There are eight ways to make money on TikTok. Four are paid by TikTok itself: the Creator Rewards Program, LIVE gifts, Series and subscriptions. Three are paid by other people through TikTok: affiliate commissions from TikTok Shop, sales of your own products, and brand deals. The eighth is sending viewers to something you own. If you are asking how to make money on TikTok with a small account, start here. Two routes need no followers at all (UGC videos and your own shop). One needs 1,000 (TikTok Shop affiliate). The rest need 10,000.

Each route below comes with the TikTok monetization requirements TikTok publishes, the page that says so, and what reputable sources report creators earn. TikTok publishes no payout rates, so every earnings figure is labelled as reported.

Every way to make money on TikTok, compared

RouteMinimum followersOther requirementsHow you get paidRealistic first month
Creator Rewards Program10,00018+, personal account, 100,000 views in the last 30 days, eligible country, videos over 1 minutePayPal (via Hyperwallet in the US) on the 15th, once you pass $50Depends on views. At the reported $0.40 to $1.00 per 1,000 qualified views, 100,000 qualified views is about $40 to $100
LIVE gifts1,000 to go LIVE18+ to receive gifts; account in good standingGifts become Diamonds, cashed out to PayPal or bank; about half of what the viewer paid, as reportedDepends
TikTok Shop affiliate1,00018+, US-based, identity check; under 5,000 followers you are in a 30-day pilot with 3 shoppable videos a dayCommission set by the seller, paid about 15 days after deliveryDepends
Your own TikTok Shop018+, US resident, ID, tax form, bank accountSales minus TikTok's referral fee (6% for most categories), paid 1 to 31 days after deliveryDepends. More than half of US stores recorded no sales in 2025 (Momentum Works)
Brand deals0 (1,000+ for TikTok One projects)18+, disclosure toggle on every paid postFlat fee from the brand, usually per video$50 to $200 per post for accounts under 10,000 followers, if you land one (Influencer Marketing Hub, reported)
UGC videos for brands0A portfolio of sample videosFlat fee per video, paid by the brand$50 to $150 per video at entry level (Billo, reported)
Series10,000 (or apply with proof of paid content elsewhere)18+, account 30 days old, 3 public videos and 1,000 views in the last 30 daysViewers pay $0.99 to $189.99 for a bundle of up to 80 videosDepends
Subscriptions and tips10,000 (subscriptions); 100,000 (tips)18+, 100,000 views in the past month for subscriptionsMonthly fee; US and Canadian creators keep 70% base after app store feesDepends
Your own product, app or newsletter1,000 for a clickable bio link (0 on a business account)Disclosure toggle if you are paid to promote itWhatever your thing chargesDepends

Requirements: TikTok's Creator Rewards Program terms (updated 20 July 2026), TikTok Shop Creator Eligibility Policy (31 July 2026), About TikTok Series, TikTok One sign-up (July 2026). Earnings: Influencer Marketing Hub (May 2026), Billo (June 2026), Momentum Works (February 2026). "Depends" means no reputable source reports a typical figure.

Creator Rewards Program

This is the program people mean when they ask how to get paid on TikTok for views. TikTok's program terms ask for four things: 18 or older, a personal account in good standing, 10,000 authentic followers, and 100,000 authentic video views in the last 30 days. You also need to live in a program country; Shopify's May 2026 guide lists the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil. Only videos over one minute earn. TikTok pays on "qualified views", which are For You feed views that last more than five seconds, minus anything it judges fake or paid. Rewards arrive on the 15th of the month once you pass $50. TikTok has not published a rate. Influencer Marketing Hub puts creator reports at $0.40 to $1.00 per 1,000 qualified views, and Digiday cites a June 2026 analysis at $362 to $1,035 per million. The Creator Rewards Program guide covers what disqualifies a video.

LIVE gifts

Viewers buy Coins and send you Gifts during a LIVE. The Gifts land in your account as Diamonds, which you cash out. TikTok's help pages say you need 1,000 followers to go LIVE, though it varies by region, and you must be 18 or older to receive Gifts with money value. TikTok does not state its cut; Influencer Marketing Hub's August 2026 review found creators net "roughly half" of what the fan paid. TikTok's published payment limits for the UK and Europe set a $1 PayPal minimum, a 1.5% plus $0.10 fee and a $1,000 daily cap. For the US, guides report different minimums, so check the Balance screen in your app. The going LIVE guide covers setup and what gets streams cut off.

TikTok Shop affiliate

You tag a seller's product in a video or LIVE and earn a commission on each sale. TikTok Shop's Creator Eligibility Policy (updated 31 July 2026) sets the US bar at 18 or older, US-based, 1,000 followers, an identity check, and no record of e-commerce permissions being revoked. Under 5,000 followers you enter a 30-day pilot: up to 3 shoppable videos a day, sellers with a shop score of 95% or higher only, and no campaigns. You leave it at 5,000 followers and 30 days.

The seller sets the rate. TikTok's commission page (14 September 2026) gives the formula: revenue minus refunds, times the rate. Commission usually arrives 15 days after delivery, up to 31, and you withdraw it to a bank account or PayPal from $2. Hootsuite (September 2026) reports rates of 5% to 30%; Later (July 2026) reports an average of 13.07%. Free samples need 5,000 followers and a sale in the last 120 days. Refundable samples need no approval: you buy the product and get refunded if your videos hit the seller's sales goal.

Selling your own products on TikTok Shop

No follower minimum. To open a US shop as an individual you must be 18, live in the US, and upload a US ID, a W-9 and proof of address if asked. TikTok's fee page lists a referral fee of 6% for most categories (updated May 2026), 5% for jewelry and pre-owned goods, and 3% for new sellers in their first 30 days. Some 2026 seller guides claim 8%; TikTok's pages do not, so trust your Seller Center rate card. Payouts arrive 1 to 31 days after delivery depending on your shop score, with part of each order held for 30 days.

Momentum Works counted $15.1 billion in US TikTok Shop sales in 2025 across 803,500 stores. More than half of those stores recorded no sales; about 2,000 passed $1 million. The product research guide shows how to check demand before you stock a product.

Brand deals and UGC

A brand deal is a brand paying you to post about it on your account. UGC is a brand paying you to make a video it runs in its own ads, so your follower count does not matter. Both need the commercial content disclosure toggle turned on. TikTok's Branded Content Policy (effective 31 August 2026) counts gifted products and affiliate links as branded content too, and undisclosed posts can lose For You distribution. TikTok One, the official marketplace, takes creators at 18 with 1,000 or more followers for most projects.

Three 2026 guides publish rate ranges and they do not agree, so here they are side by side.

Follower tierInfluencer Marketing Hub (Aug 2026)Shopify (Jun 2026)Hootsuite (Mar 2026)
1,000 to 10,000$50 to $200$5 to $200$20 to $500
10,000 to 100,000$200 to $800$200 to $1,200$500 to $2,000 (to 50,000)
100,000 to 1 million$800 to $5,000$1,200 to $15,000$2,000 to $20,000
Over 1 million$5,000 to $50,000+$7,000 to $20,000+$20,000+

Per sponsored TikTok post, as reported by Influencer Marketing Hub, Shopify and Hootsuite. Collabstr's 2026 report puts the average sponsored TikTok post at $340 and the average UGC video at $195. Billo (2026) reports $50 to $150 per UGC video for beginners and $150 to $500 with a portfolio.

Brands price on views and engagement, not followers, so know your numbers before you quote. The engagement rate calculator shows where you sit against 58 creators in your tier. The UGC creators guide shows how brands find people.

Series, subscriptions and tips

Series is a paywalled bundle of up to 80 videos, each up to 20 minutes, priced by you from $0.99 to $189.99 (Shopify lists a $99.99 ceiling). TikTok's Series page asks for 18 or older, 10,000 followers, an account at least 30 days old, 3 public videos and 1,000 views in the last 30 days. Creators under 10,000 can apply with a link to paid content they sold elsewhere. TikTok has not published its share of Series revenue.

Subscriptions opened to non-LIVE creators in September 2024 at 18 or older, 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the past month. In September 2025 TikTok split the product into Subscriptions for videos and Super Fan for LIVE. Its Creator Academy prices Super Fan at $9.99 a month; no independent outlet we found has covered the change. From 1 October 2025, US and Canadian creators keep 70% after app store fees, plus a 20% bonus for accounts over 10,000 followers and 1 million monthly views (Social Media Today). Tips need 100,000 followers per Shopify and Sprout Social, and TikTok takes nothing beyond card processing. Video Gifts need 10,000.

Sending people to your own app, newsletter or service

The rules here are short. A personal account needs 1,000 followers to add a clickable website link; a business account can add one with zero followers but loses some sounds. If someone pays you to send people to their thing, the disclosure toggle applies. If you sell through TikTok Shop, TikTok bars you from steering buyers to DMs, outside sites, QR codes or your bio link. Some 2026 guides claim the 1,000 threshold was dropped; TikTok's own page still states it.

The two traps

Bought followers do not count. TikTok's Community Guidelines ban selling followers or likes, the Creator Rewards terms count only "authentic" followers and views, and the affiliate policy runs an identity check. You pay for numbers TikTok says it removes, and none of the routes above opens. The paid course is the other trap. Of the 19 top results for "how to make money on tiktok" on 22 September 2026, 7 point to a link, a "hack", a foreign-account method or an income figure. Indicator traced one "watch and earn" network of 40 accounts and 71 million views to affiliate sign-up pages in January 2026. Everything a course sells is on the TikTok pages linked above, for free.

What a creator your size actually gets in views

Every route above runs on views. This is what accounts of each size get, from a September 2026 sample of 58 creators surfaced by TikTok search in six niches, ten recent posts each.

FollowersCreatorsMedian followersMedian plays per postLast 10 posts total 100,000+ plays
Under 10,00058132151 of 5
10,000 to 100,000718,00012,1307 of 7
100,000 to 1 million17450,40021,80014 of 17
Over 1 million293,100,000102,45028 of 29

Data: TikTok profile and post data via TokConnect, pulled 21 September 2026; median plays is the median creator's median over their posts with at least one view. Tier re-cut, full sample. The sample records plays, likes, comments, shares and saves but not video length.

Read the last column against the Creator Rewards bar of 100,000 views in 30 days. All seven creators between 10,000 and 100,000 followers cleared it over their last ten posts, which in that tier spanned about 50 days. The median under-10,000 account got 215 plays a post; one of five cleared 100,000 because a single post took off. Views per follower fall as accounts grow: about 1 play per follower under 10,000, 0.3 between 10,000 and 100,000, and 0.035 over a million.

The one-minute rule matters as much as the view bar. The sample has no video lengths, so we checked 261 ranking posts from three earlier pulls across 26 searches. Of those, 74 (28%) run over 60 seconds, and their median plays (1.09 million) match the shorter ones (1.02 million).

TikTok's own search bar shows the demand. Type "make money on tiktok" and the ten suggestions include shop, live stream, videos, "with ai" and "in 2026". Type "tiktok shop affiliate" and seven of ten suggestions are about registering, signing up or a tutorial, in three languages. One is "earnings".

Data: TikTok search suggestions, pulled 22 September 2026. Snapshot.

Find the products creators already sell in your niche

The affiliate route is the lowest door, and the usual mistake is picking products nobody has proven. TikTok's video search shows which products in your niche already sell through creators' videos, and with TokConnect connected to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor an agent pulls the list for you.

Paste this into your agent

Search TikTok for products in [my niche] and show me which ones creators are already selling as affiliates. For the top 20 videos, list the product named in the caption, plays, saves and video length, and mark which captions carry a shop or affiliate tag. Group by product and rank by how many different creators are selling it.

Works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Gemini once TokConnect is connected. Get a free key (100 credits, no card) or see the setup guides.

Frequently asked questions

How many followers do you need to make money on TikTok?

It depends on the route. UGC videos made for brands and selling your own products on TikTok Shop need zero followers. TikTok Shop's US affiliate program needs 1,000, and so does a clickable link in a personal account's bio. Going LIVE for gifts needs 1,000 in most regions. The Creator Rewards Program, Series, subscriptions and Video Gifts need 10,000, and the Creator Rewards Program also needs 100,000 views in the last 30 days. Tips need 100,000. Every threshold comes from TikTok's own eligibility pages, linked in the comparison table.

How much does TikTok pay for 1 million views?

TikTok has never published a rate. For the Creator Rewards Program, Influencer Marketing Hub's May 2026 review of creator reports puts it at $0.40 to $1.00 per 1,000 qualified views, so about $400 to $1,000 for a million qualified views. Digiday cites a June 2026 analysis of disclosed examples at $362 to $1,035 per million. Qualified views are For You feed views over five seconds on videos over one minute, so the number is smaller than the play count you see. Views outside the program earn nothing directly.

Can you make money on TikTok without showing your face?

Yes. The Creator Rewards Program requires original videos over one minute, not a face; screen recordings and hands-only videos with your own voice qualify, while slideshows and text-only videos do not. TikTok Shop affiliate, your own shop and UGC have no rule about faces at all. The faceless TikTok ideas guide ranks 25 niches on TikTok's own search data and notes which routes pay for each format.

How do you get paid on TikTok?

Each program pays differently. The Creator Rewards Program pays on the 15th of the month through PayPal (via Hyperwallet in the US) once your balance passes $50. LIVE and Video Gifts arrive as Diamonds that you cash out to PayPal or a bank account from the Balance screen. TikTok Shop affiliate commission lands in a separate commission account about 15 days after the order is delivered, and you withdraw it to a bank or PayPal from $2. Shop sellers are paid 1 to 31 days after delivery depending on their shop score. Brand deals and UGC are paid by the brand, outside TikTok.

What are the TikTok monetization requirements in 2026?

You must be 18 or older for every route. The Creator Rewards Program needs a personal account, 10,000 followers, 100,000 views in 30 days and an eligible country (Shopify lists the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil). TikTok Shop affiliate needs 1,000 followers, US residency and an identity check. Series needs 10,000 followers, a 30-day-old account, 3 public videos and 1,000 views in 30 days. Subscriptions need 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the past month. Any post you are paid for needs the commercial content disclosure toggle turned on.

Is it worth trying to make money on TikTok with a small account?

Only through the routes that do not depend on your audience. In a September 2026 sample of 58 creators, the median account under 10,000 followers got 215 plays a post, which earns nothing through the Creator Rewards Program. UGC pays $50 to $150 a video at entry level (Billo, 2026) with no follower count, your own TikTok Shop has no follower minimum, and affiliate opens at 1,000. Treat views as the thing to grow and pick the route that pays before the views arrive.

Sources and data