TikTok Shop affiliate commission rates by category, and how to set yours

Most TikTok Shop sellers offer affiliates between 5% and 20% commission, and TikTok lets you set anything from 1% to 80% of each order. 2026 benchmarks put the US average TikTok Shop affiliate commission near 13%. Health and beauty pay the most (FastMoss's June 2026 medians are 20% and 15%), womenswear sits near 10%, and electronics lowest at 5% to 8%. Targeted invites to chosen creators usually run 5 to 10 points above the open rate.

This page is for sellers deciding what to offer. It covers the category rates published in 2025 and 2026 (where sources disagree, you see both), TikTok's own rules for open, targeted and Shop Ads commission, a margin worked example, and what TikTok's search results say about which categories affiliates already sell. Checked 30 September 2026. If you are the creator, the TikTok affiliate requirements guide covers your side.

What commission do TikTok Shop sellers offer by category?

No official table exists. TikTok publishes the allowed range, not what sellers pay, so every category figure comes from an analytics firm or agency. Three dated 2026 sources publish them, and they overlap more than they disagree.

Sources: FastMoss, US seller costs, 12 June 2026 (median of per-product rates it tracks); Hamster Garage affiliate statistics, June 2026; Short Form Nation, 8 May 2026 ("standard" tier shown). All checked 30 September 2026.

Where they differ, the gap is about method. FastMoss reports the median of the rates sellers actually set, which is why it puts health at 20% while the two agencies recommend 12% to 18% for an open plan. Short Form Nation lists jewelry at 12% to 15%; FastMoss's fashion-accessories median is 8%. A fourth guide, Advertise Purple (April 2026), puts home goods at 8% to 15% and electronics at 2% to 8%.

The overall average is steadier. Hamster Garage reports a US average of 13.02%, and Later (July 2026) 13.07%. Short Form Nation puts the cross-category open average at 13% to 16%.

What commission range does TikTok allow?

TikTok lets you set any rate from 1% to 80% of the order, on both open and targeted plans. Everything else about how the rate behaves is in Seller Center help and TikTok Shop Academy pages.

TikTok's formula does not spell out "revenue". Duoke's May 2026 guide says it is the product price minus your own discount, with shipping and TikTok-funded coupons left out. So a seller discount lowers the commission, and a TikTok coupon does not.

TikTok's Affiliate Marketing Policy (2 September 2026) also names a shop plan, one rate for everything you sell. It is the simplest setup and the bluntest: a 15% shop rate pays the same on a high-margin serum and a low-margin bundle.

What is Shop Ads commission, and how low can it go?

Shop Ads commission is a second, usually lower rate for orders that come through an ad built on a creator's post. TikTok's help page gives the example of a 10% standard rate and a 5% Shop Ads rate: a buyer who taps the creator's own link pays the creator 10%, and a buyer who taps your ad of that video pays 5%. If you leave it off, ad orders earn the standard rate. TikTok's March 2026 page says the setting is only open to invited sellers.

The floor is where sources split. TikTok's open collaboration setup page (October 2025) says the Shop Ads rate on an open plan cannot go below 30% of the standard rate, so 3% on a 10% plan. Short Form Nation (May 2026) says one third, so 5% on a 15% plan. If you plan a low ad rate, one third of the standard rate satisfies both readings.

A cut to the Shop Ads rate follows the same 30-day grace period as a standard cut, and creators do not get the two-day warning they get for standard changes.

How do you set a TikTok Shop affiliate commission rate?

Start from your margin, not from the category table. The table tells you what creators see elsewhere; your margin tells you what you can afford.

1. Work out your margin before commission

Take the price and subtract product cost, shipping, TikTok's referral fee and an allowance for returns. In the example, a $30 product leaves $14.20. The fee itself is moving: TikTok's category table (revised May 2026) says 6% for most categories, and beBOLD (September 2026) reports 8% for most non-food categories from 4 August 2026. Use the rate on your own settlement statement.

2. Set a ceiling

Decide the least you need to keep per order. Everything above that is the most you can offer. Keeping $6 on the example product leaves $8.20 for the creator, about 27% of the price. That is your targeted ceiling.

3. Place the open rate at the category norm

Set the open plan near the middle of your row in the table, then set targeted invites 5 to 10 points higher, which is the gap every source shows. A beauty seller would open at about 15% and invite at 20% to 25%, if the margin allows.

4. Price the samples in

A free sample costs you the product plus shipping, about $14 in the example, before any sale. At 10% to 20% that sample is repaid by the creator's second sale; at 25% it takes three. TikTok's sample guide (1 September 2026) only lets creators with a sale in the last 120 days request free samples, and gives them 14 days after delivery to post. Refundable samples, where the creator buys and you refund after a sale, move the cost to after the result.

5. Start lower than your ceiling and raise it

Raises reach creators at once; cuts on an open plan take 30 days. So open at a rate you can hold for months and raise it for a push, rather than opening high and walking it back.

Does a higher commission get more creators to sell your product?

Up to a point. FastMoss looked across thousands of products in June 2026 and found that beauty products paying 20% to 30% did not reliably outsell those at 10% to 20%; median orders held around 350 at either 10% or 20%. A rate below the category norm gets skipped. Above it, the product, the price and whether a creator can film it well matter more.

TikTok's search results show which categories affiliates already work. On 30 September 2026 we pulled the top video results for four product searches and counted captions with a TikTok Shop tag (#tiktokshop, #tiktokmademebuyit, a deals tag, #affiliate or TikTok Shop's sales-terms line).

Data: TikTok search and Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 30 September 2026. Top results by relevance, requested 20 per search. Median videos per topic is across the 10 topics TikTok returned for each search. Video snapshot, topic snapshot.

Electronics pays the lowest rates and had the most shop-tagged videos near the top. Sunscreen and magnesium, in the best-paid categories, were led by explainers from skincare and health accounts, with one or two affiliate posts. Our reading: in categories where people search to learn, an affiliate has to out-teach an educator to rank, and a higher rate does not change that. Where people search to compare products, a demo is the answer and affiliates show up at any rate.

Saves tell you more about buying intent than plays. The sunscreen results collected a median 3,199 saves against 414 for earbuds, so sunscreen viewers keep what they watch far more often. In categories like that, a higher rate buys more as a targeted offer to a creator who already teaches the topic than as an open plan anyone can join.

Do this in TokConnect

Before you set a rate, check whether creators already sell your kind of product on TikTok and whether people search for it. In TokConnect, ask in plain words:

That is the question behind the table above. It came back with 73 top videos, 18 of them shop-tagged: 7 of 16 for earbuds and 8 of 18 for leggings, against 1 of 19 for sunscreen. It also showed that people type "what is tiktok shop affiliate" (92,109 searches in 7 days) and "Us TikTok Shop Affiliate" (316,604), so plenty of new creators are looking to join.

What to do next: if your category's top results are mostly shop-tagged demos, an open plan at the category norm will find creators. If they are mostly explainers, put your budget into targeted invites and samples for creators who already teach the topic. The answer gives you searches, video counts, plays and saves. It does not show other shops' sales or the rates they pay; sales-tracking tools such as FastMoss estimate those.

How we got these numbers

Category rates and TikTok's rules come from the pages linked beside each figure, checked on 30 September 2026. TikTok's help pages cover the US; other markets can differ. The worked example uses round example inputs, not a real product.

Our own data: on 30 September 2026 we ran four product searches (sunscreen, magnesium supplement, wireless earbuds, leggings) through TikTok video search, top 20 each by relevance, and through Creator Search Insights, top 10 topics each. We added one topic search for "tiktok shop affiliate" and one autocomplete pull for "tiktok shop commission". That is ten calls. 46 of the 50 topics were TikTok's own topic labels (over a million searches, starting the week under 1% of the final count), so we used video counts and typed searches, not label totals. "Searches" means TikTok's 7-day search popularity; see TikTok search volume. A Shop tag in a caption is our proxy for an affiliate or seller post, and some affiliates post without one. For how to find and shortlist creators once your rate is set, see how to find TikTok Shop affiliates; for the rest of your setup, how to sell on TikTok Shop.