s also TikTok One, which is a platform run by TikTok that connects creators with opportunities like brand campaigns.
Estimates of actual amounts earned through brand deals and affiliate marketing range from £38 to £190 per post for nano influencers (fewer than 10,000 followers), while mega-influencers (1 million or more followers) can earn upwards of £7,600 per post. At the top end of sponsorships, the sky’s the limit. Khaby Lame, one of the highest paid TikTokers, reportedly earns up to £300,000 per sponsored post, for example.
Selling products
If you have a product to sell or a dedicated group of followers to sell to, one way to monetise your TikTok account is to sell through it. You can set up a TikTok Shop to sell your own – or other people’s – products.
You can add products directly or sync an existing online store. Selling can be done through in-feed methods such as tagging products in videos, and through livestreams where you host QVC-style shopping events, interacting with customers directly. You can also showcase a collection of products on your profile page using the Showcase tab.
According to TikTok, two-thirds of users are likely to buy something while using the platform. A 5% to 20% commission rate means there’s money to be made.
It’s worth noting, though, that TikTok charges a referral fee of around 6% per order, and your earnings will vary depending on your views, content, and followers, among other factors. But it can pay off; there are TikTok sellers who earn six-figure sums.
Services
You may be able to sell services such as coaching, consulting, or personalised shoutouts to increase how much you actually earn as a TikToker. The platform even has its own Shoutouts system, through which users can buy a custom video. If you’re prepared to put in the extra legwork on creation, be sure to use it to grow your payday.
Crowdfunding
TikTok is a great place to source crowdfunding, thanks to its tendency to spread content more widely than other platforms. Elm Tree Inn raised around £300,000 that way to save their pub, and there is a huge amount of creators working hard through the #crowdfunding hashtag to achieve their financial goals. If that fits your niche (if, for instance, you’re raising awareness about a cause), then crowdfunding could be a good way to increase your TikTok earnings.
Tips and virtual gifts
Viewers can tip “to directly show gratitude to creators for their content,” according to TikTok. You’ll need to have at least 1,000 followers and a Stripe account in order to receive tips. Earnings from tips vary massively, so it’s not possible to put a number on them. Virtual Gifts, however, are more easily quantified. They’re gifts given during livestreams, bought using TikTok coins. They range from a TikTok Rose, worth one coin (approximately £0.007) to the TikTok Universe, which is currently the most expensive Virtual Gift available at 44,999 coins (around £425).
The platform takes half of the value of any Virtual Gift, so you’ll need to factor that in when you consider your potential earnings.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions on TikTok allow followers to pay creators for perks such as custom badges that appear next to usernames, special emotes to use in live chats, and exclusive videos and livestreams. TikTok gives creators up to 90% of revenue from subscriptions, so a creator with 1,000 subscribers paying £4.99 a month could potentially earn £4,491 monthly.
User-generated content for brands
User-generated content (UGC) looks like organic posts, but it’s actually commissioned by a brand and posted to your own channel or theirs. According to one industry article, UGC creators can earn £76 to £1,900 for a 60-second video based on follower count and engagement, and some creators with strong portfolios earn £7,600 or more per month through repeated deals.
Credit: Luiza Kamalova/Shutterstock
There are a number of things that determine how much money you can make on TikTok.
Follower count and view volume
Generally speaking, the more followers you have and the more views you get, the higher your earning potential for direct monetisation and brand deals.
Engagement rate and audience quality
Brands prefer creators whose followers actually engage, which is measured through likes, comments, and shares, and who are likely to act, which is measured through purchases and clicks on links. A creator with 50,000 followers and high engagement may earn more than one with 200,000 followers and low engagement.
Niche and market value
Content related to finance, technology, fitness, beauty, education, travel, and food reportedly attracts higher-paying brand deals, because the audience is more likely to deliver a return on investment.
Consistency and content originality
TikTok rewards original content and regular posting with consistent branding and content. Originality is so important that if TikTok’s algorithm deems your content unoriginal, it won’t even be eligible for monetisation in the Creators Rewards Program.
Geography
Some monetisation programmes are available only in certain countries, and rates for content monetisation vary widely depending on where in the world you’re based. That is largely because advertisers in the higher-paying countries have bigger budgets, and viewers in those countries have more to spend.
How much money does TikTok pay its creators? A 2025 review of influencer earnings showed that 48% earned less than about £11,400 annually, and only about 7% earned £151,000 or more.
That shouldn’t stop you from aiming high. There are plenty of case studies that suggest good earnings are possible. Jeneen Sahtout, who posts beauty and shopping videos, told Business Insider she earned just under £4,600 in commissions alone in April 2023, for example. Other industry figures put average TikTok earnings at around £100,000, although it’s important to remember that the average is skewed by the Khaby Lames of the TikTok world and their massive incomes.
If you keep putting in the work and use multiple revenue streams, one day your name may feature in an article like this one.