How to Make Money on TikTok: Every Official Program and What It Takes

You make money on TikTok through its official programs: the Creator Rewards Program for original videos over a minute, Subscription, LIVE Gifts, TikTok Shop affiliate commissions, and paid brand deals in TikTok One. The Creator Rewards Program needs you to be 18+ and have 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the last 30 days. Brand deals in TikTok One start at a 1,000-follower baseline.

The requirements below are quoted from TikTok’s Creator Academy and legal pages as they read in November 2026. TikTok changes them often and they vary by country. The final word is always what TikTok Studio shows for your account: go to your profile, tap the menu (☰), open TikTok Studio, and look at the Monetization section.

The programs at a glance

Creator Rewards Program

This is TikTok’s main way of paying for views. It replaced the older Creativity Program Beta, and TikTok moved those members over automatically.

Who can join

According to TikTok’s Creator Academy, you need to:

• Be based in, and have an account registered in, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, Mexico or Brazil.
• Have an account in good standing under the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.
• Use a Personal Account. Business Accounts and government or political accounts don’t qualify.
• Be at least 18.
• Have at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.

To join, go to TikTok Studio, then Creator Rewards Program, and apply. TikTok says you’ll hear back within three days.

Which videos earn

Being in the program isn’t enough. Each video also has to qualify:

• Original, high-quality content over 1 minute long.
• At least 1,000 views on the For You feed.
• Not a Duet or Stitch, and not made with Photo Mode.
• Not an ad, paid promotion or sponsored content.
• Following the program terms, Community Guidelines, Creator Code of Conduct and Copyright Policy.

TikTok also lists what makes content ineligible. Two items matter most if you work with clips: unoriginal content (copied from others, or with minimal original input or edits) and low quality content, such as split screens, meaningless reactions or slide videos.

How views turn into money

TikTok only pays for qualified views. A qualified view has at least 5 seconds of watch time and comes from one of the program’s countries. Repeat views from the same account count once. Views where someone tapped “Not interested” don’t count, and neither do fraudulent or paid views. From search, a view needs at least 30 seconds of watch time.

Your total is a Standard Reward plus an Additional Reward. TikTok gives the Additional Reward to videos that are well-crafted, engaging and specialized, and it names watch time as a key factor. It also asks for 1080p or higher. Your dashboard shows your RPM, which TikTok defines as average gross revenue per 1,000 qualified views. TikTok says a higher RPM usually means higher quality, longer watch time, or more views from eligible regions.

TikTok doesn’t publish a standard RPM, so don’t trust anyone who promises one. Payouts can be redeemed on the 15th of each month once you pass the $50 USD minimum and have finished onboarding, including tax information.

Subscription

Subscription lets fans pay you a monthly fee for perks: subscriber-only videos, a subscriber badge in comments, up to 35 custom stickers, and perks you design, like letting subscribers vote on your next topic.

What TikTok’s Subscription guide states:

• Price: the default is $5.99 a month. You can choose from tiers between $2.99 and $99.99 USD. Fans pay in their local currency.
• Your share: 70% of revenue after app store fees.
• Bonus: an extra 20%, for up to 90% in total, if in that month you have over 10k followers, over 100k video views in the last calendar month, follow the rules, and post sub-only videos (your first one if you’ve never posted any, or at least three valid ones if you have). TikTok checks this every month.
• Sub-only posts can’t be Duets, Stitches or sticker creations, and can only use copyright-free sounds.

To join, open TikTok Studio, go to the Monetization tab, select Subscription, then Join Subscription. TikTok walks you through your account’s eligibility from there.

Subscription works best once you have a core of fans who comment on every video. A creator with 5,000 loyal viewers can earn more here than one with 50,000 casual ones.

LIVE Gifts

When you go LIVE, viewers can buy Coins and send Gifts. You collect Diamonds based on how popular your LIVE is, and you can withdraw them under TikTok’s rules. TikTok also offers LIVE Match battles with other creators, a weekly Gift Gallery, and video Gifts that fans can send in your comments.

The rules, in TikTok’s own words:

• TikTok’s newsroom says creators must be at least 18 to go LIVE, and their account must meet other criteria, including follower requirements. TikTok doesn’t publish one fixed follower number, so check whether the LIVE button appears for you.
• TikTok’s Virtual Items Policy says only users 18 or older (or the age of majority where they live) can buy Coins and Gifts, send Gifts, receive Gifts with monetary value, or earn and withdraw Diamonds.

LIVE takes stamina. A one-hour LIVE that does well is often a regular schedule (same time, same format) with a reason to stay, like a Q&A, a challenge or a tutorial done live.

TikTok Shop affiliate

With TikTok Shop, you earn a commission when people buy products through your videos, your LIVEs or the product showcase on your profile. You don’t hold any stock. You pick products that fit your content and add a product link.

TikTok’s overview says that if you’re over 18 and have a community on TikTok, you can sell products in-app. Follower minimums and which markets have Shop differ by country and change often, so check your Shop or affiliate option in TikTok Studio, not a number from a blog.

Shop rewards trust. A creator who has reviewed kitchen gadgets honestly for a year can sell a product with one video. Treat every Shop video as an ad: be honest about what you didn’t like, and never review a product you haven’t used.

Brand deals and TikTok One

For most small creators, the first real TikTok money is a brand deal. TikTok One (it took over TikTok Creator Marketplace and Creative Challenge) is the in-app place where brands find you, send you projects and pay you.

From TikTok’s TikTok One guide:

• Be 18 or older (or the age of majority where you live), follow the Community Guidelines and Branded Content Policy, and be in a supported region.
• Open it from your profile: TikTok Studio, then Creator Marketplace, which takes you to TikTok One.
• Projects need at least 1,000 followers as a baseline, and each brand can add its own requirements.
• Fill in your profile: email, languages and an expected rate. Advertisers and agencies can see this.
• Branded posts go on the brand’s account (they can boost them with Spark Ads). Sponsored posts go on your own account with a “Sponsored” tag.

You can also land deals outside TikTok One. Whenever you post paid content, TikTok’s Branded Content Policy requires you to turn on the commercial content disclosure toggle. The full process, from media kit and pitch to rates, is in How to get brand deals.

Which program to chase first

A note on clips

If you already film long content (a podcast, a stream, tutorials), it can feed TikTok. Clips from your own long videos are original content, and clips that run a little over a minute can qualify for Creator Rewards. Short.now cuts long videos into vertical clips with captions and can post them to TikTok on a schedule, which saves time, but you’re still the one who decides which clips are good enough. Reuploading someone else’s video, or a split screen with a reaction on top, is what TikTok calls unoriginal or low quality, and it won’t earn.

What’s next

Brand deals usually pay before any creator fund does, and they’re open to much smaller accounts. Next, learn how to build a media kit, pitch brands and disclose correctly in How to get brand deals.