TikTok content creator Summer Fox shared a video to explain how people make money on TikTok and how much they make. She answered common questions people have about earning through TikTok
A TikTok content creator has lifted the lid on how influencers on the app make their money.
Summer Fox, a Canadian based content creator originally from South East London near Kent, explained that when she first started creating content on TikTok she was earning £200 to £400 a month despite getting “millions of views”. Now, she is making between £2,000 and £3,500 a month and has a combined following of over 500,000 across TikTok and Instagram.
TikTok has been Summer’s full time job for three years and her income massively increased when the app created a new system to pay its content creators about a year ago, she claimed. Summer shared a video on TikTok explaining how influencers on the app make money and how much they make.
She said: “TikTok has been my full time job for the past three years now but I’ve realised people still don’t really understand how that’s possible. Some people don’t understand where that money’s coming from, how much money there is to be made, is it the same as a 9-5?, is it more?
“Is the bulk of the money from the creator fund? Some people still don’t understand why someone with 200,000 followers might be making all this money and look like they’re a millionaire and then someone else with a million followers looks like they’re still working the 9-5.”
In her video, Summer answered all of these questions in detail as she thinks “it’s important the people are up to date with the types of careers there are to be had in 2024”.
She said the two main ways the average influencer makes money from TikTok is the creator fund and brand deals. So here’s what you need to know about each of them…
Creator fund
The content creator explained that the creator fund is where TikTok pays you directly for the amount of views you have gained in a specific month. At the end of every month she said she gets a paycheck from TikTok that she can withdraw into her bank account.
Summer added: “It will be a different amount every single month because every month I have acquired a different amount of views which means that every single creator is getting paid differently.” She said she has made up to £3,500 a month since the new system was rolled out which is just from posting videos over one minute on TikTok every day.
She noted that if she didn’t post content all month she would “get nothing”. Summer continued: “I think that’s a lot of money. I think it’s amazing.
“I never earned that much at a 9-5 (job) in my life but that’s nothing compared to what some people make, like specifically Americans seem to get paid more. I don’t know if that’s a thing but people with a bigger audience to me that are acquiring tens of millions of views every month are making about £10,000+ a month just from the app.”
Brand deals
Summer explained that previously, the only way to make a lot of money on TikTok was to become an influencer that does brand deals which means you have to show your face in content you create as you “have to be able to sell”. She added: “But now that’s not the case.
“It means that literally anybody can make money on TikTok like I know this woman who literally records her dogs every morning, she doesn’t even get herself in it and she’s been able to come off benefits for the first time in her life because now she makes more money on the creator fund than recording her dogs.”
Summer went on to explain how TikTok content creators make money through brand deals. A brand deal is when a company reaches out to an influencer and will ask them to promote their product on their TikTok account.
The brand will then specify how much money they will pay the influencer for one TikTok video, according to Summer. The content creator said: “Now, when this first starts happening to you when you’re a new creator you might get offered £200.
“You might think that’s great, I’ll take it because you don’t really know how much you should be charging but then at some point down the line you will get approached by a management company whose job it is to negotiate all of these brand deals for you.”
Summer is managed by HLD Talent and she claims that management companies know how much a brand will be willing to pay for your content and will reach out to brands on your behalf and “actively pitch you to brands”. She said that with TikTok specifically you’re “always going to be growing so how much you charge is always going to be changing and getting more and more”.
The Canadian content creator added that all brands pay differently as they have different budgets and will find influencers who get more views more valuable than those who get less. An important message Summer gave is “brands are paying thousands, thousands for one TikTok video”.
She added: “What some people don’t know about brand deals is that the influencer is the one that has to create the video concept for the brand like I’ll have to write up in a document what my idea for the video is, I’ll then send that to my management to send to the brand to approve and once that’s approved I’ll film it and that’ll have to be approved before I upload the video and get paid.”
Summer’s TikTok explainer video has got 1.5 million views, 152,000 likes and 1,555 comments. TikTok users asked more questions about the creator fund in the comment section and some thanked her for sharing the video.
