TikTok launches Live subscription service

Announced earlier this week, the beta service officially went live to a select number of creators today. It will work by invite only, before rolling out to other eligible users in the coming weeks. The tool will charge fans a monthly fee in exchange for access to creators’ content, including perks such as profile badges and custom emotes to use in livestream chats. Users must be at least 18 years old to buy a subscription.

Creators will have the option to switch their TikTok streams to subscriber-only mode, which gives paid subscribers additional features like the ability to comment on a video and participate in Q&As. Creators will be able to personalise their virtual rooms.

Earlier this week, a number of selected creators – including artists, game streamers, vloggers, musicians and dancers – shared the news on social media. The monthly subscription service could offer creators a more predictable revenue stream, instead of relying on less certain virtual tips from fans. Pricing for the service has not been announced yet. However, TechCrunch reports that a number creators had said TikTok Live’s pricing and revenue cut would be similar to Twitch’s fee structure. Twitch subscriptions start at $4.99 a month with a 30 to 50% cut of the subscription revenue going to the company.

Among the invited creators for the beta programme is popular Twitch creator BBJess, who has been posting content on TikTok since 2019. The creator said the most she earned from a single stream on TikTok was $200 for about three hours of work. She said she could generate $2 000 to $3 000 on Twitch for the same period, through subscription revenue and donations from fans. In January, several big names in the creator economy called out TikTok for underpaying them.

Live video streaming is among the fastest-growing areas of social media. There has been a growing focus on the creator economy in the past few years, with major social media companies ramping up their platforms to offer content creators new ways of earning money.

In January, Instagram started testing subscriptions in the US, offering paid access to exclusive Instagram Live videos and Stories. Twitter, meanwhile, introduced its Super Follows platform last year, which now allows creators to host Super Follows-only Spaces for their fans.