The TikTok Creator Fund is no longer available and was retired in markets including the US, UK, France, and Germany. TikTok has replaced it with the Creator Rewards Program, a performance-based model that rewards original, high-quality videos over one minute long. For brands that work with TikTok creators, this shift influences what kinds of content creators are incentivized to make, what performs organically, and why audience engagement in the comments is more important than ever.
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Here's what happened, what's replaced it, and what it means for your brand today.
Launched in 2020, the TikTok Creator Fund was the platform's first direct monetization program for creators. It allowed eligible creators to earn money based on their video views, drawing from a fixed pool of funds that TikTok committed to the program.
To qualify, creators needed to:
The Fund attracted a large wave of creators to the platform and represented a meaningful shift in how social platforms approached creator monetization. Over time, however, many creators felt the payout structure didn't match the effort they were putting in, particularly as the pool of eligible creators grew and earnings per view became smaller.
No. TikTok says the Creator Fund is no longer available and was retired in markets including the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany in December 2023. Creators in those markets were encouraged to migrate to the new program.
The transition marked TikTok's commitment to a better monetization model, one that could scale with the creator community rather than dilute payouts as more creators joined.
TikTok replaced the Creator Fund with the Creator Rewards Program (originally launched as the Creativity Program Beta in 2023, and officially renamed in March 2024).
According to TikTok's newsroom, the Creator Rewards Program "rewards high-quality, original content that is over a minute long, using an optimized rewards formula focused on four core metrics: originality, play duration, search value and audience engagement."
This is a fundamentally different model:
To join the Creator Rewards Program, creators must:
Applications are reviewed within three business days, and creators can appeal a rejection within 30 days.
Not every video earns rewards. According to TikTok's Creator Academy, eligible videos must:
TikTok defines a qualified view as a unique view from the For You feed where the viewer watched for at least five seconds. Repeated views from the same account, promoted views, and views from people who marked the content as uninteresting are excluded.
This is TikTok's deliberate design choice: the program rewards genuine, organic audience engagement, not paid amplification.
TikTok's rewards system includes both a standard reward and an Additional Reward for especially strong content. To qualify for the Additional Reward, TikTok's Creator Academy states videos must be:
Specialized: demonstrating expertise in a niche and bringing a unique perspective to viewers
TikTok's optimized rewards formula is built on four factors, each worth understanding:
💡 Originality: Content must be unique to the creator, showcasing their perspective or creative thought. Duets, Stitches, repurposed content, and lip-syncs with copyrighted music over one minute are explicitly excluded.
⏱️ Play duration: How long viewers actually watch. Videos that hold attention and drive completion signal quality to TikTok's system.
🔎 Search value: TikTok assigns a metric based on how well a video aligns with popular search terms. TikTok's Creator Search Insights tool helps creators identify what topics people are actively looking for.
👥 Audience engagement: Likes, comments, shares, and community interaction all factor in. According to TikTok's terms, rewards are also "automatically" influenced by "the community's ad watchtime," meaning an engaged audience that watches ads alongside your content has value in the formula too.
Understanding the Creator Rewards Program matters for brands, not just creators. Here's why.
TikTok confirmed that since rolling out longer videos, users now spend 50% of their time watching content longer than one minute, with viewership of longer videos increasing nearly 40% in the first six months after the format launched. (Source: TikTok Newsroom, March 2024)
This extended format is genuinely useful for brand marketing. A 90-second creator video has room to introduce a product, demonstrate it in context, build genuine enthusiasm, and include a call to action. Short clips can spark interest; longer content can actually drive it.
Because the Creator Rewards Program explicitly factors audience engagement into its formula, the comment section has taken on new strategic importance. Creators who generate real conversations (comments, shares, replies) earn more than those who simply accumulate passive views.
For brands running TikTok campaigns or partnering with creators, this has a direct implication: what happens in the comments section is now part of the performance infrastructure, not just moderation hygiene. A lively, positive comment section reinforces the content's quality signal. Unanswered questions, unmoderated negativity, or harmful comments left visible undermine both the creator's earnings and the brand's impression.
Brands that actively manage their TikTok community across both organic and paid content are protecting something that now has measurable value to the platform's own algorithm.
Creators in the Creator Rewards Program can still work with brands, but sponsored content itself is not considered eligible original content for Creator Rewards payouts. Brands should keep this in mind when structuring partnerships: not to limit creative collaboration, but to ensure creators can maintain both a healthy brand deal and their ongoing Rewards Program earnings without one affecting the other.
The Additional Reward explicitly prizes specialized content that "demonstrates expertise in a niche." This changes the calculus for brands. A creator with 40,000 highly engaged followers in a specific niche (home improvement, skincare for sensitive skin, plant-based cooking) is producing the kind of content TikTok's own monetization system is designed to reward. That's a different, and often more valuable, partnership than a generalist creator with a larger but shallower audience.
The evolution from the Creator Fund to the Creator Rewards Program reflects TikTok's serious commitment to building a sustainable creator economy. That's good news for brands. When creators have a real financial incentive to produce excellent content, and when that incentive rewards the exact qualities (originality, engagement, niche depth) that brands want from partnerships, the platform's interests and brand interests align.
TikTok's Creator Academy, Creator Search Insights, and expanded dashboard analytics are further signs of a platform that's investing in creator success at every level. Brands that treat TikTok as a serious long-term channel and engage genuinely with the communities forming there are well-positioned to benefit.