TikTok pulls in over a billion monthly users. That is not just entertainment, that is money waiting to be claimed. Alston Godbolt walks through 9 of his favorite ways to turn TikTok content into real income, covering what each method requires, how to get started, and which ones work even before your following gets large. Whether you sell physical products, teach a skill, or just want to recommend things you already use, at least one of these paths fits where you are right now.
Some of these methods live entirely inside the TikTok app. Others reach outside to programs like Amazon Associates, Walmart, or Best Buy. A few require hitting follower thresholds before you can unlock them, and a few you can start with zero audience today. This post walks every method in the order Alston covers it so you can find your fit, understand the requirements, and take a first step before this tab closes.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- All 9 TikTok income methods Alston covers, with the follower minimums for each one that has them
- The difference between TikTok’s internal affiliate program and external affiliate programs like Amazon
- Why digital products are Alston’s second favorite method and how fast you can build one
- How the Creativity Beta Program compares to the YouTube Partner Program and what it pays
- How to list physical products and even print-on-demand items in TikTok Shop without inventory headaches
- What UGC content is, why brands pay for it, and where to find those deals inside TikTok
- A one-decision framework for picking your starting method without spinning your wheels
- Find the right TikTok income path for your niche at finder.platformproof.com
Method 1: Affiliate Marketing (External Programs)
Affiliate marketing is Alston’s first favorite for a reason. You recommend products you already believe in, you link to a company’s affiliate program, and when someone buys through your link you get a commission. No inventory. No shipping. No customer service calls at 11pm. You just create content that attracts an audience who needs what you are recommending.
The example Alston uses in the video is a Ring indoor security camera. If you create content about securing your home, watching your pets while you are away, or keeping an eye on deliveries, the people watching that content are already pre-sold on wanting a camera. You drop your affiliate link and they convert. The same concept works across any niche: fishing, crocheting, pickleball, paddleboarding. If a hobby has products, it has an affiliate program somewhere.
To get started, find a company or retailer that runs an affiliate program, apply to join, and once accepted you receive a unique link you can track. The catch on TikTok specifically is that you need at least 1,000 followers before TikTok lets you put a clickable link in your bio. Before you hit that threshold, Alston’s workaround is to direct people off-platform. Point your audience to your Instagram bio or your YouTube description where your affiliate links are already live. Those platforms do not have the same follower gate, so you can start earning day one regardless of your TikTok count.
Major retailers with affiliate programs include Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. These are the external options, meaning they are independent of TikTok’s own shopping tools. Alston covers TikTok’s internal affiliate program separately later in the list, so keep that distinction in mind as you read.
Method 2: Digital Products
Digital products are Alston’s second favorite, and once you understand the model it is easy to see why. You create the product once over a weekend, and then it sells without you repackaging, shipping, or managing stock. A digital product can be a checklist, an ebook, an online course, or a membership community. The common thread is that delivery is instant and the product costs you nothing additional to fulfill on sale number 500 versus sale number one.
One of the biggest mental blocks people have is thinking they need to be an expert before they can sell anything. Alston addresses this directly. You do not need to be the world’s leading authority on a topic. You only need to be one or two steps ahead of the person you are teaching. If you learned how to use Canva six months ago and someone just downloaded it for the first time, you have everything they need. Teach them that, charge for it, and you have a digital product business.
The best digital products solve a specific problem, make a hobby easier to do, save people significant time or frustration, or show them how to make money in an area they care about. Alston’s examples include digital products built around fishing and crocheting, which shows you do not have to be in a classic online business niche. Any hobby or skill set that has a learning curve has a digital product hiding inside it. You just create content on TikTok around that topic, attract people who want to get better at it, and offer them the shortcut you have already built.
Method 3: Video Gifts
Video Gifts are one of TikTok’s in-app monetization features. When you upload a video and someone enjoys it enough, they can send you a virtual gift, things like roses, hats, diamonds, and unicorns, and those gifts convert into real money. The catch is the follower minimum: you need at least 10,000 followers before TikTok enables this feature on your account.
This is not a method where a single rose from one fan is going to change your financial picture. You need volume, meaning a large enough audience sending enough gifts to make the total meaningful. But the math does work at scale. The bigger your following, the more videos you post, and the more engagement you generate, the more gifts flow in over time. Think of it less as a direct revenue strategy and more as a passive layer of income that turns on once your account has grown.
Method 4: Subscriptions
TikTok’s subscription feature works similarly to Patreon. Your followers pay a monthly recurring fee, somewhere in the range of $5.99 or more depending on how you configure it, to get exclusive access to content, live streams, or experiences that your free audience cannot see. You control what goes behind the paywall and at what price point.
Alston points out that this is essentially TikTok’s response to creators who were leaving the platform to build their own Patreons. Rather than lose that revenue relationship, TikTok built the tool in-house. From a creator’s standpoint that is good news, because your paying subscribers stay inside an app they already check every day instead of having to remember to log into a separate platform.
The key to making subscriptions work is genuine added value. If your free content is everything and your paid tier is just a badge, subscribers will cancel. But if you are delivering special videos, early access, live Q-and-A sessions, or behind-the-scenes material that the general public genuinely cannot access, people will pay monthly and stay paying as long as you keep delivering. Recurring revenue is the goal here, and subscriptions are one of the most direct ways TikTok offers it.
Method 5: Creativity Beta Program
The Creativity Beta Program is TikTok’s closest equivalent to the YouTube Partner Program. You get paid based on views and the CPM rate for your content category, meaning how much advertisers pay per thousand views in your niche. If your content is in a high-value category like personal finance, make money online, or relationships, your CPM will be higher. If you are posting videos of dogs running around, the CPM will be lower. The platform pays differently depending on what audience your content attracts.
To qualify, you need at least 10,000 followers and your videos must be at least one minute long. That second requirement is the one that changes behavior most directly. TikTok’s roots are short-form video, but this program pushes creators toward longer content because longer videos generate more ad inventory. Alston’s takeaway is simple: if you want to earn from this program, make longer videos and keep making them. You apply separately, and once approved you collect a payment every time your videos hit the view thresholds the program defines.
Alston’s prediction, recorded when this video was made, is that YouTube and Instagram would be building similar creator payment programs to compete with what TikTok was rolling out. The strategy implications are real: when a platform launches a new paid feature, it promotes content using that feature harder to get adoption up. Getting in early on a new monetization feature means the algorithm is working in your favor during the rollout window.
Method 6: TikTok Shop for Creators (Built-In Affiliate)
TikTok Shop for Creators is TikTok’s internal affiliate program. Business owners list their products in TikTok Shop, and you browse that marketplace to find products you want to promote. When someone buys through your content, you earn an affiliate commission, similar to how an external affiliate program works, but the entire transaction stays inside TikTok.
The follower requirement here is 5,000 subscribers. Once you qualify and join, Alston notes something worth paying attention to: TikTok gives additional views to videos that feature TikTok Shop products, because TikTok earns money every time a sale goes through their platform. That means promoting TikTok Shop products is not just a commission opportunity, it is a growth lever. The algorithm has a financial reason to put your content in front of more people when you are driving shop revenue.
Alston’s recommendation is to actually buy the product before you make content about it. Walk people through the real benefits you found. That is both the most ethical approach and the most effective one, because genuine enthusiasm reads differently on camera than a scripted unboxing. People can tell the difference, and the ones who can tell will buy based on your authentic experience.
Method 7: TikTok Shop for Sellers
This is the other side of TikTok Shop. Instead of promoting someone else’s products for a commission, you list your own products directly in the shop. Buyers can purchase without ever leaving TikTok, which reduces friction compared to sending people to a third-party website to complete a transaction. The fewer clicks between seeing a product and buying it, the higher conversion rates tend to be.
TikTok does take a cut of every sale. You are using their platform and their payment infrastructure, so they collect a percentage of revenue. Alston is upfront about this and frames it as a known cost of doing business rather than a dealbreaker. If the platform is driving your sales, a cut to them is just a cost of customer acquisition.
Alston also mentions a print-on-demand workaround that is worth noting. You can connect Printful directly to your TikTok Shop. That means you can create custom merchandise, shirts, mugs, phone cases, and similar items, list them in your shop, and Printful handles printing and shipping on demand. You never carry inventory, you never touch the product, and you still get the sales and the TikTok algorithm boost that comes with using the shop. If you have a following around any identity, community, or humor niche, print-on-demand through TikTok Shop is a low-barrier way to monetize it.
Not sure which TikTok income method fits your skills and niche?
Answer five quick questions and get a personalized match at finder.platformproof.com.
Method 8: Series (Video Courses Inside TikTok)
TikTok Series lets you create longer-form video content, up to 20 minutes per video, and bundle it into a paid series that viewers can purchase directly inside the app. Think of it as hosting an online course on TikTok rather than on a third-party platform like Teachable or Gumroad. You apply separately to access this feature, and Alston mentions he applied to TikTok Series himself.
The strategic advantage here is the same one that applies to TikTok Shop: TikTok has a financial incentive to show Series content to more people because a sale benefits TikTok too. If your free content catches someone’s attention and they see your Series in the feed, TikTok’s algorithm has reason to keep surfacing it because they earn when it converts.
If you already have an online course hosted somewhere else, Series is a discovery channel worth exploring. The course content you built for one platform can be repurposed and made available to TikTok’s billion monthly users without rebuilding it from scratch. You are not replacing your existing course platform, you are adding a second distribution point where the algorithm is working in your favor.
Method 9: Creator Marketplace (Brand Deals and UGC)
The Creator Marketplace is where TikTok connects creators with brands that want user-generated content, known as UGC. Brands pay you to create content about their products that looks and feels like organic creator content rather than a traditional advertisement. The whole point is that it does not look like an ad, because buyers in 2024 and beyond respond to real people talking about real experiences far more than they respond to polished commercials.
Brands have figured this out. They know that a normal person with 5,000 followers making an honest video about a product can outperform a six-figure ad campaign, and they are paying for that kind of content through platforms like the Creator Marketplace. Some of these deals also include the brand sending you the physical product so you can demo it in your content, which means you get something for free and get paid to talk about it.
If you have ever watched a creator on TikTok or YouTube demonstrate a product in a way that felt genuinely helpful rather than salesy, you were probably watching UGC content. That format is learnable, and the Creator Marketplace is a direct path to getting paid to produce it for brands that are actively looking for creators at all follower levels.
Honest Drawbacks
None of these methods print money on day one. Most of the in-app monetization features, Video Gifts, Subscriptions, Creativity Beta, and TikTok Shop affiliate, require you to hit follower thresholds of 5,000 to 10,000 before you can access them. That means there is a real growth phase you have to complete before the platform pays you directly. During that window, affiliate marketing and digital products are your best friends because neither one requires TikTok’s permission to start.
The Creativity Beta Program pays based on CPM rates that vary significantly by niche. If you are making content about pets or general entertainment, your earnings per view will be lower than a creator in a finance or business niche. That is not a reason to avoid it, but it is worth knowing before you set income expectations based on someone else’s numbers in a different category.
TikTok Shop takes a cut of every sale. Subscriptions require you to consistently produce exclusive content that is worth paying for. Series require you to build course material before you can sell it. None of these are impossible obstacles, but each method has a real cost in time or platform fees that you should factor into your decision about where to start.
How to Pick Your Starting Method
Alston’s closing advice is direct: pick one or two methods that genuinely interest you, become good at them, and stay consistent. Do not try to run all nine simultaneously. That spreads your attention too thin and gets you mediocre results across the board instead of strong results in one place.
A simple decision framework based on what Alston covers:
- If you already use products you love in a specific niche, start with external affiliate marketing. No follower gate, works across platforms, and you can launch today.
- If you have knowledge or a skill someone would pay to learn faster, spend a weekend building a digital product. Sell it through your bio link once you hit 1,000 followers or through Instagram and YouTube before that.
- If you already have 5,000 or more followers, apply for TikTok Shop for Creators and start testing which products your audience responds to.
- If you are at 10,000 followers, turn on the Creativity Beta Program and start making longer videos in your niche. More than one minute each, consistently.
- If you have a physical product, a print-on-demand concept, or an existing course, set up TikTok Shop for Sellers or Series and put the algorithm to work distributing your offer.
Find Your X
Nine methods is a lot of options, and analysis paralysis is real. The fastest way to cut through it is to match your actual situation, what you know, what you enjoy, and what followers you currently have, to the method that fits those constraints right now. That is exactly what the quiz at finder.platformproof.com is built to do. Five questions, one recommendation, one place to start. Skip the guesswork and get to work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a large following to make money on TikTok?
Not for every method. External affiliate marketing and digital products do not require any TikTok-specific follower threshold. You need 1,000 followers to add a bio link on TikTok, but before that you can direct people to your Instagram or YouTube for your links. TikTok Shop for Creators requires 5,000 followers, while Video Gifts, Subscriptions, and the Creativity Beta Program all require 10,000.
What is the easiest TikTok money method to start today?
Affiliate marketing through an external program is the lowest barrier. Find a product in a niche you genuinely care about, join that brand’s affiliate program, create honest content about the product, and point your audience to the link via your Instagram bio or another platform bio if you are not at 1,000 TikTok followers yet. You can do all of this with zero followers on TikTok.
How does TikTok’s Creativity Beta Program pay creators?
It pays based on CPM rates, which stands for cost per thousand views. Advertisers pay different rates depending on your content niche. Finance, business, and relationship content typically earns higher CPMs. Entertainment and pet content typically earns lower ones. You also need videos that are at least one minute long and a following of at least 10,000 to qualify.
What is the difference between TikTok Shop for Creators and TikTok Shop for Sellers?
TikTok Shop for Creators is the affiliate side. You promote other people’s products listed in TikTok Shop and earn a commission on sales. TikTok Shop for Sellers is for people who want to list and sell their own products. You can sell physical items, and Alston mentions that you can connect Printful to sell print-on-demand merchandise without holding any inventory.
What is UGC content and can beginners get paid for it?
UGC stands for user-generated content. Brands pay creators to make videos about their products that look like organic content rather than traditional ads. Brands are doing this because real-person testimonials perform better than polished commercials. You do not need a massive following to qualify. The Creator Marketplace inside TikTok is where you connect with brands looking for this type of content.
What are TikTok Subscriptions and how much can I charge?
TikTok Subscriptions let your followers pay a monthly fee for exclusive access to content, live streams, or other perks you define. Alston gives $5.99 as an example price point, but the platform lets you configure the price. Think of it as a built-in Patreon. The key is that you offer something meaningful behind the paywall, content or access the general public genuinely cannot get for free.
Can I make money with TikTok if I do not want to be on camera?
Yes. Affiliate marketing content can be product demos or screen recordings. Digital products can be written guides, templates, or audio courses. TikTok Series and print-on-demand through TikTok Shop do not require a face on camera. If you are camera-shy, focus on the methods where the product or the content itself carries the value rather than your personality specifically.
Should I try all 9 methods at once?
No. Alston is clear on this: pick one or two that match your current situation and current interests, get good at them, and grow from there. Spreading across nine methods simultaneously means you never build real competence in any one of them. Once you have a working method producing consistent income, that is the right time to add a second stream on top of it.
Read Next
Affiliate marketing came up as a top recommendation in nearly every method above. If you want to go deeper on the video side of making it work, this post covers the exact approach for creating video content that actually converts affiliate traffic.
How To Make Videos For Affiliate Marketing
Sources
- Alston Godbolt, “10 Ways To Make Money on TikTok | How To Make Money Online” (YouTube, youtu.be/Ec3pikRw2BU)
- TikTok Creativity Beta Program requirements: 10,000 followers, videos 1 minute or longer (per Alston’s walkthrough of the in-app settings)
- TikTok Shop for Creators affiliate requirement: 5,000 subscribers (per Alston’s in-app demo)
- TikTok Video Gifts requirement: 10,000 followers minimum (per Alston’s in-app demo)
- TikTok monthly active users: 1 billion+ (cited by Alston in video introduction)
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.