How many views do you need on TikTok to make money? That depends — while the Creator Fund has a clear benchmark for views, other monetization streams may not.

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You’re a budding TikTok star, and you know you’re on the cusp of greatness. You want to make real money from TikTok as a full-time content creator, and you can. It’s completely possible to make money on TikTok. 

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But even so, the size of your actual payouts depend on a variety of factors — and views are a major factor. If you’re wondering how many views you need on TikTok to make money, we’ve got answers. Let’s look at how views factor into your earnings, as well as how much money you can expect to make as a TikTok influencer.

How Do Followers and Views Lead to Cash?

You won’t necessarily earn money just because you get millions of video views on TikTok. But you need views and followers to unlock certain monetization opportunities on the platform. 

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You need 100,000 views from the last 30 days to be accepted into TikTok’s Creator Fund. It might sound like a silly requirement, but the social media platform’s view requirement helps discourage bots on the TikTok app.

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Views alone won’t make you rich, but they will influence whether you get into the Creator Fund and how much you earn once you’re there. So, it’s a good idea to boost your TikTok views.

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To give you a better idea of what kind of cash you can expect, here’s an overview of what some of TikTok’s influencers report earning: 

• Preston Seo has 2.3 million followers and reports earning up to $38 a day from the Creator Fund alone.
• Jakey Boehm has 819,000 followers and earns as much as $34,000 in a month from livestreaming on TikTok. 
• Lucy Davis earns up to $300 per live stream and has over 600,000 followers.
• Jenn Leach, who has around 100,000 followers, reports earning $273.65 from the Creator Fund from 2020 to 2021.

What About Likes and Followers?

Do you need followers and views to get paid on TikTok? Yes and no. 

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Technically, you don’t technically need a minimum number of followers or likes to monetize your TikTok account. That’s because you could, in theory, accept brand sponsorships or sell merchandise with zero followers. However, you need to hit certain benchmarks to access the monetization options TikTok offers, like the Creator Fund (10,000 followers) or Tips (100,000 followers).

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Even so, it’s a good idea to boost your TikTok following and engagement stats to increase your money-making potential. Likes show that people are interested in your content, so this can be a great engagement signal that helps you attract more brand deals.

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Now, if you want to join the Creator Fund, TikTok requires you to have 10,000 followers. You can still make money on TikTok with fewer than 10,000 followers (we’ll dive into specifics a bit), but you can’t join the Creator Fund. 

How Much Does TikTok Pay?

So, how much do influencers earn on TikTok? It depends, but a TikTokker with 2.3 million followers says he earns anywhere from $9 to $38 a day through the Creator Fund. That might sound low, because it is: The TikTok Creator Fund pays a paltry two to four cents per 1,000 views.

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The good news is that the Creator Fund isn’t the only way you can monetize your TikTok account. For example, some influencers earn up to $4,000 from a single live stream.

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Of course, how much you earn depends on your engagement rate. Let’s look at the engagement rates of TikTok’s biggest influencers to give you a standard to shoot for: 

• Charli D’amelio: 16.53%
• Lil Nas X: 15.67%
• Mr. Beast: 14.88%
• Billie Eilish: 14.39%
• The Rock: 13.87%

Since these influencers are extremely popular, don’t expect to get these engagement rates right away. 

How to Make Money on TikTok

Although some creators act like the TikTok Creator Fund is the end-all, be-all way to monetize content, there are so many ways to make money on TikTok.

TikTok Creator Fund

Unlike social media platforms like Snapchat, this Creator Fund isn’t based on ad revenue-sharing. The Creator Fund pays creators directly to encourage them to create A-plus content.

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TikTok calculates your Creator Fund earnings based on several factors, which include: 

• Number of views
• Authenticity of views
• Engagement
• Whether you follow TikTok’s community guidelines

To join the Creator Fund, you need to: 

• Have at least 10,000 followers
• Be 18 years old
• Have 100,000 views in the last 30 days
• Live in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, or Spain

TikTok heralds the Creator Fund as the best way to earn money on the platform. It’s awesome and innovative, but it isn’t the most profitable way to become a full-time content creator on TikTok. 

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If you pull out your calculator, you’ll quickly realize that a viral video with 5 million views will bring in maybe $50 — not a life-changing amount of money. But hey, if you want to make a few bucks in passive income, it’s a fine way to go.

Brand Deals

Most creators don’t make a full-time living from the Creator Fund. The big money comes from partnerships with both small businesses and enterprises. In fact, influencers like Charli D’Amelio, who has a net worth of $17.5 million, mostly make their money from brand deals. Of course, she has an engagement rate of well over 16%. On average, micro influencers have engagement rates of just over 4%, so shoot for that in the beginning and try to boost your numbers over time.

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Businesses join TikTok to do collaborations with micro-influencers — and they have the budget to do influencer marketing right. Brand deals now happen through the Creator Marketplace, which is essentially a matchmaking service for brands and TikTok influencers. You don’t even have to search for brand deals. Just sign up with your creator account, and brands can find you via the marketplace and invite you to collaborate.

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Of course, you need to sell brands on your capabilities. You can use a link-in-bio tool like Hype to feature your media kit, brand guidelines, and audience demographics in one place. This helps you tell a better story than you can with your TikTok profile alone.

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Again, you don’t need a ton of views to make money on brand sponsorships, but it can certainly help. With more views under your belt, you can attract more brands to your DMs.

Live Streams

Once you have the 1,000 followers required for a TikTok live stream, this is an easy way to get profitable on TikTok. When you go live, your viewers can leave Tips, which you receive as coins. Coins are a form of virtual currency that TikTok users gift to their favorite creators during a live stream. One coin roughly equals one cent, so you’ll need to collect a lot of coins for a hefty payday.

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The amount you can earn varies depending on your audience, but generally speaking, micro creators can earn $5 to $20 per stream. All you need to do is link your PayPal account to TikTok and transfer the money into your account. There’s a $100 minimum to withdraw your funds and a $1,000 daily maximum.

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If you have an engaged, loyal following, try going live on a regular schedule to collect more coins.

Affiliate Marketing

Every TikTok creator should become an affiliate, especially TikTok users with a small following. As long as you have an engaged following, you can make a decent commission with affiliate marketing. 

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Sign up for programs like Amazon Associates, CJ, or ShareASale. Find products to feature on your account and showcase them in your content. The more your followers shop, the more commissions you earn. Of course, you don’t want to be too salesy. Create more non-affiliate content than you do affiliate content so you don’t scare people away. 
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P.S.: A link-in-bio tool like Hype allows you to create a microsite on your TikTok profile that links to all of your affiliate products.

Merch

Plenty of content creators sell their own products on TikTok. Rumor has it that Tiktokker Addison Rae earns as much as $25,000 a month just from merchandise sales.

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If your followers are clamoring for merchandise, give the people what they want. That might mean selling T-shirts with inside jokes printed on them, or selling stuffed animal versions of your TikTok-famous pet. When you decide which products to create, platforms like Teespring and Big Cartel can do most of the heavy lifting. 

How Many Views Do You Need on TikTok To Make Money? It Depends

So, how many views do you need to make money on TikTok? That depends on which monetization opportunities you go after.

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If you want to join the Creator Fund, you need a minimum of 100,000 views in the last 30 days. Even so, you don’t need that many views to make money on TikTok if you know how to monetize your account. 

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Don’t just rely on one of the platform’s monetization options. Diversify your TikTok income with: 

• Brand deals
• The Creator Fund
• Live streams
• Affiliate marketing
• Merchandise

You’ll need at least 100,000 views in the last 30 days to earn through the Creator Fund. Aside from that, there are no view requirements for TikTok’s monetization opportunities. Brand deals, live streams, affiliate deals, and merchandise depend more on your engagement rates than views, so when in doubt, focus on creating relevant content that your audience will love.

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TikTok can very well release new monetization opportunities down the line, so stay tuned. Subscribe to the Hype blog to keep up with TikTok trends and monetization tips.