How to Make Money on TikTok in 2025: 7 Ways to Get Paid

The common thread to success on TikTok is an interested and engaged audience. There are multiple ways to leverage your talent and audience to make pay on TikTok.

1. Use TikTok to promote your business

TikTok, like other social media sites, can be your free personal marketing tool.

“It’s an incredible way to drive traffic to other channels — to your website, to your email list or to your YouTube channel,” says Keira Jones (@thekeirajones), a Phoenix-based TikToker who also manages and advises brands on the platform.

This is exactly how California-based TikToker Connie Rietdyk (@conniegooglequeen) makes most of her cash. She did website design and search engine optimization consulting as a side hustle for several years, earning “just enough to cover an extra bill.”

Rietdyk started giving small businesses tips on those topics in TikTok posts. Starting with about 200 followers in May 2021, she now has more than 21,000 — and several followers have become paying clients.

» MORE: How to make money on Instagram

2. Make sponsored content to promote other businesses

Brand deals/sponsorships are a feasible way to make money on TikTok when you have a following.

Let’s say most of your TikTok posts are about one particular subject, like caring for dogs. Dog food and toy brands may want to tap into your pup-loving audience.

It can work in a few ways.

• A company might send you a free product, in exchange for you to feature or mention it in one of your videos. The company may also pay you for the promotion.

• You could proactively contact companies and ask for sponsorships, particularly if you’re already using and mentioning their products.

• TikTok also has its Creator Marketplace, a collaboration hub to help creators and brand strike paid and rewards-based deals.

Sponsorships are how Jones makes most of her money on her personal TikTok account, where she shares marketing tips. Brands started reaching out to Jones when she hit around 15,000 followers.

Note that creators must flag branded content by turning on the content disclosure setting.

3. Earn with Creator Rewards (after 10K followers)

TikTok’s monetization tool is the Creator Rewards Program, which allows users to collect rewards for publishing longer (one minute or more), high-quality videos that do well. It replaces an earlier monetization program called Creativity Program Beta.

It takes 10,000 followers and at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days to join.

Videos earn rewards after 1,000 qualified views. The content also must adhere to TikTok’s originality requirements.

How much money can you expect to make? TikTok’s answer is clear as mud: “The rewards formula for the Creator Rewards Program has been reformulated and offers a higher average gross revenue for qualified video views, giving creators the potential to collect higher rewards,” according to the website.

Guess you have to go viral to truly know.

4. Go live and get Video Gifts

Content creators using the TikTok Live feature can receive “gifts” from viewers who are 18 or older. Viewers pay to give gifts, which show up in a creator's live session as stickers and animations.

Gifts sent from viewers are one part of TikTok's formula for rewarding creators with “diamonds.” According to TikTok, “Once you collect Diamonds, you may obtain a reward payment from us, such as money or virtual items."

Not doing livestreams? TikTok also awards diamonds for short videos. Viewers can leave gifts in the comment section.

More diamonds equals more cash, but only if you redeem them. You can track your diamond earnings and see their potential monetary value in your TikTok account balance.

5. Sell with TikTok Shop

TikTok Shop helps creators and businesses directly sell to viewers via livestreams, shoppable videos and by displaying products in an in-app shop or on central marketplaces within TikTok.

You’ll have to sign up and fill out an application at the Seller Center on TikTok’s site, then link your account once approved. TikTok says it takes a percentage of sales as a commission, but doesn't disclose how much. It says the rate is calculated based on the total amount paid by a buyer for each purchase.

6. Monetize with the Series feature

If you’re using a personal or business TikTok account, you can charge viewers for premium content by putting a video collection, or Series, behind a paywall and charging viewers for access. Political and private accounts cannot use this feature.

Your Series can have up to 80 videos of 20 minutes each, and you can price the Series from $0.99 to $189.99.

What type of content might go in a series? Ideas from TikTok include showing your fitness or beauty routine or walking viewers through your favorite recipe.

7. Collect tips from viewers

If your personal account has at least 100,000 followers, viewers can show their appreciation and support through the Tips feature.

You need to opt in to receiving tips and will have to set up a Stripe payment provider account if you don’t have one.

Business accounts cannot use the tipping function.

TikTok tips from those who know

Find your niche

Making money on TikTok will likely be easier if you stick to a defined topic area. Start by “determining the niche you want to grow in,” Jones says. “The more niched-down you are, the more likely it is you’ll be reached out to.”

By contrast, she says, a general lifestyle influencer's audience may have broad, hard-to-define interests, making them less appealing to sponsors.

Engage with similar content to gain followers

Research your niche and engage with the community to build momentum.

Say you create jewelry, and you want to use TikTok to send viewers to your Etsy shop. Search for and follow TikTokers who are interested in jewelry, and engage with their posts. TikTok may feed you more content from similar accounts. Then, when you start posting, your content likely will be seen other people who like jewelry.

Rietdyk stresses the importance of engaging, building a community and posting relevant content before trying to sell your stuff. So maybe you post how-to videos or advice first.

“You don’t want to promote to a cold audience,” she says. “Give a lot of value for free before you even start asking for anybody’s money.”

Be authentic

“Don’t be fake,” Rietdyk says, adding that “TikTokers can tell if you’re doing something just for a ‘like.’”

As for sponsored content, only promote products “you genuinely use and love,” Jones says. She says she turns down partnerships for products that don’t check those boxes.

Jones adds that if you promote too many products, “your audience will get annoyed and feel like they’re being used.”

Serve your audience first

“If your only intent for starting TikTok is to make money, then you’re probably not going to succeed,” Jones says. Serving your audience should be your No. 1 priority. “That’s when people will be attracted and want to follow you,” she says.

Rietdyk recommends setting small, achievable goals — a certain number of sales or amount of income, for example. Then, she adds, “celebrate the wins.”

Top TikTok advice on Reddit

We sifted through Reddit forums to get a pulse check on how users feel about making money on TikTok. We used an AI tool to help analyze the feedback and then summarized insight. People post anonymously, so we cannot confirm their individual experiences or circumstances.

What Redditors say: No single tactic is likely to launch you into record earnings. Successful creators typically combine multiple revenue streams and focus on creating quality, original and engaging content instead of chasing viral riches.

Other ways to make money online

If making money on TikTok isn’t for you, consider these alternative online routes: