How To Monetize TikTok Content: 9 Effective Ways

Looking for a way to profit off of your creativity?  TikTok monetization may be the answer. 

In a world where short-form videos dominate, mastering the art of monetization on TikTok can be a game-changer for content creators — letting you make money while doing what you love.

But with so many avenues for TikTok monetization, deciding which route to take can be tricky. Here’s how to monetize TikTok content in ways that will feel authentic to your audience to encourage engagement and earn some income. Here’s how.

Can You Make Money on TikTok?

There are many ways you can make money on TikTok. 

How you earn depends on a few factors — how engaged your audience is, the type of content you create, and the size of your following.

A Large and Active Follower Count

If you have a large and active follower base, you could earn money through the TikTok Creator Fund, a program that financially compensates creators for content with high engagement (likes, comments, and shares).  

You could also receive virtual gifts from your followers — digital stickers or tokens followers send to show support. TikTok lets you redeem these gifts for money. 

These methods have a minimum follower requirement and depend on audience participation, either through engagement or payment for products and services, so they are suited to larger accounts. 

All Account Sizes     

You could monetize your TikTok with affiliate marketing, whether you have a new or old account, many followers or a few. Affiliate marketing is like getting a commission for recommending products — you share a link, and when people click the link and buy the product, you earn a percentage of the sale. 

Although there’s no minimum follower requirement, the more people see your video, click on the affiliate link, and purchase, the more revenue you earn.      

Another monetization option for accounts of all sizes is the TikTok Referral program. Once you sign up for the program, you’ll get paid to refer new people to TikTok. There’s no minimum follower requirement, so anyone can participate and start earning.   

9 Proven Ways To Monetize TikTok

Here are nine of the best ways to start getting paid on TikTok.

1. Join the TikTok Creator Fund

Since July 2020, TikTok has been making payouts to creators whose content receives a lot of likes and comments. 

However, not everyone is eligible for the Creator Fund. Here are the TikTok Creator Fund requirements:  

• You must reside in the US, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, or Spain. 
• You are 18+ years of age.
• You have a minimum of 10,000 followers. 
• Your TikTok account must abide by the TikTok community guidelines and terms of service. 

If you qualify, the Creator Fund is a way to earn passive income without doing anything extra. You just need to create great content. 

2. Collaborate With Other Creators or Brands

Collaborations on TikTok involve partnering with other creators or brands to make and promote content. This helps generate revenue while increasing your audience reach and engagement. If your content resonates with your fellow creators or brands’ audiences, they may be motivated to hit the follow button. 

Each type of collaboration has its benefits:

• Brand collaboration — Brands can pay you to promote their products or services through sponsored content. This usually involves creating videos that showcase the brand, like testing a product and using specific hashtags and descriptions to support the brand’s marketing campaign.‍
• Collaborating with other content creators — Team up with other content creators to make TikTok videos. This exposes you to their followers, increasing your visibility and helping you reach new audiences. The more likes and shares you get, the more the Creator Fund will pay. 

The best place for you to connect with other like-minded content creators and brands for possible collaborations is Creator Marketplace — the official TikTok collaboration platform to connect brands and creators. 

3. Earn Money Through Affiliate Marketing Programs

Promote various products or services and make a commission for each sale or action generated through your unique link, known as affiliate marketing. Depending on the affiliate program, you can earn a percentage of the product sold or a fixed amount for each sale people make through your link. 

The most popular affiliate programs are:

• Amazon Associates
• eBay Partner Network
• Rakuten
• Shopify Collabs

Remember, the key to effective affiliate marketing is transparency. It’s essential to disclose your affiliate relationship in your videos or captions when you encourage followers to buy through your link. Honesty builds trust and is essential for maintaining a positive relationship with your audience, leading to sustained engagement, growth, and successful monetization efforts. 

4. Collect “Tips” From Your Audience

If you have loyal followers who love your content, they can show their appreciation by giving you “Tips” whenever they feel like it.   

The benefit of this monetization option is the convenience — if you’re eligible, your audience can pay you directly through your profile anytime. Your tips will automatically be deposited into your bank account each week.

Here are the requirements for eligibility: 

• You must live in a location where Tips is available.
• You must be 18+ years old.
• Have at least 100,000 followers.
• Your account must adhere to TikTok’s community guidelines and terms of service.
• You must have a personal TikTok account (business accounts aren’t eligible).

5. Turn on LIVE Gifts

LIVE Gifts is a special feature that lets creators earn Diamonds based on how well-received your live videos are. When you activate LIVE Gifts and start your live video, your audience can send virtual Gifts that appear on the screen in different forms, such as stickers, animations, and more. The audience must first buy Coins from TikTok via their profile, which they can use to send Gifts to their favorite creators. 

With Gifts, viewers can express their appreciation for your content in real time, and TikTok will reward eligible creators with payouts to the value of their Gifts. 

At the end of your live session, you'll see the total number of Diamonds accumulated in your LIVE summary. You can redeem these Diamonds for money or virtual rewards from TikTok.

To turn on LIVE Gifts, you must meet these requirements:

• Live in a location where LIVE Gifts is available.
• Be 18+ years (19 in South Korea).
• Be eligible to go LIVE.
• Have an account that adheres to TikTok’s community guidelines and terms of service. 

6. Activate Video Gifts

Similar to LIVE Gifts, Video Gifts are another way your viewers can react and show appreciation for your content. With Video Gifts, you can collect Diamonds on your videos to claim from TikTok for money or virtual rewards.

These are the eligibility requirements:

• Reside in a location where Video Gifts are available. 
• Be 18 years (or 19 in South Korea).
• Have at least 10,000 followers. 
• Your account must be at least 30 days old.
• You must have posted a public video in the last 30 days.
• You must have a personal TikTok account (not a business account). 

Videos that include duets and stitches, ads, sponsored content, promoted posts, and content that violates TikTok’s community guidelines aren’t eligible for video gifts. 

7. Earn Monthly Income With TikTok’s LIVE Subscription Feature

Last year, TikTok launched LIVE Subscription, a monthly subscription service on TikTok LIVE for creators to increase their earnings and offer loyal followers added benefits. 

Followers can pay to sign up for your monthly subscription service to access exclusive benefits, including subscriber badges, custom emotes, and subscriber-only LIVEs, chats, and videos.

Currently, there’s no fixed subscription charge but subscribers can expect to pay between $4.99 to $24.99. Creators are paid by TikTok through revenue sharing, so how much you earn will depend on how many subscribers you have. 

Here are the eligibility requirements:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Have a minimum of 1,000 followers.
• Must meet TikTok's Community Guidelines.
• Have conducted a Live for at least 30 minutes in the last 28 days.

8. Join the TikTok Rewards Referral Program

TikTok Rewards is a referral program that lets you make money by referring your friends and family to the platform. The best part about this monetization method is that anyone can do it. As long as you have a TikTok account and meet the age requirement, you can start referring users and getting paid.

The minimum age requirements are: 

• Egypt — 21+ years
• Japan — 20+ years
• Korea — 19+ years
• All other countries — 18+ years

9. Open a TikTok Shop

Another way to monetize your account is by opening a TikTok Shop to showcase and sell products for the TikTok community to discover and purchase directly within the app. 

There are three ways to sell via your TikTok shop:

1. Live shopping — TikTok users can shop directly from one of your LIVE videos by tapping the pinned products or browsing the shopping basket icon while the video is on.
2. Shoppable videos – Users can shop directly from your in-feed video by tapping the product link & basket icon.
3. Product showcase — Users can shop directly from your account and get access to products within the app and purchase.

The benefit of this option is that your followers won’t be directed away from your profile to partner shopping apps or websites when purchasing your products, so the attention remains on your content. 

TikTok also offers you tools to track performance, traffic, customer reviews, and transaction data through TikTok Shop’s data dashboards, so you can identify patterns and trends, do more of what works, and avoid the content that falls flat. Focusing on the content audiences want to see ensures engagement, growth, and successful monetization. 

Maximize Your Earning Potential on TikTok

For TikTok monetization, you have tons of ways to earn — but they all rely on high-quality content. Remember, trends come and go quickly on TikTok. To stay ahead of the curve, you’ll want to create up-to-date, stand-out videos that grab users’ attention quickly and motivate them to interact with and share your content. 

That's where Captions can help. This AI-powered creative studio, streamlines video recording and editing, making it 10x faster to share on all your social media accounts. Use it to add subtitles, enhance speech, correct eye content, and more to craft content that boosts your earning potential on TikTok and every other platform.