TikTok has revamped its creator monetisation programme, the short-form video platform announced at its US creator summit.
One year since launching its latest monetisation programme in beta, TikTok says total creator revenue has increased by over 250 percent, and the number of creators making $50,000 per month has almost doubled.
The Chinese company will rename the scheme as the Creator Rewards Program, and will roll out new monetisation tools in the coming weeks. It will also introduce a new Subscription feature which will enable creators to offer viewers paid subscriptions.
The moves appears to push TikTok into longer-form content that is easier to monetise, with a view to encourage creators to post longer videos on the platform. The company noted that TikTok users spend 50 percent of their time watching longer content on TikTok, with viewership of longer videos increasing nearly 40 percent over the last six months.
The company has also rebranded its Creator Portal as the Creator Academy, providing resources on TikTok’s creation tools and monetisation features.
“We’re excited to continue seeing creators find success using our monetization offerings to turn their passions into careers, unlock life-changing opportunities, and drive meaningful impact,” the company said in a blog post.
Destroy to create
The story of monetisation schemes on TikTok also seems to get longer by the day. The company launched its Creator Fund in 2020, with $1 billion to pay out over the course of three years. The fund was criticised for its low payouts, and TikTok shuttered the programme in December 2023. The business did not say whether it had paid out the full $1 billion.
By way of contrast, YouTube announced in 2021 that it had paid out more than $30 billion to creators over the previous three years.
The fund was effectively replaced by TikTok’s Creativity Program, which launched in beta back in February 2023. Contrary to TikTok’s traditional short-form ethos, eligible videos had to be longer than one minute. The firm cited the “higher revenue potential” of (relatively) longer-form content. The ability to accurately count views may also have been a factor, given the challenges of calculating completed views when it comes to scrollable video feeds.
TikTok did not state how much money participants would make from videos, but said creators would be able to earn 20 times the amount they were making under the Creator Fund. The ByteDance-owned company explained that payouts would be calculated using qualified views and revenue per mille (RPM).
Claiming to have increased total creator revenue by over 250 percent, TikTok is celebrating this landmark with another change of name.
According to the business, the Creativity Program “will be leaving beta with some improvements and a new name: Creator Rewards Program.” TikTok said the revamped scheme “will continue rewarding high-quality, original content over a minute long with an optimized rewards formula focused on 4 key areas: originality, play duration, search value and audience engagement.”
Expanding subscriptions
TikTok is also expanding its Subscription offering that was previously only available to creators who were livestreaming content. Launched in 2022, the LIVE Subscription was designed as TikTok’s equivalent to channel memberships on YouTube and Twitch.
The revamped product expands the Subscription offering to non-live creators, allowing them to post exclusive videos that only their subscribers can view. The feature will initially be available to creators on an invite-only basis, before expanding to all eligible creators in the coming weeks.
“Nothing is more important to me than championing and advocating for our creator community [and] as we move forward, we remain focused on ensuring TikTok is a place anyone can pursue their personal passion,” said Adam Presser, Head of Operations and Trust & Safety at TikTok. “We will continue to unlock new opportunities for creators to maximize their experience while continuing to earn their trust as an industry leader in safety and security.”
