TikTok has exploded in popularity over the last few years. The short-form video app now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users – and that number keeps rising.
With such a massive engaged audience, it‘s no surprise that many creators are wondering: how can I make money on TikTok?
The good news? Monetizing on TikTok is very doable, with plenty of real income potential. Top creators bring in 5-6 figures per month through TikTok alone.
But getting started isn‘t always straightforward.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn 14 proven money-making tactics for TikTok. I’ll provide step-by-step instructions, real-world examples and expert tips to help you choose the right monetization strategies for your needs.
Let’s dive in!
1. Sell Merchandise & Physical Products
One of the most popular ways for influencers to make money is by selling their own branded merchandise and physical products.
The great thing about merchandise is you can make impressive margins while leveraging your audience reach on TikTok.
But what should you sell? And how do you actually set it up?
Here are some top tips:
Choose On-Demand Printing
Services like Printful and Printify make merch a breeze. You design the products, they handle printing and order fulfillment.
Sell What People Want
T-shirts and hoodies are classic merch choices, but you can offer all kinds of products – phone cases, jewelry, notebooks, wall art, and more. Think about what your followers would genuinely be excited to buy.
Promote Your Shop
Share your products directly in TikTok videos. Add shop links to your profile. Offer limited time sales and special discounts to spur purchases.
With the right promotion, top creators earn over $10k per month on merchandise sales alone.
2. Accept Tips & Donations
Die-hard fans often look for ways to support their favorite creators. Tips and donations are an easy option.
Platforms like Tipeee, Buy Me a Coffee and Patreon allow you to accept one-off tips or recurring monthly payments from your audience.
To maximize donations:
- Reward supporters with shoutouts, exclusive content and other perks
- Enable gifting in live streams
- Share your tip link prominently in your bio and videos
While individual donations may be small, they can quickly add up – especially as your audience grows.
3. Join the TikTok Creator Fund
The TikTok Creator Fund pays creators for posting high-quality original videos that receive strong engagement.
Here’s what you need to join:
- 10k followers
- 100k video views in last 30 days
- 18+ years old
- Original content that meets community guidelines
Earnings depend on the actual views and engagement rate of your content. Payouts typically range from 2-4 cents per 1,000 video views.
So a creator with 5 million monthly TikTok views could earn around $100-$200 per month. Top creators likely make much more.
The Creator Fund won’t make you rich…but it’s an easy, passive income stream by getting rewarded for videos you’re posting anyway.
4. Run Paid Advertisements
For businesses and influencers with marketing budgets, running paid ads represents a major money-making opportunity on TikTok.
Some top advantages of TikTok ads:
- Massive reach – Access to 1 billion+ monthly active users
- Ultra-targeted – Detailed targeting by interests, behaviors, demographics
- Highly engaging – TikTok’s fun, creative format lends itself perfectly to memorable video ads. Way better engagement and lower cost per click compared to platforms like Facebook.
TikTok offers robust advertising options including video feed ads, brand takeovers, hashtag challenges and more.
While costs vary based on targeting, competition and other factors, businesses routinely see amazing returns from TikTok ads in terms of sales, email subscribers and other conversions.
5. Become a Brand Ambassador
Big brands are constantly looking to partner with influencers. A great option? Becoming an official brand ambassador.
As an ambassador, brands will pay you an ongoing fee and/or send you free products in exchange for:
- Creating branded content posts
- Promoting launches, sales and discounts
- Developing original branded campaigns and hashtag challenges
Rates vary heavily based on follower count and industry, but micro influencers can earn around $200 per sponsored post while influencers with millions of followers make upwards of $10k-$20k.
When reaching out to brands, make sure there’s a natural fit in terms of shared target audience and aesthetics. Brands want authentic recommendations – not stiff sales pitches.
Pro Tip: Use tools like Upfluence and Famebit to connect with brands actively looking for TikTok influencers.
6. Promote Affiliate Links
Here’s an easy formula for earning commissions:
- Share useful product recommendations
- Include your affiliate links
- Someone buys after clicking your link
- You get paid
Affiliate links allow you to collect a commission – typically 5-15% of any resulting sales – without you having to handle product fulfillment, returns or customer service yourself.
Most larger online retailers like Amazon, BestBuy and Walmart participate in affiliate programs – meaning lots of options for products to recommend.
When promoting affiliate links on TikTok:
- Spotlight genuinely useful products your audience will love
- Use tools like Tophatter to shorten links for easy posting
- Add link details to your profile and video descriptions
Top affiliate marketers earn 5-figures per month from these commission kickbacks. So promoting the right products to your audience can become a very lucrative long-term business model.
7. Sell Services as an Influencer or Consultant
Once you accumulate extensive TikTok expertise and demonstrate serious results growing an audience and driving engagement, you can sell these services to brands directly.
Popular offerings include:
- Custom branded content creation
- TikTok consulting & growth strategizing
- TikTok account management
- Creative campaign development
- Hashtag challenge creation
Rates vary based on your specific niche, expertise and audience reach, but you can expect to collect fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per offering.
The most successful creators build out entire personal branding agencies designed specifically for the TikTok platform.
8. Crowdfund Creative Projects
TikTok is bursting with fresh creative talent. Performers, artists, filmmakers and more leverage the platform daily.
And your followers present a perfect crowdfunding opportunity.
Sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and GoFundMe allow you to create campaigns where supporters can pledge money to help bring your creative vision to life.
- Independent musicians fund albums and tours
- Filmmakers crowdfund gear, production budgets and marketing
- Events creators raise sponsorship dollars
By sharing your campaign via TikTok videos and linking to the page through your bio or posts, you can quickly drive pledges from followers who want to support the project.
Top creators using crowdfunding generate 5 and even 6-figure funding success!
9. Post Sponsored Brand Partnerships
Brand sponsorships represent big earning potential for creators once you grow your audience.
A sponsored brand partnership involves collaborating with a brand to create branded video content highlighting their products/services for a pre-negotiated fee.
Rates scale up rapidly as you accumulate more followers and views. While nano influencers charge ~$100 per post, creators with 100k, 500k and 1 million followers can collect $500, $2,000-$3,000 and $5,000-$10,000+ respectively.
When pitching yourself to brands:
- Showcase past campaign examples and engagement metrics
- Share why their brand aligns well with your audience interests
Tools like CreatorWave simplify reaching out and managing paid partnerships at scale so you can line up recurring deal flow.
10. Live Stream Gifting
TikTok Live presents monetization opportunities with digital gifting. Fans can purchase coins to send you gifts like Ninja Stars, Drama Queen Spots, Heart Beats and more during your live broadcasts.
TikTok then converts the gifted coins into Diamonds (their digital currency) which you can withdraw out as cash.
Gifting income scales up quickly. While smaller creators might earn $20-$50 per hour streaming, the top 0.05% of Adult performers on TikTok Live earn over $50k per month in gifted donations.
Maximize live gifting income by:
- Going live often to build a dedicated fanbase of gifters
- Sharing your Live schedule so fans know when to tune in
- Thanking/shouting out big gifters during the broadcast
11. Launch a TikTok Shop Store
TikTok Shops allow creators to sell products directly within the TikTok app without sending fans elsewhere to complete purchases.
You can upload your existing product catalogs, create Shop-specific video ads, and link directly to items for frictionless buying.
It’s an amazing sales channel – especially for ecommerce businesses targeting Gen Z.
TikTok currently limits TikTok Shop access only to certain approved creators and brands, but definitely something to take advantage of once accepted.
12. Cross-Promote Content & Accounts
Collaborating with other creators through cross-promotion represents an easy win-win scenario.
Ways to cross-promote:
- Co-create content together around shared interests for both accounts
- Film reaction videos highlighting each other’s popular content
- Shoutouts within videos driving traffic to the other person’s page
- Joint Instagram/YouTube content and live streams
- Podcast interviews showcasing each other’s efforts on TikTok
Even simple tactics like liking, commenting and sharing each other’s content helps expand joint reach and viewership.
Aim to partner with creators who share crossover audience appeal but are unlikely direct competitors. Going in with aligned niche interests and aesthetics allows for natural ongoing collaboration opportunities.
13. Publish Ebooks & Online Courses
Publishing premium digital content is a tried and tested online business model – and TikTok gives you instant access to a massive engaged audience of potential buyers.
Best selling options include:
- Online video courses
- Downloadable instructional ebooks
- Virtual summits featuring expert interviews
- Membership communities
TikTok stars like Andriy Vasylenko, who shares investment and trading education (@alphachaincapital), use their profile to attract subscribers to paid online training programs and communities …earning over $100k/month with this digital education business model.
Use your TikTok account to identify high-demand topic areas, validate interest, build authority around your expertise, and direct traffic to your digital shop.
14. Promote Music
TikTok has proven its ability for breaking new music stars thanks to viral song snippets and challenges.
Standout tactics musicians can leverage include:
- Posting previews of new releases
- Launching branded hashtag challenges
- Promoting your discography through Shop Links
- Going live for exclusive concerts and fan Q&As
Lesser known indie artists use these promotions to gain millions of streams quickly after posting to TikTok.
For bigger artists, TikTok partnerships present equally lucrative sponsorship opportunities from targeting the platform’s Gen Z audience.
As you can see, you have plenty of options when it comes to making money on TikTok in 2023.
Which strategy – or strategies – will you start testing first?
The key is to get started! Open your TikTok account, connect with your audience, provide value & have fun. The income opportunities will follow as you build your brand and viewership.
To take things to the next level, check out our premium step-by-step training…
[INSERT OPTIN]I break down exactly how I’ve helped thousands of students start earning 5-figures per month through their influence on TikTok. Hope to see you there!
