TikTok Is Ending Its Creator Fund in Favor of a New Fund to Pay Creators More

The Gist:

• TikTok is replacing its Creator Fund with a new fund that it says will allow creators to earn up to 20 times more per video.
• The new fund was launched in part because many creators were complaining about how little money TikTok pays out.
• Anyone who was eligible for the creator fund should also be eligible for this new fund.

Like all social media services, TikTok generates all of its revenue based on the amount of time that people spend on the platform. And, because people only stay on TikTok thanks to the videos that other users create, TikTok is reliant to a certain extent on the content of its most popular creators.

That explains why TikTok initially set up its Creator Fund, a $1 billion allotment designated to pay creators who make popular videos on its service. Now, TikTok is getting rid of that fund in order to replace it with something else.

On Nov. 7, 2023, TikTok announced that it was getting rid of its Creator Fund in order to create a new fund that it claims will pay creators better. "The Creativity Program was developed based on the learnings and feedback we've gained from the previous Creator Fund," a statement from TikTok explained. "As we continue developing new ways to reward creators and enrich the TikTok experience, we value the feedback and direct insights from our community to help inform our decisions."

The original creator fund will no longer be available to U.S., U.K., Germany, and France users as of Dec. 16, 2023. All users who are currently enrolled in the Creator Fund will be eligible for the new Creativity Program.

The new program, which is apparently still in its beta phase, will allow creators to make up to 20 times more for content than they did through the Creator Fund.

To be eligible, users will need to have at least 10,000 followers and have at least 100,000 views on their videos in the last 30 days. They'll also need to have a U.S.-based account and be at least 18 years old. In addition to offering guidelines, TikTok also encouraged users to post content that was over 1 minute long, saying that users now spend half of their time on the platform watching longer-form videos.

As TikTok alluded to in its statement, this new fund may have been launched in part because many creators felt that TikTok wasn't paying them properly for their content. In a YouTube video, influencer Hank Green, who has more than 5 million followers on TikTok, explained that he made roughly 2.5 cents for every 1,000 views he received on TikTok.

Hank also said that the Creator Fund was a "static pool," meaning that creators didn't make more money even if TikTok was earning more. Hank contrasted that to his experience with YouTube, which pays a percentage of its ad money to creators.