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Small creators can earn on TikTok long before reaching the 10,000 followers that the Creator Rewards Program requires. In the US, TikTok Shop affiliate and LIVE open at 1,000 followers (you must be 18). UGC videos for brands and selling your own product need no follower minimum at all.
Most small accounts lose months waiting for the 10,000 mark, then find that views-based pay is the least predictable way to earn. The second mistake is turning the feed into an ad. Revid's TikTok UGC statistics draw on an analysis of 517,105 TikToks: posts that promote a brand had a median of about 57,000 views, 29% fewer than the 80,000 of non-branded posts. Creators who earn early pick the method that fits their follower count and make sales videos that still feel like TikTok.
What can you earn at each follower count?
| Method | TikTok follower minimum | Other requirements | How you get paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| UGC videos for brands | None | Sample videos to show brands | A fee per video, plus usage rights |
| Your own product or service | None | Something to sell | Your margin on each sale |
| Affiliate links outside TikTok Shop | None set by TikTok | The program's own rules and a place for the link | Commission per sale |
| Brand deals on your account | None set by TikTok | A clear niche and engaged viewers | A fee per post |
| TikTok Shop affiliate (US) | 1,000 | 18+, self-apply, pilot program under 5,000 | Commission set by each seller |
| TikTok LIVE Gifts | 1,000 (may vary by region) | 18+ (19 in South Korea) | Gifts from viewers |
| Creator Rewards Program | 10,000 | 18+, 100,000 views in 30 days, Personal account, videos of 1 minute or more | Qualified views x RPM |
The decision rule is simple. Under 1,000 followers, sell UGC videos and your own offer. Between 1,000 and 10,000, add TikTok Shop affiliate and LIVE. From 10,000, add Creator Rewards if you already make videos longer than a minute.
For every program and its full requirements, see our guide on how to monetize a TikTok account. This article covers what works while your account is still small.
How to make money on TikTok with under 1,000 followers
Sell UGC videos to brands
UGC (user-generated content) creators film product videos that a brand posts on its own account or runs as ads. Your follower count barely matters, because the video never has to go on your profile. Brands pay for it because it converts: TikTok's Return on Influence report (January 2025) says Spark Ads built on creator content had a 43% higher conversion rate than standard in-feed ads.
Rates are modest but reachable. Collabstr's 2026 Influencer Marketing Report puts the average UGC campaign on its marketplace at $197. In Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark, roughly 80% of responses put UGC creator costs under $500.
Charge for paid-ad usage separately. In Aspire's 2026 research, many creators price usage at 15% to 35% of their base rate per 30 days.
- Film 3 sample videos with products you already own: an unboxing, a problem-and-fix demo and a side-by-side comparison.
- Post them on your TikTok as a portfolio, and collect them on a one-page site or in a shared folder.
- Pitch brands in your niche that already run creator ads. Search the brand on TikTok and look for its Sponsored posts.
- Quote the video fee and the usage rights as two separate lines.
Input
A 15-second vertical (9:16) UGC streetwear fashion transformation video filmed on a smartphone.
Output
Earn affiliate commissions outside TikTok Shop
Brand affiliate programs and Amazon Associates pay a commission on sales made through your link. Links typed into a TikTok caption are not clickable, so the usual route is the website link on your profile. TikTok does not show that field to every account, so check Edit profile before you build a plan around it.
Where TikTok Shop is available, Shop affiliate is usually simpler: the buyer never leaves the app.
Prompt to try
Create a 40-second faceless TikTok promoting a Notion budget template for freelancers. Hook: "This is why your freelance income feels random every month." Show screen-style visuals of the template sorting income and expenses, one clear result, and a call to comment BUDGET to get the link. Calm, practical voiceover with captions.
Sell your own product or service
A template, a course, a coaching call or a local service keeps the full margin and needs nobody's approval. Make each video show one result your offer produces. Point the call to action at one place: your profile link, or a comment keyword you answer in DMs.
Pitch small brand deals
Small brands pay for a specific audience, not a follower count, so a tight niche matters more than size. Keep the pitch short:
Hi [name], I make [niche] videos for [audience] on TikTok (@handle). My last 5 videos averaged [X] views and [Y] comments, mostly from [audience detail]. I'd like to show [product] solving [problem] in one video. Rate: [fee] for one post, with usage rights for ads quoted separately. Samples: [link].
How to start with TikTok Shop affiliate
In the US, TikTok Shop affiliate creators must self-apply, be at least 18 and have at least 1,000 followers. Accounts under 5,000 followers go into the Affiliate Creator Pilot Program for at least 30 days, and they graduate once they reach 5,000. Rules differ in other countries, so check TikTok Shop's policy for yours.
The demand is there. In a 2024 Pew Research Center study, 62% of U.S. adult TikTok users said they use the app to look at product reviews or recommendations. EMARKETER estimated TikTok Shop's US sales at $15.82 billion in 2025.
- Confirm eligibility: you need to be 18 or older, have 1,000 followers and keep an account in good standing.
- Self-apply: the TikTok Shop entry for creators sits among the app's creator tools. Its location changes by region and app version, so search for TikTok Shop in the app if you don't see it.
- Pick products you would use anyway: browse the Shop's affiliate products in your niche and compare the commission each seller sets. Request free samples where sellers offer them.
- Tag the product in the video: show it in use at the very start. Viewers buy from the product link on the video, not from your bio.
- Track what sells: keep the videos that convert, then make new versions of their hook and angle.
Before you choose products, study what already sells: Revid's collection of viral TikTok Shop review videos shows the formats and hooks that get watched.
Can you go LIVE and earn gifts at 1,000 followers?
Yes. Going LIVE requires being at least 18 and having 1,000 followers, though the follower threshold may vary by region. Sending or receiving Gifts also requires being 18 (19 in South Korea), and LIVE and Gifts are not available everywhere.
For a small account, LIVE works best as a follow-up. Run a Q&A after a video that did well, or a live demo of a TikTok Shop product you already promote.
When does the Creator Rewards Program make sense?
The old Creator Fund no longer exists. TikTok's views-based program is now the Creator Rewards Program, and it requires:
- being at least 18 (19 in South Korea)
- at least 10,000 followers
- at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days
- a Personal account (Business, political and government accounts are not eligible)
- videos at least one minute long, posted after you join
It pays on qualified views. These are unique For You feed views, excluding paid, promoted, artificial and under-5-second views. A video only starts earning after 1,000 qualified views.
TikTok publishes no fixed rate per 1,000 views, so ignore any TikTok RPM figure you see quoted as fact. Duets, Stitches, lightly modified reposts, looping videos, photo-only posts and videos with copyrighted music playing over one minute don't count as original.
The one-minute rule costs you little reach. In Revid's analysis of 176,367 TikToks with 1,000+ likes posted between October 2025 and October 2026 (full study), 61 to 90 second videos had a median of 70K views, slightly ahead of videos under 15 seconds (58K).
How to make TikTok videos that sell
Sales depend on the same thing as everything else on TikTok: getting watched. The same Revid analysis shows two patterns that suit product content.
The first is faceless demos. Faceless tutorials (hands, screen or product only) had a median of 156K views, and 22.1% passed 1 million views. Tutorials with one person on camera had 52K and 10%. A hands-only demo is also the easiest product video to film.
Faceless tutorials earned about 3x the median views of on-camera tutorials (156K vs 52K).
Source: Revid analysis of 176,367 TikToks with 1,000+ likes posted between Oct 1, 2025 and Oct 16, 2026 (61,203 creators)
Show the data
| Median views | Share that passed 1M views | |
|---|---|---|
| Faceless tutorials | 155.6K | 22.1% |
| Product or object tutorials | 80.7K | 14.9% |
| On-camera tutorials | 52.5K | 10% |
| Faceless storytelling | 72.7K | 13.3% |
| On-camera storytelling | 64.4K | 11.7% |
| Faceless comedy | 326.7K | 26.4% |
| On-camera comedy | 135.5K | 20.7% |
The second is a few targeted hashtags. Videos with 4 hashtags had the best median (77K views, 13.4% past 1 million) and videos with 3 hashtags had 75K. Videos with no hashtags had 51K, and videos with 9 or more only 16K. Captions of 41 to 80 characters also had the best median (67K).
Posts with 3 or 4 hashtags earned the most views. Captions stuffed with 9 or more hashtags did worst of all, with median views cut by about 80%.
Source: Revid analysis of 176,367 TikToks with 1,000+ likes posted between Oct 1, 2025 and Oct 16, 2026 (61,203 creators)
Show the data
| Median views | Share that passed 1M views | |
|---|---|---|
| None | 51.1K | 9.8% |
| 1 | 64K | 11.8% |
| 2 | 71.3K | 12.7% |
| 3 | 75.4K | 13.1% |
| 4 | 77.2K | 13.4% |
| 5 | 67.3K | 12.1% |
| 6 to 8 | 71.8K | 12.7% |
| 9+ | 15.6K | 7.8% |
Keep the limits in mind. The sample only includes TikToks that reached 1,000+ likes, and the figures show what well-performing videos have in common, not what caused their views.
Prompt to try
Make a 30-second vertical TikTok product review of a cordless handheld milk frother. Open with the hook "I returned three of these before finding one that works," then show a close-up hands-only demo, a before and after of the foam, one honest flaw, and end by asking viewers to tap the product link. Use a casual, friendly voice and bold captions.
A product video script that works for Shop and affiliate links
- Hook: state the problem or the result in the first line, on screen and in the voice-over.
- Demo: show the product in use in close-up. Hands only is fine.
- Proof: show a before and after or a measurement, plus one honest flaw.
- Call to action: ask for one thing, such as tapping the product link or commenting a keyword.
Sample hooks to adapt:
- I returned three of these before finding one that works.
- This is why your [problem] keeps happening.
- The [product] everyone here recommends, tested honestly.
- What [price] actually gets you in a [product category].
For more openers, use this list of TikTok hooks that stop the scroll.
How to make product videos with Revid
If you can't film a new demo every day, Revid can draft product videos for you to review and post.
- Paste a product page URL into Revid's AI product video generator. It reads the product, keeps its real photos, writes the script and generates the video.
- For a creator-style ad, the UGC ad generator builds UGC-style videos with AI avatars from your product images.
- To start from a format that already performs, search Revid's library of about 2.77 million short-form videos with their engagement data and remix a proven viral format into an original video.
- Adjust the scenes in the timeline editor, add captions and publish directly to TikTok.
Sign-up is free and new accounts get free credits to try video creation, with no credit card needed. Regular creation then uses the monthly credits of a paid plan, from $39/month. TikTok requires a label on realistic AI-generated images, audio or video. The label does not affect distribution when the video follows the Community Guidelines.
Mistakes that cost small creators money
- Promoting a new product every day. A feed of ads trains viewers to scroll past. Rotate sales videos with regular content in your niche.
- Hiding flaws. In Bazaarvoice's 2025 Shopper Preference Report, 43% of shoppers said they trust creators who share both the pros and cons of a product.
- Guessing when to post. The Viewers tab in TikTok Studio analytics shows when your viewers were most active over the last 7 days. A free TikTok account audit shows which of your videos work and why.
- Counting on views alone. Creator Rewards pays only from 10,000 followers and at no fixed rate. Commissions and UGC fees are easier to predict.
FAQ
Can you make money on TikTok with 500 followers?
Yes, through UGC videos for brands, your own product or service, affiliate programs outside TikTok and small brand deals. TikTok Shop affiliate and LIVE need 1,000 followers in the US.
Does TikTok still have the Creator Fund?
No. TikTok's views-based program is now the Creator Rewards Program. It requires 10,000 followers, 100,000 views in the last 30 days and videos of at least one minute.
How much does TikTok pay per 1,000 views?
TikTok publishes no fixed rate. Creator Rewards pays qualified views multiplied by a rewards rate per 1,000 views (RPM), plus an Additional Reward based on how well-crafted, engaging and specialized the content is.
Do I need a Business account to make money on TikTok?
No. The Creator Rewards Program requires a Personal account. The US TikTok Shop affiliate policy asks you to self-apply, be 18 and have 1,000 followers.
Can I use AI-generated videos for TikTok Shop?
TikTok allows AI-generated content but requires a label on realistic AI images, audio or video, and the label does not reduce reach on its own. Check TikTok Shop's own content rules too, and always show the real product you promote.
