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TikTok has become one of the fastest-growing apps in recent history, crossing over 1 billion active users threshold recently. It was released in 2017 by the Chinese company, ByteDance, which is now valued at $250 billion due to the app’s surge in popularity.
Some of TikTok’s most popular accounts are also enjoying big profits. Smart TikTokers who capitalize on the fact that the average user spends over eight hours every month on the platform can make as much as $5 million per year.
The former U.S. administration wanted to ban TikTok in America out of concerns that the Chinese government could access private user data. To avoid shutting down its business in the country, TikTok is willing to sell the U.S. portion of its business to an American company such as Microsoft, Oracle or Walmart if ByteDance is pressed by the Commerce Department further. In the meantime, there’s money to be made on TikTok. Here’s how.
How Much Do TikTokers Make?
TikTokers with large followings can make from $200 to $5,000 a month, depending on the size of their following. Those who have do not have over 100,000 followers will not make any money, while those who are over 1 million will make the most. The range of how much TikTokers make will vary due to many factors, including localities and views.
TikTok is all about the 15-second short videos users can create and share. TikTokers who create interesting content, often including dance and music, often get the highest engagement. However, TikTok is more than just a dance and music app — there are accounts that focus on a variety of topics, including personal finance.
How Much Does TikTok Pay Per Sponsorship?
TikTok superstars take advantage of their following to get paid to promote other companies and sell their own products. It all depends on your popularity and who your audience is.
Influencer Marketing Hub has an earnings estimator that can roughly calculate how much you can earn on TikTok. According to them, a TikToker can earn between $200 and $20,000 for a branded video. The earnings depend on the number of TikTok followers you have and your engagement rate, meaning how often users interact with your account and like and leave comments on your short videos.
How Do I Grow My TikTok Account?
The more followers you have on TikTok, the more you can earn money creating branded clips and sponsored videos. The larger and more active your followers are, the better your chances to hit high-earner status.
There are steps you can take to grow your TikTok follower count. But there’s a caveat — the steps are simple, but the high-earner status doesn’t happen overnight. Growing your TikTok audience takes time, consistency and hard work. Consider these ideas to grow your followers and maximize the money you can make on TikTok:
Find Your Audience
Decide on what your interests and talents are and what kind of person would like your short videos. There’s a lot of competition on the platform so don’t go too general. You’ll have better chances of growing a following if you focus on a smaller, more specific niche.
Set Up Your Profile
Once you know what your niche is, create a profile that resonates with it. Keep your target follower in mind when you’re setting your account up and envision what you should look like from their eyes.
Create Distinct Video Clips
Creating videos that stand out from the crowd is the key to attracting a following. Make sure the videos you’re creating are consistent in style so your following can recognize you. Make your videos interesting to your fan base. A good way is by asking friends or fellow TikTokers to watch and critique your content. Their constructive criticism can give you a different point of view from what you see, or can even point out things you should fix that you may have missed.
Post Videos Consistently and Often
Keep your audience interested by posting videos regularly. It’s up to you to set up a schedule you can work with — just remember to post fresh clips consistently so your profile doesn’t look abandoned. If you’re worried you’ll get too busy to post regularly, consider setting aside a few hours each week to create a batch of short clips you can post later.
Engage
An active profile shows advertisers you’re capable of creating videos that trigger a response from your audience. Once you’re regularly posting unique content that’s geared towards your specialized niche, don’t forget to engage your followers. Run contests, ask your viewers to tag friends in the comments and be sure to reply back to any commenters to keep the conversation going.
Applying these steps helps you grow your TikTok followers and shows companies and potential sponsors that your audience is loyal, engaged and the next lucrative customer base. Once you start getting attention from brands, know your value as a TikToker and price your services accordingly. You may be able to develop your TikTok persona from just a hobby to a side hustle to a full-time business.
7 Highest-Earning TikTokers
The most successful accounts on TikTok right now belong to young females. It makes sense when you consider that one-third of the users on the newer social media platform are teens. Here are the seven highest-earning TikTok stars:
1. Addison Rae: $5 million
Addison Rae Easterling, known as addisonre is one of the earliest TikTokers. She earns $5 million per year posting short dance clips. Addison is a former competitive dancer who has 76.7 million followers and has received almost five billion likes. Addison created her own cosmetic company, called Item Beauty.
2. Charli D’Amelio: $4 million
Charli D’Amelio is just 16 years old and earned $4 million, ranking her as the second-highest-earning TikToker. Like Addison Rae, Charli was a competitive dancer who found success on the platform with her dance clips. Charli has a whopping 108.6 million followers. She was recently in the Sabra Hummus Superbowl commercial and even has a Dunkin’ drink, the Charli Cold Foam, named after her.
3. Dixie D’Amelio: $2.9 million
Dixie D’Amelio is Charli’s sister and has 49.1 million followers. She earns $2.9 million per year, which is impressive considering she has less than half the number of followers her sister does. While Charli’s meteoric rise on TikTok was because of dancing, Dixie’s success comes from her singing.
4. Loren Gray: $2.6 million
Loren Gray was the most-followed account on the short-video-sharing platform until recently. Gray is a singer who signed with Virgin Records in 2018. Gray has 51.3 million followers and often gets over two million likes per video. Her loyal audience is the reason she earns an estimate of $2.6 per year from sponsorships from Revlon, Burger King and Skechers.
5. Josh Richards: $1.5 million
Josh Richards is the only male that makes the list of highest-earning TikTok accounts. Josh posts lipsyncing and dancing shorts for his 24.5 million followers. He earns $1.5 million in sponsorships. Josh is a serial entrepreneur. At just 18 years old, he created an energy drink company called Ani Energy, co-founded Talent X, a talent management agency and is an officer at Triller, a TikTok competitor.
6. Michael Le: $1.2 million
Known for his skills as a dancer and choreographer, his TikTok videos have given way to immense popularity on the platform since his beginnings in 2016. Having partnerships with Bang Energy drinks has contributed to his wealth, among many other sponsorships. Having over 4342 million followers, he became one of the highest earners in 2020 and has one of the 15 most-liked TikTok videos of all time. He is leveraging this popularity over to YouTube, where his content also covers challenge videos, pranks and gaming. He is one of the founders of Shluv House, which stands for “self-love,” where he lives with other social media influencers.
7. Spencer X: $1.2 million
A beatboxer, Spencer X began posting videos on TikTok in early 2019. He had humble beginnings, couch surfing at friends’ homes while making his way through Los Angeles later in 2019. By then, he had gained a following of around 10 million users. Eventually, he gained partnerships with Sony, Uno and Oreo. Since his rise to popularity, he’s no longer needed to couch surf and has developed a popular YouTube channel that has around 2.69 million subscribers. He is now focused on creating his own singles.
Melanie Grafil contributed to the reporting for this article.
This article has been updated on Sep. 28, 2021 to update the number of active users and expand on the TikTok influencer list.
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