On a recent day in late June, a conference room on the first floor of the Hyatt Regency in Anaheim, California had been transformed into The TikTok Galaxy. Though windowless, the place was aglow with neon signs, a faux starry sky and hot lamps warming vegan tacos. It was all part of the company’s latest attempt to wow creators at the annual VidCon Anaheim conference, the largest gathering dedicated to social media stars. But by and large the creators weren’t raving so much about the free Nature Valley bars and TikTok logo hats. Rather, they could not stop talking about TikTok’s new Creativity Program Beta (CPB) that pays them to publish videos over 60 seconds.
“It’s pretty great,” says Cassie Sorensen (SmallBizCassie on TikTok), who is lodged between enormous glowing touchscreen TikTok placards that serve as main light sources in the TikTok Galaxy, about CPB. “I mean, the fact that they’re rewarding longer content on the platform—it’s encouraging.”
TikTokers like Sorensen, who are neither household names nor nobodies, comprise the bulk of the Creativity Program Beta participants, and they’re at the heart of TikTok’s strategy to engage users—and attract ad dollars—with longer-form content. To many, it’s not so shocking the platform that defined short-form video is going long, it’s that TikTok designed a program which—so far—meaningfully compensates creators.
Creators interviewed by Fortune report making thousands of dollars per month from CPB alone. One TikToker spoke about paying off his mortgage from CPB payouts. Another is quitting his nine-to-five to go full-time on TikTok. Yet another called the payments “life-changing.”
These creators and others who’ve spoken to Fortune or who’ve taken to the internet to share their thoughts on the programs reported making thousands of dollars per month from the program, which launched as an invite-only test in February of this year and was opened to all U.S.-based creators over 18 who have at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in early May.
“It’s made a huge impact on the positive view that people have about the platform; it definitely has for me,” John Hopper, who goes by Blue_ThunderGaming on socials, told Fortune. “So many people have moved to join [CPB] and post one-minute-plus videos, they prioritize that. It’s completely worked, and is certainly luring creators.”
Hopper says that because of CPB he will quit his corporate job in two months as he’s making around $5,000 per month from the program. Another TikToker named Dalton Brock whose handle is EsportsCenter says he makes between $3,000 and $6,000 per month from the program, which is significant on its own, but especially notable as he formerly generated a maximum of $500 per month from TikTok’s last big initiative to pay creators called the Creator Fund. (When TikTokers enroll in CPB they become ineligible for the Creator Fund.) A creator who goes by GhostGaming and has 380,000 followers on TiKTok posted a screenshot to Twitter showing that he made $408 from a single video, and called the program “life changing.” Another user reports posting 41 TikTok videos in 30 days to generate over $5,200 on the platform. He echoes GhostGaming’s sentiment, characterizing CPB as “pretty game changing.”
These payments and the excitement they inspire in creators marks a reprieve from the turbulence that has defined TikTok’s relationship with creators. Though many creators feel the need to be on TikTok to amass an audience, the Bytedance-owned platform has never done a good job of compensating its content-makers. The $2 billion Creator Fund delivered negligible sums to creators in its three-year existence. TikTok Pulse, an advertising revenue share program that closely mimics YouTube’s AdSense (famous for minting top-paid creators), netted participants mere pennies. The company has also launched subscriber-only content and direct-from-fan monetization mechanisms. These initiatives, which undergo regular changes, are hard to follow and have not offered pay better than brand deals for major stars.
Responding to Fortune’s queries about the company history of paying creators, TikTok spokesperson Maria Jung notes that payouts from the CPB allow creators to earn up to 20-times that amount previously offered by the Creator Fund by offering higher average gross revenue for qualified video views.
“Since launching the TikTok Creator Fund in 2020, we’ve been listening to the creator community to better understand their needs and improve the program,” says TikTok’s Jung. “Designed to encourage creators to create high-quality, original content, generate higher revenue potential, and open doors to more exciting, real-world opportunities, the Creativity Program offers higher cash incentives.”
It remains unclear how exactly payouts are dictated. Hopper noted that the CPM-based payouts are a source of frustration as they fluctuate without rhyme or reason in his experience. When Fortune asked for clarity around the payment structure, a TikTok spokesperson said, “Rewards are calculated by accrued video performance based on the average gross revenue and qualified views, with more rewards accumulating as their videos continue to perform well.”
Creator pay from social platforms is an increasingly important aspect of the $250 billion creator economy (per Goldman Sachs) as more and more individuals look to pursue social content creation careers. But for all this demand, programs to compensate creators for their labor from social giants Google, Meta and ByteDance remain ever-changing—defined by abrupt pivots and red tape.
YouTube recently started paying creators for Shorts, which has been meaningful to top creators like Alan Chikin Chow who has made “millions” and irrelevant to smaller-scale influencers who are making modest sums. Meta has had a spotty track record with its Reels Bonus program that paid creators sometimes-meaningful, often-confusing payments for short-form video only to end the program with no notice over the winter (and reinstate a rejiggered version in June). Meanwhile, Snap’s Stories program pays partner creators handsomely for their off-the-cuff content, and has led some to post around 200 pieces of content per day to generate income. With all this chaos, creators often need to pursue brand deals in order to support themselves.
“If you look at the creator economy—which creators are the most powerful in terms of brand partnerships, like who can move the needle—YouTube has always been number one. The reason for that is YouTubers—they make 25-minute videos, 15-minute videos, right? So long-form content is king as it relates to engagement,” says Joe Gagliese who is the CEO and cofounder of influencer marketing agency Viral Nation—a partner with TikTok in connecting influencers to the CPB. “If TikTok can get the content longer, then they can do a lot more from the monetization perspective with their brand partners.”
The idea that TikTok is opening its cash coffers to creators in the hopes of attracting bigger ad spend suggests that the platform is upping the ante in its rivalry with YouTube. Gagliese thinks that the CPB is the precursor to TikTok altering its skippable pre-roll ad format. “The issue is if you have a 15-second video it’s very difficult to put a mid-roll or a pre-roll on that because that goes against all of psychology and how we use it,” he says.
While pre-roll ads are skippable on TikTok, they’re mandatory prerequisites on YouTube. If TikTok is able to make its ads unskippable, this could turbocharge the company’s advertising revenue with viewership numbers.
Still, creators and agencies still have major qualms with TikTok and its Chinese parent. “It’s undoubtedly bad for humanity in general,” says a TikTok CPB member who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the platform. “Whether you’re talking about the attention span issue of swiping so quickly, the quick bursts of content, the plethora of adult content from people promoting their adult businesses that are just constantly everywhere.”
This creator, however, relies on TikTok for his livelihood, and has no plans to leave, especially now that he’s making thousands of dollars every month from CPB. “Regardless of how malicious or damaging it is for children and humans, it is an absolute state-of-the-art genius algorithm.”
