What could be cooler than (nearly) getting banned by the president? That’s where the video-sharing social network TikTok found itself in late 2020. But the ban never happened, and TikTok’s 100 million American users continue to consume bite-sized videos, contributing to a $35 billion annual revenue for TikTok’s owners, ByteDance Ltd.
Still, Bytedance aren’t the only ones who held their breath waiting to see if the ban would occur. The app’s users are also making a buck from TikTok. A generation of young TikTokers has adopted that look of calm authority shared by millionaire influencers across the platforms, their features digitally smoothed, like emojis with visible roots. And RaveReviews has identified 62 of them who made a six-figure-plus income from the app in 2020.
How do TikTokers make their money? In old talk: advertising. In today’s words: influencing. Companies pay TikTok stars up to $0.005 per follower for product placement and sponsored posts. We’ve taken that figure and multiplied it by the number of followers and ads for nearly 100 top TikTokers in 2020. Here is RaveReviews’ guide to TikTok’s highest earners.
Image Credit: Charli D’Amelio / TikTok.
Top 3 TikTokers Earn $53M from Ads
The top three TikTok earners rake in more than the next 10 combined. But there is plenty to go around. We found 83 TikTokers earning five figures or more from ads, including 39 on six figures, and 23 who earned $1 million-plus in 2020 alone.
Image Credit: LeoPatrizi/istockphoto.
23. Rod Contreras
- 2020 earnings: $1,134,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Rod Contreras / TikTok.
22. Kimberly Loaiza
- 2020 earnings: $1,416,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Kimberly Loaiza / TikTok.
21. Jayden Croes
- 2020 earnings: $1,631,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Jayden Croes / TikTok.
20. Abby Roberts
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- 2020 earnings: $1,736,500
- TikTok genre: Beauty & Style
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Abby Roberts / TikTok.
19. Lauren Godwin
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- 2020 earnings: $1,742,500
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Lauren Godwin / TikTok.
18. Brent Rivera
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- 2020 earnings: $1,800,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Brent Rivera / TikTok.
17. Bella Poarch
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- 2020 earnings: $1,907,500
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Bella Poarch / TikTok.
16. Jason Coffee
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- 2020 earnings: $2,090,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Jason Coffee / TikTok.
15. David Dobrik
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- 2020 earnings: $2,150,500
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: David Dobrik / TikTok.
14. Zach King
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- 2020 earnings: $2,216,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Zach King / TikTok.
13. Gilmher Croes
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- 2020 earnings: $2,669,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Gilmher Croes / TikTok.
12. Noah Beck
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- 2020 earnings: $2,817,500
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Noah Beck / TikTok.
11. Demi Bagby
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- 2020 earnings: $3,266,500
- TikTok genre: Fitness
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Demi Bagby / TikTok.
10. Spencer Polanco Knight / Spencer X
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- 2020 earnings: $3,577,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Spencer Polanco Knight / Spencer X / TikTok.
9. Q Park
- 2020 earnings: $5,224,500
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Q Park / TikTok.
8. Loren Gray
- 2020 earnings: $5,355,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Loren Gray / TikTok.
7. Dixie D’Amelio
- 2020 earnings: $6,534,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Dixie D’Amelio / TikTok.
6. Kira Kosarin
- 2020 earnings: $6,651,500
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Kira Kosarin / TikTok.
5. Avani Gregg
- 2020 earnings: $6,798,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Avani Gregg / TikTok.
4. Joe Albanese
- 2020 earnings: $8,711,000
- TikTok genre: Entertainment
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Joe Albanese / TikTok.
3. Addison Rae
- 2020 earnings: $14,722,500
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Addison Rae / TikTok.
2. Charli D’Amelio
- 2020 earnings: $18,224,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Charli D’Amelio / TikTok.
1. Michael Le
- 2020 earnings: $20,378,000
- TikTok genre: Performance
- TikTok account link
Image Credit: Michael Le / TikTok.
Michael Le and Bella Poarch At Opposite Extremes of Advertising
Michael Le may be the highest earner, but he’s only the eighth-most followed TikToker in our study. He makes it to the top of the earnings list by virtue of making significantly more sponsored posts than anybody else: 92, next to second-placed Joe Albanese’s 62. Albanese made just shy of $9M from ads in 2020, despite having ‘only’ 28m followers.
Bella Poarch is the million-dollar TikToker who made the fewest ads. The 20-year-old (or is she older?) scored the biggest viral hit of 2020 with her expertly face-choreographed ‘M to the B’ lip-sync. But Poarch restrained herself to just seven sponsored posts, earning around $1,907,500.
TikTok has made a major splash on the social media and influencer landscapes. By extending the popular formula of the 6-second Vine to 15 seconds or more, TikTok caters to today’s goldfish attention spans but leaves more room to share a message – such as an ad. Impressed by the numbers? Get TikTokking!
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
Methodology and Sources
We researched the 50 most followed TikTok accounts and the most followed for each key TikTok category using online resources like Social Tracker and Influencer Marketing Hub.
Next we scraped all the videos each TikToker published in 2020 and extracted the hashtags and mention tags from those videos. We labelled all tags as commercial or non-commercial (for example, #ad is a commercial tag) and calculated the number of ads per TikToker in 2020.
Following the Guardian’s estimation that TikTok stars could be paid up to $0.005 per follower for sponsored posts, we calculated how much each TikToker could charge for one commercial video and finally calculated total earnings by multiplying cost per post and total number of ads.
The data was collected in January 2021.
Sources
- Wikipedia. (2021). List of most followed TikTok accounts. wikipedia.com
- Capon, L. (2020). 20 TikTok makeup influencers you should be following immediately. cosmopolitan.com
- Social Tracker. (2021). Top TikTok Users Most followers. social tracker.io
- Kidwell, D. (2020). Top 30 Educational TikTok Accounts. edubirdie.com
- Martyn. (2020). 10 TikTok Travel Accounts You Can’t Miss. caribbenwarehouse.co.uk
- Brittany, Z (2020). Must Follow Chefs, Cooking, and Recipe Accounts on TikTok. mediocre chef.com
- Influencer Marketing Hub. (2020). Top 24 TikTok Fitness Influencers. influencermarketinghub.com
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This article originally appeared on RaveReviews.org and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
Image Credit: EnDyk/ iStock.