How Much Will Creators Lose if TikTok is Banned?

The clock is ticking for TikTok, which is a short week away from getting banned in the US. It's now up to the Supreme Court to decide, and no one seems eager to blink: TikTok claims it won’t sell and will shut down, and Washington wants it gone.

But there's one group no one's talking about, and they're going to get hurt the most - creators.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, TikTok creators have earned nearly half a billion dollars from TikTok's US users in 2024. And that's after Apple's and TikTok's fees.

TikTok has been the target of a ban order so many times in the last few years and always made it out alive, but this time could be different.

TikTok uses in-app purchases to sell coins which enable TikTok users to reward creators on the platform. The creators can then turn those coins into actual money while giving TikTok a share. So when a user makes an in-app purchase, they're really paying three groups: The creator, TikTok, and... the store.

TikTok is the highest-earning app in the world, so as you may imagine, all three groups are pretty happy every month.

Just how happy? Our App Intelligence shows TikTok's US users bought $144M worth of coins in December (aka gross revenue). I'm focusing in on the US here because that's what's at stake.

Of that total, Apple and Google take 30%, which adds up to around $43M, while TikTok splits what's left with the creators. That's what I was able to see in my research (please let me know if it's different). That means creators got roughly $51M and TikTok kept $51M in December from its US users.

Just US users.

For context, ChatGPT which is growing like wildfire, earned $41M in net revenue in December, according to our estimates. Less than what Apple and Google made in fees!

Looking at all of 2024, Apple and Google kept $417M of TikTok's $1.4B estimated haul. That's enough money to buy every Brooklyn resident a pair of Apple AirPods. Creators, and TikTok, each kept a smidge under a half billion.

This is a lot of money, so I wouldn't be surprised with we see a last-minute surprise.