How Much Money Do Musicians Make on TikTok?

It is often hard for musicians to kickstart their careers. Many budding musicians use TikTok to make money and gain exposure. However, how much money do musicians make on TikTok?

On average, TikTok musicians make anywhere between $100 to upwards of $7,200 per year from a music-based career on the platform! How much money a TikTok musician makes depends on how many subscribers they have. Musicians who have 250,000 or more subscribers can make a reliable income.

What makes some TikTok musician career paths more successful or lucrative than others? How does income from TikTok compare to other social media income paths? Let’s review what to look for if a musician wants to make the most of TikTok.

What is TikTok?

If you’re unfamiliar, TikTok is a social media application with over 800 million active users worldwide. Particularly among younger generations, who have taken to it fast, it has been gaining popularity. The platform provides short comedic videos, video challenges, choreographed dance routines, etc.

After going viral on TikTok, many songs significantly rose in popularity. This is frequently the result when many individuals recreate a dance or challenge to the same music. Having your music on the platform or making your own sounds specifically for TikTok might be advantageous. But with the chance that your song will go viral, do you also get compensated when others use your music on TikTok?

Does TikTok Pay You?

Yes, TikTok allows its users to create and share short videos 15 seconds long and feature licensed music. The current way that royalties are paid is through each posted video.

However, the most popular videos achieve many views after being played multiple times. Therefore, this may be unfair compared to the streaming platform models, where artists are paid based on streams/views.

How Do You Get Paid On TikTok?

Millions of users can utilize your music in their videos if it is available on TikTok. Your distributor’s contract with TikTok specifies how much of the company’s subscription revenue you will get each month. This occurs when someone uses your song in their video.

Your distributor will collect your song royalties from TikTok, and you will receive the money you are owed. Like Spotify and YouTube, the royalty statements you receive from your chosen distributor will include your TikTok payments. TikTok will pay you through your PRO if you are a member of your country’s PRO (Performing Rights Organization).

Artists get paid a fraction of a fraction. The precise amount will change monthly and depend on the distributor. It’s reasonable to assume that the amount will be quite small in 2022 and far lower than what you would receive for a Spotify stream.

TikTok’s Average Revenue for General Content Creators

Average TikTok users can make between $50,000 to $150,000 on a single successful partnership with a fairly famous brand, service, or company!

This is because branded videos can rake in anywhere from $200 to $20,000 on average, which is why most of the top influencers on TikTok will earn their main income from sponsored material and promotional videos. This amount depends on how many views the TikTok user nets on average, and how high their engagement percentage is from subscribers and random viewers.

TikTok is used on average for an hour and a half per day by its top users, roughly 66% under 30 years old. Musicians do just as well with this app as other creative content creators do, and can make about this much money if they also know how to make the most of TikTok!

Despite this, the pay-per-use structure in place is not very transparent. So it is still a good idea to do some research before choosing.

Average Income of Popular TikTok Musicians

Average TikTok users have lately been reporting that they get 3 cents per every 1 thousand views their videos rake in. A TikTok user with 450,000 subscribers reportedly earned between $11 to $31 per day thanks to their daily viewership numbers.

TikTok musicians of this popularity level will likely make between $300 to $650 per month if they keep up the views! These numbers are projected if a musician only uses the income from their TikTok views, but there are other ways to increase the amount of income they get using TikTok.

TikTok Users Who Have Songs in the Background

As for musicians on TikTok, their revenue means differ from regular creators. Based on studies conducted from 2018 to 2019, TikTok musicians earn about $0.030 per video that uses one of their songs based on music royalties. This is good news since the royalty income rate used to be $0.0067 per video in 2018.

TikTok doesn’t have much transparency regarding their pay-per-use rules, and the rules are ever-changing, so it is best for modern musicians to regularly brush up on TikTok song contracts to determine if the royalty rate is the same or not. 

The amount TikTok pays record labels and artists for the usage of their music is typically distributed once a year or twice a year, depending on the size of the label’s or artist’s music collection. Sometimes record labels grant TikTok a “buyout blanket license” to use a selection of their songs in exchange for up-front payment from TikTok. In these circumstances, the label (or occasionally the artist) grants TikTok permission to utilize several of their songs.

Due to this flexibility, some labels will agree to do a buyout blanket license with streaming services like TikTok, where the label or artist will allow access to a group of songs. They will then offer upfront payment to distribute these songs as they see fit.

Other Sources of Income on TikTok

It is reported that musicians on TikTok may not make much money directly from the app, but if they branch out a little, they can make even more money off their work found on TikTok!

How Much Money Do Influencers Make On TikTok?

Influencers that use the Creator Fund claim to make between $0.02 and $0.04 for every 1,000 views. The influencer would receive about $20 for a moderately popular video with 500,000 views.

TikTok influencers with tens of millions of followers can receive about $100,000 to $200,000 annually from the Fund. However, most influencers find it challenging to rely solely on TikTok’s ad revenue as their primary source of income. 

Similar concerns about revenue and view counts have affected TikTok as they did YouTube. Some creators said their views decreased when they joined the Fund, and they publicly questioned whether TikTok was purposefully limiting their audience to cap how much they could make. There have been hypotheses and speculative discussions about why there is such a lack of openness surrounding the Fund.

TikTok stated in late 2020 that they anticipate their Fund to increase to over $1 billion in the US and more than quadruple that amount globally in the next three years.

Using Sponsored Posts To Make Income on TikTok

Many TikTok influencers’ main income sources are sponsored posts, product placement, and products rather than ad revenue. A user’s number of followers truly determines how much money they make. Location, type of account, and the number of comments or likes are also important factors.

Smaller firms start to run campaigns with $200–$500 payments as artists reach the 10,000 follower milestone. Additionally, these companies might acknowledge the creator in a post, which might involve music integration in which the creator is compensated to have a song playing in the backdrop of their video. As followers grow, more and more expensive promotions are made available.

By selling music lesson packages, clothing merchandise, or other products, musicians on TikTok can quickly increase their income. It is also a good idea for singers to participate in the latest song and singing trends on TikTok and do ‘duets’ with other fellow musicians to become more popular, thus raising their subscriber count.

TikTok’s Creators Fund

TikTok announced the opening of its Creator Fund in July 2020. This Fund will reward the most popular creators on the platform. In principle, the Creator Fund is a terrific method to help platform creators. But in reality, things are very different.

The Fund’s release was criticized since it was deemed insufficient. TikTok initially only pledged $200M for US-based producers, which amounts to a few bucks per day for most users. Due to this, several content producers complained on social media that they only made a few bucks daily while having tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of views on their films. TikTok hasn’t specified how it determines compensation under the Fund.

The Creator Fund’s marketing strategy may have contributed to the problem. Some authors mistakenly believed it to be a grant program instead of a more conventional revenue-sharing plan. Creators must also apply for the Fund. Users must be at least 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers, and have gotten at least 10,000 video views in the 30 days before applying to be eligible.

TikTok Compared to Other Social Media Platforms as Revenue for Musicians

There are dozens of social media sites and apps that musicians can use to make money. Here’s a breakdown:

• Napster, which pays out $0.019 per stream
• Tidal, which pays $0.01284
• Deezer, which pays $0.0064
• Apple Music, which pays $0.00783
• Spotify, which pays $0.00437
• Amazon Music, which pays $0.00402
• Pandora, which pays $0.00133
• YouTube, which pays $0.000069 per view.

YouTube pays a set amount of money per every thousand views a user makes on their video. This is referred to as the video’s CPM, or cost per mille, which is the cost an advertiser will pay for every 1,000 views their ad receives on YouTube. 

Final Thoughts on TikTok Careers

Overall, TikTok is very hard to beat. With the easily built-in advertising possibilities for new musicians and the potential to go viral, new users can rapidly gain traction on the app if they play their cards right! Multiple TikTok users have agreed that YouTube and TikTok are better at reaching new viewership than Instagram, and TikTok has recently been at the top of all three options.

Watch the following video for further insights on making a reliable income from music and TikTok!

Overall, it is easy for musicians to make money using TikTok, although it is hard to initially earn money through the app. While most of the money a musician earns likely won’t come directly from TikTok, they can use their platform on the app to gain exposure and sign sponsorship deals. They can even use TikTok to guide viewers to their YouTube channel, where the creator can earn more money and the viewers can watch longer videos.