[UPDATE - March 25, 2021]: Beginning March 25, 2021, creators will need at least 100K authentic video views in the last 30 days to be eligible to join the Creator Fund. The Creator Fund is in its early stages, and we're continuously exploring new ways to improve the experience for our creator community and the way creators are rewarded. We’re looking forward to sharing more information soon!

Last month we launched our $1B TikTok Creator Fund to support and reward creators for the time and dedication they put into creating entertaining, inspiring, and uplifting content for the TikTok community. So far, tens of thousands of US creators have applied and joined the Creator Fund, including finance guru @humphreytalks, creative mixologist @theparadise.bartender, and woodworking expert @johnsoncowoodworking. Over the last few weeks, we've seen more diverse and engaging content than ever before, from learning about the difference between a Honey Badger and a Tasmanian Devil to how to cut a jackfruit to what school teachers find comical. 

As we continue to make progress with the program, we're excited to announce that the Creator Fund wallet will soon be available. In just a couple of weeks, creators will be able to transfer funds from the Creator Fund to their linked payment method, and at the end of each month, creators will be able to withdraw their earned funds and enjoy the fruit of their creativity and passion.

From well-known creators to stars on the rise, we're thrilled to be able to support and reward those who contribute to the ever-evolving and growing TikTok community. Since this is a new program, we also know that there are questions and even theories about how the Creator Fund operates, and we want to address two of those that we hear most frequently. 

First, being in the Creator Fund has no direct impact on the TikTok recommendation system. On TikTok, For You feed recommendations reflect preferences unique to each user and the recommendation system doesn't know whether or not a creator is part of the Creator Fund. Therefore, being part of the Creator Fund doesn't affect how your videos will perform – it just means you will now be rewarded for them.

We reviewed a sample set of users whose follower counts range from 10K to 10M and who have consistently uploaded videos, seven days before and seven days after they joined the Creator Fund. We found that video viewership continued to fluctuate, though a majority of users' video views increased after joining the program. We then looked at the data more broadly - at the performance of creators in the fund, and those outside of the fund - and found viewership performance was the same.

Community-favorite creator, author, and entrepreneur, @hankgreen1, tested things out by exiting the Fund for a period of time to observe whether or not his video views improved, then re-joined and shared his learnings with us:

"I was just proving to some creator friends of mine that turning off creator fund wasn't going to fix my drop in views. Not sure if you've seen the theories, but when a platform makes a big change like this, it's easy to anchor any change in views on the new thing rather than other possible explanations. It was also nice to go through the process of turning it off and on just to see how it worked. Super smooth!" - @hankgreen1 

Second, funds are calculated based upon a number of factors. These factors include video views, video engagement, authenticity of a view, region in which your video is viewed, total participants in the program, as well as adherence to the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. What is uniquely TikTok about the Creator Fund is that a video has the opportunity to reach global audiences. Like video views, funds are therefore dynamic.

The Creator Fund is in its early stages and we appreciate your patience and ideas as we continue to improve the experience for those in the program, better explain how it works, and evolve things to meet the expectations and needs of our community. We're committed to our creators and are here to support you. We're always open to feedback and suggestions. If you have further questions or theories you want explained, we look forward to hearing from you. 

Follow @TikTokCreators, the official account for TikTok Creators, for more Creator Fund resources and tutorials from the TikTok Creator team.