To make money on TikTok, start with brand deals and LIVE Gifts, add TikTok Shop and TikTok One brand projects at 1,000 followers, and turn on Subscription and the Creator Rewards Program at 10,000 followers. That order follows the thresholds TikTok publishes as of October 2026. It also matches where the money is, because view-based pay is the hardest TikTok income to plan around.
This guide is the sequence. For dollar figures and third-party estimates, read how much TikTokers make. For the full rules on view-based pay, read our TikTok Creator Rewards Program guide.
What do you need before TikTok can pay you?
You need to be 18 or older, keep your account in good standing and finish payout setup. TikTok shows no payout date until you add a payment method, submit tax information and verify your identity.
- Be 18 or older. Creator Rewards and LIVE Gifts need 19 in South Korea.
- Use a personal account if you want Creator Rewards. Business accounts and government or political accounts don’t qualify.
- Check your country. Creator Rewards runs in the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil, and TikTok Shop’s affiliate rules differ by market.
- Stay inside the Community Guidelines. Five video violations in 30 days make you ineligible for Creator Rewards, and five account violations make it permanent.
Every program pays into one Balance page, each on its own weekly, every two weeks or monthly cycle. TikTok usually processes withdrawals to PayPal, Pix or a bank account within 72 hours, though your bank may hold the money longer.
How can you make money on TikTok with under 1,000 followers?
With under 1,000 followers, your options are brand deals you find yourself and LIVE Gifts. Neither has a published follower minimum.
Brand deals pay whatever you negotiate, and most deals are small. Collabstr’s 2026 report found nearly 80% of collaborations on its marketplace were priced below $300, according to Storyboard18’s March 2026 coverage, and user-generated content made up 35% of campaigns. UGC means making videos for a brand’s own channels, which needs skill on camera more than followers, and our guide to UGC creators explains it.
Turn on TikTok’s Commercial Content Disclosure setting on every paid post. It adds a Paid partnership label, and TikTok says the label doesn’t change how it recommends the video.
LIVE Gifts need you to be 18 or older and eligible to go LIVE. TikTok’s LIVE monetization guide, dated June 23, 2026, sets age and region conditions but lists no follower count, and TikTok sets the cash value of Diamonds at its sole discretion. Treat early LIVE income as a test of what your audience will pay for.
Use this stage to collect the numbers brands ask for, starting with median views per video. Our media kit guide lists the rest.
What opens at 1,000 followers on TikTok?
At 1,000 followers, US creators can apply to TikTok Shop’s affiliate program, and creators in supported regions can join TikTok One brand projects. Both need you to be 18 or older.
TikTok Shop affiliate
TikTok Shop’s US Creator Eligibility Policy asks for 1,000 followers, an age of at least 18 and a US base, and you apply yourself. You add product links to videos, LIVEs and a store page on your profile, and you earn a commission when viewers buy. Sellers set the commission rate on each product, not TikTok.
Affiliates under 5,000 followers start in a pilot program for at least 30 days. During it you can promote only products with a Shop Performance Score of 95% or higher and post up to 3 shoppable videos and 3 shoppable LIVEs a week, and you can’t join campaigns. Our guide to affiliate marketing for creators covers choosing products.
TikTok One
TikTok One is TikTok’s marketplace for brand campaigns. You must be 18 or older and in a region where it has launched, and projects need at least 1,000 followers plus whatever each brand asks for. Brands can invite you, or you can apply to open projects. Read how to get brand deals and how to price sponsored posts before your first pitch.
What changes at 5,000 followers?
At 5,000 followers, US Shop affiliates graduate from the pilot program, as long as they have spent at least 30 days in it. That ends the pilot’s weekly cap on shoppable posts and its ban on campaigns.
TikTok Shop can lift some limits earlier at its discretion. You need to pass a probation quiz, reach 176 Creator Health Rating points and hit one activity target, such as 10 orders from shoppable content or six shoppable videos of at least 8 seconds.
What opens at 10,000 followers on TikTok?
At 10,000 followers, you can turn on Subscription and, once you also have 100,000 video views in the last 30 days, join the Creator Rewards Program. These are TikTok’s two direct payout programs.
Subscription
Subscription lets fans pay you monthly, at a price you choose from $2.99 to $99.99, with $5.99 as the default. TikTok pays you 70% of revenue after app store fees. In months when you have over 10,000 followers, over 100,000 views in the last calendar month and post subscriber-only videos, a 20% bonus lifts that to 90%. First-timers need one subscriber-only video that month, and creators who have posted them before need three.
Creator Rewards Program
Creator Rewards pays for original videos over 1 minute that reach at least 1,000 For You feed views. You apply in TikTok Studio and hear back within about 3 days. TikTok’s terms for Japan and South Korea require 50,000 followers. TikTok publishes no rate per view and pays monthly on the 15th once you have at least $50.
Only make videos over a minute when the idea needs the time. TikTok counts watch time and finish rate in your RPM, so a padded video can earn less per view than a tight one.
What should you do at 100,000 followers?
At 100,000 followers, take your audience to a second platform that pays you to show up. Meta’s Creator Fast Track, announced March 18, 2026, pays creators with at least 100,000 TikTok followers who are new or returning to Facebook $1,000 a month for three months to post eligible reels there, and $3,000 a month for creators with more than 1 million.
Fast Track is the only guaranteed monthly pay in this guide, and participants also get immediate access to Facebook’s invite-only Content Monetization program. We’d apply before chasing the next TikTok milestone. YouTube is the other obvious second home, because it publishes a 55% creator share of long-form ad revenue, and Instagram takes 0% of subscriptions. Compare the options in YouTube vs TikTok and TikTok vs Instagram.
In what order should you add TikTok income?
Add income in the order TikTok’s thresholds allow, but put your effort where the money is. This is our recommended order, based on the published rules.
| Order | Followers | What to add | What it pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Any | Brand deals and UGC | Whatever you negotiate |
| 2 | Any, age 18 or older | LIVE Gifts | Diamonds at a rate TikTok sets |
| 3 | 1,000, US | TikTok Shop affiliate | Seller-set commission per sale |
| 4 | 1,000 | TikTok One projects | Fees agreed with each brand |
| 5 | 10,000 | Subscription | 70% after app store fees, up to 90% |
| 6 | 10,000 plus 100,000 views in 30 days | Creator Rewards Program | Per qualified view, rate not published |
| 7 | 100,000 | Facebook Creator Fast Track | $1,000 a month for three months, $3,000 above 1 million |
We rank Subscription above Creator Rewards because its split is published and its income repeats each month. Creator Rewards costs nothing to join, so turn it on the day you qualify, but don’t build a budget on it.
Every stream in that table runs on someone else’s rules. Point your most loyal viewers to something you own, such as a digital product or an email list. Our guides to selling digital products and how creators make money, and our best platforms for beginners list, cover where to start.