Maybe it’s because I’m an absolute spendaholic, but I am forever trying to think of new an interesting ways of making a bit of extra dough. Preferably so I can retire before I’m 50, but mainly so I can buy more shiny things. I wrote a while ago about apps that can make you money and one app at the time that wasn’t around was Tik Tok. But now it’s pretty much all I watch on my phone (it amazes me you like one Jake Gyllenhaal video and now that’s all you see – weird). But can you make any money from Tik Tok? Let’s find out!
First of all let’s rewind, because I would hate to think that anyone reading this was under the illusion that I had managed to make any money off my original tik tok account which was essentially me forcing Dave to perform lip syncs against his will (bribed with beer) while we were bored in lockdown last year.
Now, I started a new Tik Tok account in May last year posting old pop songs I deemed as somewhat ‘forgotten’. Therein @forgottenpopbops was born. There are lots of nostalgia accounts on Tik Tok and it always annoyed me that they never shared any songs I wanted to see or hear so I thought I’d do my own. It was a slow burner but once it gained a bit of traction I was, amazingly up to about 40K followers within a few months. Some accounts growth their accounts by buying likes; using sites such as TokMatik TikTok likes. My growth however was completely organic.
That’s when I started looking into if it was possible to monetize this thing. And monetize I did. So the short answer to the question ‘can you make any money from Tik Tok’ is; yes, you can.
Like most things though, there are certain caveats. First off, only people who live in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy can apply for a Tik Tok Creator Fund. You need to have more than 10K followers and have had over 100K views in the last month (i.e it be an active account; you can’t make money retrospectively on tik toks you may have made months ago that happened to do well)
If you meet all of this criteria, you apply for a creator fund through the creator tools section of the app, and it takes about 48 hours to be approved (or not – I was approved fairly quickly). Now, one of the other stipulations it says on applying for a creator fund, is that it says you need to be authentic. That was a point that made me assume I wasn’t going to get approved, since I’m not sharing original content I’ve created. Tik Tok didn’t seem to mind that too much though so I’m not really sure how strict they are on that point.
I also notice that if you get any too many warnings (inappropriate content, language etc) they can rescind your fund at any time. I got thrown in Tik Tok jail for posting a Christina Milian video where she’s dancing around in a vest and gym knickers and they didn’t like that. Not only was I banned from posting for 48 hours, I got a message that that was strike 1 in terms of having my fund taken away. So, no saucy content!
So that’s how you can make money from Tik Tok. But how much? Well, let’s just say I won’t be retiring any time soon. It’s hard because your daily amounts are a little all over the place depending on how many views, likes, shares and follows you get in any 24 hour period, but I’ve worked out that you get about £1 for every 40K likes.
For full transparency, I’ve been monitizing my account since September 2021 and have, to date earned £46.91 and as you can see above, you earn literal pennies a day (I remember being very excited the day I made £1.25!). Not a life changing amount, but pennies add up to pounds and it’s better than nothing considering I would have this account and post regularly anyway, as I enjoy the banter in the comments.
So I may not be retiring any sooner, but it is being put away for something special this summer. Check me out, eh? Tik Tok royalty!
