How Much Do TikTokers Make, and Why Should Businesses Care About That?

For the past couple of years, TikTok has been setting the standards of what a successful social media platform should look like. They have over 1 billion active users and are the most downloaded non-game app in Europe.YouTube was one of the first content-sharing platforms that realized they benefited from people focusing on putting out content on their website. That’s why they introduced monetization on videos and allowed the biggest creators to rake in millions.While Instagram and Twitter didn’t replicate that, TikTok did. With an average user willing to spend over 14 hours per month on TikTok, the platform decided to financially reward influencers for keeping the audiences engaged.When you use TikTok for your business, your marketing efforts can benefit directly from popular TikTokers making money, and we’ll show you how.How much do TikTokers make? How do they make money on the platform? How can you capitalize on that? Let’s dive in!

How Much Do TikTokers Make?

Source: John GuccioneHow much money TikTokers make isn’t something you can determine easily as their rates depend on several factors, including:

• Number of followers
• Number of views
• Engagement rates
• Niche (i.e., target audience they can reach)
• Brands that sponsor them (i.e., what budget they have for advertising)

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, these are the average rates per post that established creators charge, depending on their following:TierNumber of FollowersPrice per PostNano-influencer1–10,000 followers$5–$25Micro-influencer10,000–50,000 followers$25–$125Mid-tier influencer50,000–500,000 followers$125–$1,250Macro-influencer500,000–1,000,000 followers$1,250–$2,500Mega-influencerMore than 1,000,000 followers$2,500+

How Much Do TikTok Stars Make?

While the term mega-influencer covers any content creator with “more than 1,000,000 followers,” there are famous TikTokers with hundreds of millions of followers, and they can be considered true TikTok stars. Their popularity and celebrity-like status also reflect on the amount of money they make.

Source: Charli D’AmelioForbes published a list of top-earning TikTok influencers, showing that they earned $55.5 million in 2021, which is a 200% increase from 2020.The top seven highest-earning TikTok stars are as follows:TikTok StarNumber of FollowersEarnings in 2021Charli D’Amelio135.6 million$17.5 millionDixie D’Amelio57 million$10 millionAddison Rae Easterling86.5 million$8.5 millionBella Poarch87.9 million$5 millionJosh Richards25.6 million$5 millionKris Collins42.6 million$4.75 millionAvani Gregg39.7 million$4.75 million

How Do TikTokers Make Money?

The big question is—how is it that Charli managed to rake in over $17 million in a year? As a content creator, there are three ways you can earn money on TikTok:

1. Creator Fund
2. Gifts
3. Influencer marketing

Creator Fund

Creator Fund is a program TikTok rolled out to offer financial benefits to its best creators. The idea is simple—TikTok makes money when people use the app, and successful content creators are the ones that make users stay online the most. Put two and two together, and you’ll get the Creator Fund.To apply for the program, TikTokers must meet the following criteria:

• Be 18 years old or older
• Reside in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, France, or Spain
• Have at least 10,000 followers
• Adhere to all community guidelines

Once in the program, creators start gaining money based on the content they put out. The amount of money they get depends on multiple factors, including:

• Number of views
• Authenticity of those views
• Engagement rates
• Level of compliance with the guidelines and terms of service

While there are no definitive rules on how much money one can make using the Creator Fund, evidence suggests TikTokers make $0.02–$0.04 for every 1,000 views.

Gifts

Gifts are a way for regular users to support their favorite TikTokers and send them money, similar to how Twitch Bits work.When an influencer is livestreaming, viewers can send virtual gifts to the streamer by spending Coins—one of TikTok's two digital currencies. Users can buy Coins for dollars and then use them to purchase and send stickers and donations during the livestream. Creators can exchange these gifts for Diamonds, the other TikTok currency. TikTok doesn’t disclose the value of a Diamond, but it is believed that one Diamond equates to $0.05.

Influencer Marketing

Source: Artem PodrezInfluencer marketing is by far the biggest cash cow for TikTok influencers, and those who make a living on TikTok rely mostly on this source of income.This form of marketing consists of brands reaching out to creators and paying for one or more sponsored posts in which the influencer promotes the brand or its products.As a business, you’re not restricted to a specific video format—the sponsored post can be anything from a dance challenge to a 3-minute video showing the audience how to use your products. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve.The most common methods creators use to promote a brand are:

1. Talking about your brand or using your products
2. Using a branded effect
3. Adding your hashtag to the video’s caption
4. Reacting to your brand’s original TikTok challenge using the Duet or Stitch features

Why Should Businesses Care?

If you have a business account, you can’t enroll in the Creator Fund program, and you can’t get paid by other companies to publish sponsored posts. Why should you care how TikTokers get paid, then?Knowing how much individual TikTokers are worth and how much they charge for a post gives you an insight into what your budget should be for a successful marketing campaign. While you can create paid ads and promote your videos, influencer marketing is arguably the most efficient strategy for growing your business on TikTok.When you know the average rates for sponsorships, you can also determine how much you should offer to a specific influencer and not worry whether you’re being overcharged.

More Isn’t Always Better

Source: Mohamed HassanThe biggest TikTok stars charge huge amounts of money for a single sponsored post—their rates can go up to six digits! Getting Charli D’Amelio to shout out your product will sure let a lot of people know about you, but it may not produce the best results, especially for the money you’ll need to send her way.When deciding on an influencer you want to promote your company, you need to think about what your goal is, which can be:

• Brand awareness—Getting as many people as possible to hear about you
• Conversion—Getting people to take a certain action (visit your website, buy your product, etc.)

If you’re looking for brand awareness, the higher the creator’s follower count, the more chances you have of your sponsored video becoming viral and ending up on thousands of For You pages.When it comes to conversion, you should consider your target audience first and see who they follow. The Creator Marketplace can help you find an influencer that might not be as big as the D’Amelio sisters but has better engagement rates and more impact on the people that will actually be interested in your products. The fact that a smaller influencer will charge less is an added benefit.

What It Takes To Succeed on TikTok

The money famous TikTokers make is impressive, but aspiring content creators don’t have to be TikTok’s answer to PewDiePie or reach Charli’s numbers to make a living making videos for this social media platform.That’s good news both for the regular users and companies since you won’t have to have a $1 million budget to succeed—if you know what you’re doing.Today, if you’re not on social media, you don’t exist, and most companies have a social media team dedicated to producing content and engaging with the brand’s followers. The trouble is, there’s too much to do.An in-house social media manager has to follow the latest trends and come up with ideas for several engaging TikTok videos per week. Then, they have to create the video, post it, respond to comments, run a paid ad campaign, contact influencers, check analytics to measure the success of their efforts, and perform many other tasks.Once all of that is done, they have three or four other social media platforms to focus on. It’s becoming challenging to complete all of those tasks and still receive optimal results. Hiring a dedicated social media agency might seem like a more expensive option in the beginning, but the benefits it brings in the long run make it worthwhile.

Reach for the Stars—We’ll Bring the Ladders

Kubbco is a social media agency and an official TikTok partner. We know what it takes for you to succeed on TikTok, and we have the team to do it.Our agency employs seasoned content writers, social media strategists, analysts, video producers, graphic designers, sound engineers, and many other experts dedicated to achieving the best results on social media.When you partner up with us, all you need to do is tell us what you want to achieve with your TikTok campaign, and we’ll do the rest. Our approach consists of the following steps:

1. Plan a detailed marketing strategy
2. Test out various types of content to see what performs best
3. Develop a content calendar and produce high-quality videos
4. Connect with influencers and run paid ad campaigns
5. Use analytics to ensure our efforts bring optimal results

Want to know how we make sure each step is done perfectly? Want to get the expert take on the latest updates in the world of social media? Subscribe to our newsletter for free, and we’ll share our insights.

Here’s What We Did for OLAPLEX, Matas, and NATURLI’ Foods

Once you have us on board, we will determine what your target audience on TikTok engages with the most, and we’ll focus on developing high-quality content that resonates well with users in your niche. The videos we create will allow you to showcase your brand’s personality while capitalizing on trending topics.Our marketing efforts will grow the number of your followers, get you millions of views, bring you viral videos, and ensure you reach the right people.Matas, NATURLI’ Foods, and OLAPLEX are some of the brands we helped grow:

• Matas—In eight weeks of working together, we created 25 videos, eight of which went viral, while Matas gained 13,500 new followers
• NATURLI’ Foods—We collaborated with this company for 23 weeks, during which we produced 112 videos that amassed 6.2 million views
• OLAPLEX—It took us five weeks to increase their follower count by 22,000. We posted 28 videos on their account, which gained 5.1 million views

Source: NATURLI’ FoodsIf you want to grow your TikTok account and get the younger generation interested in what your company has to offer, all you need to do is reach out. Contact us, and we’ll come up with a campaign that will make your brand the next TikTok star.

Featured image: Karolina Grabowska