TikTok Shop affiliate for sellers: plans, commissions and samples

How the TikTok Shop affiliate program works for sellers

In the TikTok Shop affiliate program, a seller makes products available to creators, creators add them to their showcase and tag them in videos and LIVEs, and the seller pays a commission on each item that sells through that content. The seller chooses the products, the commission rate and whether to send samples. TikTok tracks the sale, takes the commission out of the order and pays the creator.

This guide is written for sellers, the shops that pay commission. Creators searching for the TikTok Shop affiliate program will find the creator requirements in a short section below, but the setup steps here all happen in the seller's Affiliate Center, which opens from Seller Center.

Affiliate sales are separate from selling on your own account. When a seller goes LIVE or posts videos from the shop's own TikTok account, TikTok calls it merchant self-selling, with no affiliate commission. Commission applies only when a creator's content makes the sale.

Open and targeted plans in the TikTok Shop affiliate program

TikTok Shop calls its affiliate plans collaborations. An open collaboration makes products visible to every TikTok Shop creator. A target collaboration is an invitation to creators you choose. A flat fee collaboration is a kind of target collaboration where you pay each creator a set fee and can add a commission on top; it covers Shoppable Videos and single video submissions only. The table compares the three.

A product can sit in an open and a target collaboration at the same time, but creators are paid one commission rate per product. Target rates always supersede the open collaboration commission rate, even when the open rate is higher, so set the target rate above the open one.

Older guides mention Shop Plans. TikTok says Shop Plans are no longer available and points sellers to the open collaboration instead, where auto-add puts new products into the open plan.

TikTok Shop affiliate commission settings

The commission is a percentage of the sale that you choose for each product. TikTok states the creator's commission as revenue minus refunds, times the commission rate. In your settlement report it is worked out as the product price excluding tax, minus any seller discount, times the commission rate, and it sits under Fees, the total of the referral fee, refund administration fee and affiliate commissions (standard, partner and Shop Ads).

Creators are typically paid on the 15th day after delivery, and only after the seller's orders are settled. If a refund or return happens before that payment, the commission is refunded to the seller. After the creator has been paid, the commission is non-refundable.

Example: on a $30 item at a 15% commission, with no seller discount and no refund, the creator earns $4.50. TikTok Shop's standard referral fee of 6% per order in most categories comes out of the same sale, so set the rate from what is left after the referral fee, shipping and samples, not from the item price alone.

• Rate lock: in an open collaboration, creators who are already promoting a product keep their rate for 30 days after you lower it, and get a notice 2 days before the lock ends. If no creator has promoted the product yet, a lower rate will take effect immediately.
• Raises: when you raise a rate, creators already promoting the product get the higher commission rate instantly.
• Shop Ads commission: you can set a separate, optional rate for orders from ads. If you leave it empty, those orders pay the Standard Commission Rate.
• Carousels: sales from Shoppable Carousels pay 60% of the commission rate for videos by default, and you can change the carousel rate.
• Auto-add rates: when products are added to the open collaboration automatically, you can pick one flat rate or let TikTok set an optimized rate based on the top 30% of performing products in your shop and in the product marketplace.

How to set up TikTok Shop affiliate in Affiliate Center

The steps below follow TikTok Shop Academy's collaboration and sample guides for US sellers.

1. Open Affiliate Center

   From Seller Center, open the TikTok Shop Affiliate Center. Its left menu leads to Open collaboration, Target collaboration, Find creators, Manage creators and Sample requests.

2. Check the open collaboration

   Your products are automatically added to an open collaboration. Open Auto-add products and choose either the optimized rate or one flat rate for all products, or turn auto-add off and add products by hand.

3. Set rates for your best sellers

   Edit the rate on the products you most want creators to film. Start with items that already sell, then adjust the rate on the rest.

4. Turn on samples

   Switch on free samples for the products you are willing to send, and set the sample quantity and the request period. Creator thresholds such as minimum follower count are managed on the Sample Settings page and apply automatically.

5. Send target invites

   For creators you want to work with directly, create a target collaboration: add the creators and products, set a higher rate, choose video or LIVE, write a short message and set an expiry date. You can send up to 1000 target collaborations in 24 hours.

6. Track who posts

   The open collaboration page and each target collaboration's details page show how many creators added a product to their showcase and posted content. In target collaborations, posting data has a 1-day delay, so check the next day.

TikTok Shop free samples: what the seller pays and the deadlines

Samples let creators try a product before they film it. TikTok Shop offers two kinds. With free samples, you pay for the product, shipping and tax and approve or reject each request. With refundable samples, the creator buys the product and is refunded after meeting the sample criteria you set.

In a target collaboration you can turn on automatic approval, so sample requests from invited creators are approved immediately. In an open collaboration, requests wait in the To review tab of Sample requests. TikTok also says products that offer relevant free samples are ranked higher when recommended to creators.

Each approval means that sample's inventory is reduced by 1. Choosing no limitation keeps samples open for requests, but you still approve or reject each one, so check Sample requests daily to keep creators from waiting.

Finding TikTok Shop creators in Affiliate Center

Find creators, under Discover creators in Affiliate Center, lists creators recommended for your shop and lets you search by product, hashtag or handle. Each creator card shows revenue, units sold, average video views and engagement rate for the last 30 days, which tells you whether a creator's videos already sell.

Filters cover product category, follower count, average commission rate, LIVE or video content, agency or independent creators, follower age and gender, and creators you have not invited recently. From a creator's card you can send a target invite, send a message or add them to Manage creators to invite later in a batch.

Outreach to creators you have not connected with is limited. Invites and messages draw on a combined quota set by the seller's past 30-day GMV and refreshed weekly, every Sunday. A new seller with no sales gets a one-time starter pack of 1000 outreach opportunities. You can send up to 5 messages to one creator in a week before they reply. Creators who contacted you first, replied to you or added your products to their showcase or a video are not subject to weekly limits.

TikTok Shop affiliate requirements for creators

This section is for creators, but the creator rules also decide who can promote your products. To join TikTok Shop as an affiliate creator in the US, a creator must meet these requirements:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Have a minimum of 1,000 followers and apply through TikTok Shop.
• Be based in the United States.
• Pass the Creator Identity Verification process and have no prior record of having e-commerce permissions revoked by TikTok Shop.

New affiliate creators with fewer than 5,000 followers start in a pilot program. During it they can promote only products from shops with a Shop Performance Score of 95% or higher. For a seller, that score decides whether creators in the pilot can promote your products, so check your Shop Performance Score in Seller Center before you count on small creators.

Where Nation fits

Questions about TikTok Shop affiliate