TikTok Opens Fund to Pay Creators of Augmented Reality Filters

TikTok has announced a fund to reward effect creators on the social media platform for the effects they create using Effect House, the app’s augmented reality(AR) development platform, as a new way for this kind of creators to earn on the app.

The Effect Creator Rewards

About a year ago, TikTok launched The Effect House which serves as a powerful AR tool that makes it easy to create, publish, and share high-quality augmented effects and filters for use by creators on the platform.

Now, the platform intends to compensate creators for the effects that become popular. According to the announcement, Tiktok is creating a fund named the Effect Creator Rewards which will hold $6 million.

The fund will provide payments to creators based on how users interact with their effects. For example, at launch, if an effect is used in 500,000 unique videos within 90 days of its release, the creator will earn $700 USD. For every additional 100,000 videos published within that same 90 days, creators will receive an extra $140.

The statement also noted that the fund will only be applicable in select regions which according to a TikTok spokesperson are the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

“When we launched the Effect House beta – complete with development tools, guides, and learning resources — our goal was to equip designers, developers, and creators with all they needed to build dynamic Community Effects for TikTok’s global community,” TikTok said.

“Our investment in Effect Creator Rewards furthers that commitment, expanding opportunities for effect creators and helping support and reward their passion and creativity,” the social media company added.

After the release of the effects studio, Tiktok reportedly used influencers to help create filters and some of the selected creators said they hope to be better recognized for their work. This new fund, therefore, provides this recognition while providing a new way of monetization.

“My hope for the future is that big companies or brands will start giving credit to AR filter creators when using our work, especially when they are monetizing from it,” said Emma Sofija, who has made several viral randomized and gamified effects.

Yet Another Monetization Tool

The Effect Creators Rewards announcement also reiterated the Creativity Program Beta which Tiktok had opened up to all eligible creators in the United States, France, and Brazil just two weeks ago.

“We developed the new program taking into account valuable learnings and feedback from our creator community and designed it to encourage our creators to further unleash their creativity, generate higher revenue potential and unlock more exciting, real-world opportunities,” the company said.

To be eligible for the program, creators are required to have an account with at least 10,000 followers with a minimum of 100,000 views in the last 30 days. Creators are also required to be 18 years of age with high-quality and original content that is longer than one minute.

TikTok has cautioned that once creators join the new program, they cannot return to the Creator Fund. While it hasn’t confirmed if the Creativity Program will fully take over the Creator Fund, it seems likely that as the Creativity Program becomes more popular, the Creator Fund may be phased out.

According to the platform, the Creativity Program Beta rewards formula has been developed to provide a higher average gross revenue for qualified video views. The company’s Creator Fund was founded in 2020 with a commitment of $1 billion over three years, but creators have criticized it for receiving inadequate reimbursements.

At the beginning of last year, popular TikTok creator, Hank Green, calculated his TikTok earnings at roughly 2.5 cents per 1,000 views which led to other well-known creators sharing evidence of their low TikTok profits, including YouTube superstar Mr. Beast.

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