As a TikTok Shop seller, you already know you’re paying some fees. So why is it so hard to work out which ones and how much? And why does every guide you open cite a different number?
There are a few reasons TikTok Shop fees can get confusing.
TikTok charges you one fee for the sale itself: a referral fee of 6% to 8% in the US and 9% in the UK. On most sales that come through creators, it’s also one of the smallest costs you’ll pay.
The rest comes from affiliate commissions, shipping, returns, and ads, all of which can end up as costs you haven’t planned for.
So when you read a guide, you end up feeling like you’ve booked a $49 flight and found out at the checkout that the seat, the bag, and the boarding pass cost extra. Technically, the $49 was true.
In this article, we’ll go through every fee that lands on your settlement statement, what each one is calculated on, and which ones you should pay extra attention to.
You will learn:
How much TikTok Shop takes from sellers
Why the referral fee is not the biggest concern
The cost of affiliate commissions, shipping, and returns
What a $30 sale leaves you with once everything is accounted for
Let’s get started.
Key takeaways
TikTok Shop has no monthly subscription or listing fee. US sellers pay a referral fee per order: 6% on TikTok’s published table, though several seller reports say it rose to 8% on August 4, 2026. UK sellers pay 9%.
On creator-driven sales, affiliate commission (usually 10% to 20%) and shipping cost more than TikTok’s own fee.
Refunds cost little in fees (in the US, 20% of the referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU), but return shipping and damaged stock cost far more.
Price around your full cost per order, not just TikTok’s referral fee.
How much does TikTok Shop take from sellers?
The short answer is 6% per order in the US. Probably.
TikTok’s own referral fee table lists 6% for most categories and 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned items.
However, a few seller-focused publications report that the standard US rate went up to 8% for most non-food categories on August 4, 2026.
So which one is it? The only amount you should rely on is the one on your own settlement statement. Fee charges reach you through Seller Center first, so your statement will show you the more accurate number before any blog does (this one included).
In the UK, things are a bit simpler: the rate is 9% for most categories, and it has been since September 2024. In both countries, there’s no monthly subscription, no listing fee, and no separate payment processing charge.
In the US, TikTok’s fee policy says the referral fee covers all TikTok Shop fees except shipping and tax, which makes it a cheap way to sell compared to eBay’s seller fees.
How the referral fee is calculated
TikTok calculates the referral fee on what the customer paid, plus any discount TikTok funded, minus tax.
What the customer paid includes any shipping the buyer covered, so the fee isn’t charged on your product price alone.
In TikTok’s own example, a buyer pays $102, TikTok funds a $5 discount, and tax is $2. At 6%, the fee is $6.30.
If you fund a discount yourself, your fee goes down with the price. If TikTok funds it, you get paid as if the buyer paid the full price, and the fee is calculated on the full price as well. Platform coupons do not lower your fees.
TikTok Shop fees at a glance
Fee | Who sets it | US | UK |
|---|---|---|---|
Referral fee | TikTok | 6% on most categories (8% reported since August 4, 2026); 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned | 9% on most categories |
Affiliate commission | You | Usually 10% to 20% | Usually 10% to 20% |
Smart Promotion (opt-in) | TikTok | 3.5% of store GMV, 4.5% during campaigns | Check Seller Center |
Shipping and fulfillment | TikTok or your carrier | Label cost or FBT per-unit fee, based on weight and size | Label cost; shipping your own orders is still allowed |
Refund administration fee | TikTok | 20% of the refunded referral fee, max $5 per SKU | Check Seller Center |
Ads | You | Optional | Optional |
Subscription or listing fee | – | None | None |
But if that were the whole story, this article would end here.
Why the referral fee isn't the biggest problem
To answer that, let’s start with a question: what does selling on a typical marketplace cost you?
You list an item, a buyer finds it in search, and the marketplace takes its fee. That’s it! The buyer came looking for something, and the marketplace did the matching.
On TikTok Shop, the buyer usually wasn’t looking for anything. They were scrolling. Your product showed up because a creator made a video about it, or because you paid for an ad.
That’s why on TikTok Shop, you pay twice: once to TikTok for the sale, and once to whoever got the buyer’s attention. The second payment is usually more concerning.
Affiliate commission: the fee you set yourself
This is one of the few costs that TikTok doesn’t decide for you.
For those who don’t know, here’s how affiliate commissions on TikTok work: you add a product to the affiliate program, pick a commission rate, and any creator who sells it through a video or a LIVE gets that percentage. In most cases, that commission lands somewhere between 10% and 20%. In more crowded categories like beauty, creators usually expect more.
On a $30 product, a 15% commission is $4.50. TikTok’s referral fee on the same sale is $1.80.
So should you offer a high commission? It depends, but you generally have two options:
Option A: Aim for the higher end early. New shops have almost no organic reach, so creators pick products partly based on what they’ll earn. A better rate can get your product into videos faster, and one good video can do more than a month of your own posting.
Option B: Keep it modest. A high rate on a product with a not-so-great margin means every sale costs you more than it should, and selling out a product that loses money means losing even more with higher commissions.
The best advice is probably somewhere in between, and it depends on the product. Give higher rates to products with room in the profit margin and be conservative with the rest.
The changing rules for shipping
TikTok’s referral fee doesn’t cover shipping, which is exactly why shipping became a sensitive topic for US sellers in 2026.
In January, TikTok told US sellers it would end Seller Shipping, the option that let you buy labels from your own carrier, and move everyone to its own logistics: Fulfilled by TikTok (FBT), Upgraded TikTok Shipping, or Collections by TikTok.
US sellers weren’t happy with it, to say the least. In mid-February, TikTok backtracked: Seller Shipping stayed and the deadlines were dropped.
But TikTok paused the plan rather than scrapping it, and shops that onboarded in early February had to use TikTok’s logistics from day one.
Confused? You’re not the only one. Where your shop stands depends on when you onboarded and what Seller Center shows for you, so check that before you plan a shipping budget.
If you sell in the UK, you don’t have to worry about any of this. The shake-up was US-only, and shipping your own orders is still an option there.
Either way, the costs work the same. With Upgraded TikTok Shipping, you keep your own warehouse, but TikTok chooses the carrier and prints the label.
With FBT, TikTok stores and ships your stock, and you pay per-unit fulfillment fees and storage if the inventory remains unsold for long.
Both fees depend on the weight and size, meaning that a candle in a heavy glass jar is more expensive to ship than a T-shirt at the same price.
If you use FBT, check the current rate card before you price. TikTok published a new FBT fee schedule that took effect on November 1, 2026.
Returns cost you more than the fee
When an order is refunded in the US, TikTok gives you the referral fee back, minus a refund administration fee of 20% of that fee, capped at $5 per SKU. That’s 36 cents at 6% on a sale of $30, which definitely won’t ruin your business.
However, everything else a return brings will hurt more: the shipping you already paid, the product that might come back worn or damaged, and the time you spend dealing with it. Returns do even more damage to profit in apparel, where buyers often order two sizes and send one back.
UK sellers have one more thing to plan for. Under UK consumer law, online buyers can generally cancel within 14 days without giving a reason, so in the UK, change-of-mind returns are a legal right.
Look at your listings before your fees if you notice that returns are damaging your profits. Things like better size charts and honest photos can often be a much bigger budget saver.
Ads are optional (technically)
Nothing stops you from simply not running ads on TikTok Shop. But at some point, creator videos will stop bringing in sales, and, like most sellers, you’ll end up paying for ads to keep things moving.
Ads aren’t a fee, but they come out of the same profit margin and they’re much harder to predict as a cost.
Track ad spend per product instead of for the shop overall to see what’s working. Otherwise, one bestseller can hide three products that lose money whenever they sell.
Smart Promotion: the fee on top of the fee
Smart Promotion is TikTok’s own discount program, and it comes with a fee that’s easy to miss.
In the US, enrolled sellers pay 3.5% of their total store GMV, rising to 4.5% during big campaigns like Black Friday. In return, TikTok runs coupons and discounts on your products.
It’s opt-in, but staying out has a cost too: since April, you need it to join TikTok’s major campaigns. And remember how the referral fee works. Those TikTok coupons don’t lower your referral fee, and your Smart Promotion fee helps pay for them.
If you enroll, add 3.5% to your cost per order (4.5% in campaign months) before you set a price.
The new seller discount
TikTok usually gives new sellers a reduced referral rate for their first weeks (in the UK, it has offered 0% commission windows to new shops).
The terms change often, so once again, check what Seller Center offers to you specifically.
If the offer is good, take it, but don’t price around it. The discount eventually ends, the full rate takes effect, and a product priced for the promo rate starts losing money overnight.
What a $30 sale leaves you with
Here’s all of that on one creator-driven sale. Shipping and ads are assumed since yours will be different.
Cost | Amount | Share of $30 |
Referral fee (6%) | $1.80 | 6% |
Affiliate commission (15%) | $4.50 | 15% |
Shipping and fulfillment (assumed) | $5.00 | 17% |
Ads (assumed) | $3.00 | 10% |
Total before product cost | $14.30 | 48% |
That leaves $15.70 to pay for the product itself, packaging and returns. Nearly half the price is gone, and TikTok’s own fee is the smallest line on the table.
If the 8% rate applies to you, the referral fee is $2.40 and you keep $15.10. Enrolled in Smart Promotion? Take off another $1.05, or $1.35 during campaigns.
How to price all of this
All of the above brings us to the chicken-and-egg problem of TikTok Shop pricing. You need a price before you know your real cost, and you can’t know the real cost until you’ve sold for a while.
What’s the solution? Price for a realistic worst case. Assume that the sale comes through a creator, assume some returns, and account for TikTok’s shipping.
If the product still makes money, great. If it only works at 6% with no creators involved, then it doesn’t really work on TikTok Shop.
If you sell the same item elsewhere, it doesn’t need one price everywhere either.
With Crosslist’s price adjustments, you can add a markup for TikTok Shop to cover creator commission and keep the price lower where fees are lighter.
Don't put the whole shop on one platform
If your whole business depends on TikTok, every fee and policy change lands directly on your profit margin.
Selling the same inventory spreads that risk out. Crosslist lets you import TikTok Shop listings, with photos, titles, descriptions, and prices, and publish them to eBay, Depop, Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, and other marketplaces using one universal form.
When an item sells on one marketplace, autodelisting removes it from the others, so you never sell the same item twice.
Crosslist is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia with plans starting from $29.99 a month and a 3-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.
Start with Crosslist and list your TikTok Shop inventory everywhere else in one go.
The bottom line
TikTok Shop seller fees aren't high. The referral fee is competitive, there's no subscription, and payment processing is included.
But everything around the fee makes TikTok Shop expensive: creators expect a cut, shipping rules keep changing, and ads always need a bigger budget.
The sellers who make money here pay TikTok the same as everyone else. They just know their full cost per order before they set a price.
About Crosslist
Crosslist is a cross listing tool for online sellers. Create a listing once with one universal form, or import it straight from TikTok Shop, and publish it to eBay, Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, Whatnot, Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, and more.
When an item sells, Crosslist detects the sale and delists it everywhere else, and the sales dashboard shows revenue and profit across all your shops. Crosslist works on computer, iOS, and Android, and it’s available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Try Crosslist risk-free with a 3-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
Does TikTok Shop charge a monthly fee?
There's no subscription and no listing fee. TikTok makes its money from the referral fee on each completed order.
What percentage does TikTok Shop take in the UK?
9%, in place since September 2024.
Do I still pay fees if an order is returned?
In the US, TikTok refunds the referral fee but keeps a refund administration fee of 20% of it, capped at $5 per SKU. Shipping you already paid and the condition of the returned item are separate costs.
Is the affiliate commission included in the referral fee?
No. You set the affiliate commission, and it's paid to the creator on top of TikTok's referral fee.
Does TikTok Shop charge a transaction fee?
Not anymore. Some guides still list a payment processing fee of a few percent plus $0.30, but that applied only to older US orders. Today, payment processing is included in the referral fee in both the US and the UK.
Is TikTok Shop worth it for sellers?
It can be, if your product has room in the margin. The fees themselves are low, but creator commission, shipping, and returns add up fast.
Products that look good on video and sell on impulse tend to do well. Low-priced or heavy items often don’t leave enough after costs.
Selling the same inventory on other marketplaces alongside TikTok also means you don’t depend on one platform’s rules.
As a TikTok Shop seller, you already know you’re paying some fees. So why is it so hard to work out which ones and how much? And why does every guide you open cite a different number?
There are a few reasons TikTok Shop fees can get confusing.
TikTok charges you one fee for the sale itself: a referral fee of 6% to 8% in the US and 9% in the UK. On most sales that come through creators, it’s also one of the smallest costs you’ll pay.
The rest comes from affiliate commissions, shipping, returns, and ads, all of which can end up as costs you haven’t planned for.
So when you read a guide, you end up feeling like you’ve booked a $49 flight and found out at the checkout that the seat, the bag, and the boarding pass cost extra. Technically, the $49 was true.
In this article, we’ll go through every fee that lands on your settlement statement, what each one is calculated on, and which ones you should pay extra attention to.
You will learn:
How much TikTok Shop takes from sellers
Why the referral fee is not the biggest concern
The cost of affiliate commissions, shipping, and returns
What a $30 sale leaves you with once everything is accounted for
Let’s get started.
Key takeaways
TikTok Shop has no monthly subscription or listing fee. US sellers pay a referral fee per order: 6% on TikTok’s published table, though several seller reports say it rose to 8% on August 4, 2026. UK sellers pay 9%.
On creator-driven sales, affiliate commission (usually 10% to 20%) and shipping cost more than TikTok’s own fee.
Refunds cost little in fees (in the US, 20% of the referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU), but return shipping and damaged stock cost far more.
Price around your full cost per order, not just TikTok’s referral fee.
How much does TikTok Shop take from sellers?
The short answer is 6% per order in the US. Probably.
TikTok’s own referral fee table lists 6% for most categories and 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned items.
However, a few seller-focused publications report that the standard US rate went up to 8% for most non-food categories on August 4, 2026.
So which one is it? The only amount you should rely on is the one on your own settlement statement. Fee charges reach you through Seller Center first, so your statement will show you the more accurate number before any blog does (this one included).
In the UK, things are a bit simpler: the rate is 9% for most categories, and it has been since September 2024. In both countries, there’s no monthly subscription, no listing fee, and no separate payment processing charge.
In the US, TikTok’s fee policy says the referral fee covers all TikTok Shop fees except shipping and tax, which makes it a cheap way to sell compared to eBay’s seller fees.
How the referral fee is calculated
TikTok calculates the referral fee on what the customer paid, plus any discount TikTok funded, minus tax.
What the customer paid includes any shipping the buyer covered, so the fee isn’t charged on your product price alone.
In TikTok’s own example, a buyer pays $102, TikTok funds a $5 discount, and tax is $2. At 6%, the fee is $6.30.
If you fund a discount yourself, your fee goes down with the price. If TikTok funds it, you get paid as if the buyer paid the full price, and the fee is calculated on the full price as well. Platform coupons do not lower your fees.
TikTok Shop fees at a glance
Fee | Who sets it | US | UK |
|---|---|---|---|
Referral fee | TikTok | 6% on most categories (8% reported since August 4, 2026); 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned | 9% on most categories |
Affiliate commission | You | Usually 10% to 20% | Usually 10% to 20% |
Smart Promotion (opt-in) | TikTok | 3.5% of store GMV, 4.5% during campaigns | Check Seller Center |
Shipping and fulfillment | TikTok or your carrier | Label cost or FBT per-unit fee, based on weight and size | Label cost; shipping your own orders is still allowed |
Refund administration fee | TikTok | 20% of the refunded referral fee, max $5 per SKU | Check Seller Center |
Ads | You | Optional | Optional |
Subscription or listing fee | – | None | None |
But if that were the whole story, this article would end here.
Why the referral fee isn't the biggest problem
To answer that, let’s start with a question: what does selling on a typical marketplace cost you?
You list an item, a buyer finds it in search, and the marketplace takes its fee. That’s it! The buyer came looking for something, and the marketplace did the matching.
On TikTok Shop, the buyer usually wasn’t looking for anything. They were scrolling. Your product showed up because a creator made a video about it, or because you paid for an ad.
That’s why on TikTok Shop, you pay twice: once to TikTok for the sale, and once to whoever got the buyer’s attention. The second payment is usually more concerning.
Affiliate commission: the fee you set yourself
This is one of the few costs that TikTok doesn’t decide for you.
For those who don’t know, here’s how affiliate commissions on TikTok work: you add a product to the affiliate program, pick a commission rate, and any creator who sells it through a video or a LIVE gets that percentage. In most cases, that commission lands somewhere between 10% and 20%. In more crowded categories like beauty, creators usually expect more.
On a $30 product, a 15% commission is $4.50. TikTok’s referral fee on the same sale is $1.80.
So should you offer a high commission? It depends, but you generally have two options:
Option A: Aim for the higher end early. New shops have almost no organic reach, so creators pick products partly based on what they’ll earn. A better rate can get your product into videos faster, and one good video can do more than a month of your own posting.
Option B: Keep it modest. A high rate on a product with a not-so-great margin means every sale costs you more than it should, and selling out a product that loses money means losing even more with higher commissions.
The best advice is probably somewhere in between, and it depends on the product. Give higher rates to products with room in the profit margin and be conservative with the rest.
The changing rules for shipping
TikTok’s referral fee doesn’t cover shipping, which is exactly why shipping became a sensitive topic for US sellers in 2026.
In January, TikTok told US sellers it would end Seller Shipping, the option that let you buy labels from your own carrier, and move everyone to its own logistics: Fulfilled by TikTok (FBT), Upgraded TikTok Shipping, or Collections by TikTok.
US sellers weren’t happy with it, to say the least. In mid-February, TikTok backtracked: Seller Shipping stayed and the deadlines were dropped.
But TikTok paused the plan rather than scrapping it, and shops that onboarded in early February had to use TikTok’s logistics from day one.
Confused? You’re not the only one. Where your shop stands depends on when you onboarded and what Seller Center shows for you, so check that before you plan a shipping budget.
If you sell in the UK, you don’t have to worry about any of this. The shake-up was US-only, and shipping your own orders is still an option there.
Either way, the costs work the same. With Upgraded TikTok Shipping, you keep your own warehouse, but TikTok chooses the carrier and prints the label.
With FBT, TikTok stores and ships your stock, and you pay per-unit fulfillment fees and storage if the inventory remains unsold for long.
Both fees depend on the weight and size, meaning that a candle in a heavy glass jar is more expensive to ship than a T-shirt at the same price.
If you use FBT, check the current rate card before you price. TikTok published a new FBT fee schedule that took effect on November 1, 2026.
Returns cost you more than the fee
When an order is refunded in the US, TikTok gives you the referral fee back, minus a refund administration fee of 20% of that fee, capped at $5 per SKU. That’s 36 cents at 6% on a sale of $30, which definitely won’t ruin your business.
However, everything else a return brings will hurt more: the shipping you already paid, the product that might come back worn or damaged, and the time you spend dealing with it. Returns do even more damage to profit in apparel, where buyers often order two sizes and send one back.
UK sellers have one more thing to plan for. Under UK consumer law, online buyers can generally cancel within 14 days without giving a reason, so in the UK, change-of-mind returns are a legal right.
Look at your listings before your fees if you notice that returns are damaging your profits. Things like better size charts and honest photos can often be a much bigger budget saver.
Ads are optional (technically)
Nothing stops you from simply not running ads on TikTok Shop. But at some point, creator videos will stop bringing in sales, and, like most sellers, you’ll end up paying for ads to keep things moving.
Ads aren’t a fee, but they come out of the same profit margin and they’re much harder to predict as a cost.
Track ad spend per product instead of for the shop overall to see what’s working. Otherwise, one bestseller can hide three products that lose money whenever they sell.
Smart Promotion: the fee on top of the fee
Smart Promotion is TikTok’s own discount program, and it comes with a fee that’s easy to miss.
In the US, enrolled sellers pay 3.5% of their total store GMV, rising to 4.5% during big campaigns like Black Friday. In return, TikTok runs coupons and discounts on your products.
It’s opt-in, but staying out has a cost too: since April, you need it to join TikTok’s major campaigns. And remember how the referral fee works. Those TikTok coupons don’t lower your referral fee, and your Smart Promotion fee helps pay for them.
If you enroll, add 3.5% to your cost per order (4.5% in campaign months) before you set a price.
The new seller discount
TikTok usually gives new sellers a reduced referral rate for their first weeks (in the UK, it has offered 0% commission windows to new shops).
The terms change often, so once again, check what Seller Center offers to you specifically.
If the offer is good, take it, but don’t price around it. The discount eventually ends, the full rate takes effect, and a product priced for the promo rate starts losing money overnight.
What a $30 sale leaves you with
Here’s all of that on one creator-driven sale. Shipping and ads are assumed since yours will be different.
Cost | Amount | Share of $30 |
Referral fee (6%) | $1.80 | 6% |
Affiliate commission (15%) | $4.50 | 15% |
Shipping and fulfillment (assumed) | $5.00 | 17% |
Ads (assumed) | $3.00 | 10% |
Total before product cost | $14.30 | 48% |
That leaves $15.70 to pay for the product itself, packaging and returns. Nearly half the price is gone, and TikTok’s own fee is the smallest line on the table.
If the 8% rate applies to you, the referral fee is $2.40 and you keep $15.10. Enrolled in Smart Promotion? Take off another $1.05, or $1.35 during campaigns.
How to price all of this
All of the above brings us to the chicken-and-egg problem of TikTok Shop pricing. You need a price before you know your real cost, and you can’t know the real cost until you’ve sold for a while.
What’s the solution? Price for a realistic worst case. Assume that the sale comes through a creator, assume some returns, and account for TikTok’s shipping.
If the product still makes money, great. If it only works at 6% with no creators involved, then it doesn’t really work on TikTok Shop.
If you sell the same item elsewhere, it doesn’t need one price everywhere either.
With Crosslist’s price adjustments, you can add a markup for TikTok Shop to cover creator commission and keep the price lower where fees are lighter.
Don't put the whole shop on one platform
If your whole business depends on TikTok, every fee and policy change lands directly on your profit margin.
Selling the same inventory spreads that risk out. Crosslist lets you import TikTok Shop listings, with photos, titles, descriptions, and prices, and publish them to eBay, Depop, Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, and other marketplaces using one universal form.
When an item sells on one marketplace, autodelisting removes it from the others, so you never sell the same item twice.
Crosslist is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia with plans starting from $29.99 a month and a 3-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.
Start with Crosslist and list your TikTok Shop inventory everywhere else in one go.
The bottom line
TikTok Shop seller fees aren't high. The referral fee is competitive, there's no subscription, and payment processing is included.
But everything around the fee makes TikTok Shop expensive: creators expect a cut, shipping rules keep changing, and ads always need a bigger budget.
The sellers who make money here pay TikTok the same as everyone else. They just know their full cost per order before they set a price.
About Crosslist
Crosslist is a cross listing tool for online sellers. Create a listing once with one universal form, or import it straight from TikTok Shop, and publish it to eBay, Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, Whatnot, Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, and more.
When an item sells, Crosslist detects the sale and delists it everywhere else, and the sales dashboard shows revenue and profit across all your shops. Crosslist works on computer, iOS, and Android, and it’s available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Try Crosslist risk-free with a 3-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
Does TikTok Shop charge a monthly fee?
There's no subscription and no listing fee. TikTok makes its money from the referral fee on each completed order.
What percentage does TikTok Shop take in the UK?
9%, in place since September 2024.
Do I still pay fees if an order is returned?
In the US, TikTok refunds the referral fee but keeps a refund administration fee of 20% of it, capped at $5 per SKU. Shipping you already paid and the condition of the returned item are separate costs.
Is the affiliate commission included in the referral fee?
No. You set the affiliate commission, and it's paid to the creator on top of TikTok's referral fee.
Does TikTok Shop charge a transaction fee?
Not anymore. Some guides still list a payment processing fee of a few percent plus $0.30, but that applied only to older US orders. Today, payment processing is included in the referral fee in both the US and the UK.
Is TikTok Shop worth it for sellers?
It can be, if your product has room in the margin. The fees themselves are low, but creator commission, shipping, and returns add up fast.
Products that look good on video and sell on impulse tend to do well. Low-priced or heavy items often don’t leave enough after costs.
Selling the same inventory on other marketplaces alongside TikTok also means you don’t depend on one platform’s rules.
As a TikTok Shop seller, you already know you’re paying some fees. So why is it so hard to work out which ones and how much? And why does every guide you open cite a different number?
There are a few reasons TikTok Shop fees can get confusing.
TikTok charges you one fee for the sale itself: a referral fee of 6% to 8% in the US and 9% in the UK. On most sales that come through creators, it’s also one of the smallest costs you’ll pay.
The rest comes from affiliate commissions, shipping, returns, and ads, all of which can end up as costs you haven’t planned for.
So when you read a guide, you end up feeling like you’ve booked a $49 flight and found out at the checkout that the seat, the bag, and the boarding pass cost extra. Technically, the $49 was true.
In this article, we’ll go through every fee that lands on your settlement statement, what each one is calculated on, and which ones you should pay extra attention to.
You will learn:
How much TikTok Shop takes from sellers
Why the referral fee is not the biggest concern
The cost of affiliate commissions, shipping, and returns
What a $30 sale leaves you with once everything is accounted for
Let’s get started.
Key takeaways
TikTok Shop has no monthly subscription or listing fee. US sellers pay a referral fee per order: 6% on TikTok’s published table, though several seller reports say it rose to 8% on August 4, 2026. UK sellers pay 9%.
On creator-driven sales, affiliate commission (usually 10% to 20%) and shipping cost more than TikTok’s own fee.
Refunds cost little in fees (in the US, 20% of the referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU), but return shipping and damaged stock cost far more.
Price around your full cost per order, not just TikTok’s referral fee.
How much does TikTok Shop take from sellers?
The short answer is 6% per order in the US. Probably.
TikTok’s own referral fee table lists 6% for most categories and 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned items.
However, a few seller-focused publications report that the standard US rate went up to 8% for most non-food categories on August 4, 2026.
So which one is it? The only amount you should rely on is the one on your own settlement statement. Fee charges reach you through Seller Center first, so your statement will show you the more accurate number before any blog does (this one included).
In the UK, things are a bit simpler: the rate is 9% for most categories, and it has been since September 2024. In both countries, there’s no monthly subscription, no listing fee, and no separate payment processing charge.
In the US, TikTok’s fee policy says the referral fee covers all TikTok Shop fees except shipping and tax, which makes it a cheap way to sell compared to eBay’s seller fees.
How the referral fee is calculated
TikTok calculates the referral fee on what the customer paid, plus any discount TikTok funded, minus tax.
What the customer paid includes any shipping the buyer covered, so the fee isn’t charged on your product price alone.
In TikTok’s own example, a buyer pays $102, TikTok funds a $5 discount, and tax is $2. At 6%, the fee is $6.30.
If you fund a discount yourself, your fee goes down with the price. If TikTok funds it, you get paid as if the buyer paid the full price, and the fee is calculated on the full price as well. Platform coupons do not lower your fees.
TikTok Shop fees at a glance
Fee | Who sets it | US | UK |
|---|---|---|---|
Referral fee | TikTok | 6% on most categories (8% reported since August 4, 2026); 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned | 9% on most categories |
Affiliate commission | You | Usually 10% to 20% | Usually 10% to 20% |
Smart Promotion (opt-in) | TikTok | 3.5% of store GMV, 4.5% during campaigns | Check Seller Center |
Shipping and fulfillment | TikTok or your carrier | Label cost or FBT per-unit fee, based on weight and size | Label cost; shipping your own orders is still allowed |
Refund administration fee | TikTok | 20% of the refunded referral fee, max $5 per SKU | Check Seller Center |
Ads | You | Optional | Optional |
Subscription or listing fee | – | None | None |
But if that were the whole story, this article would end here.
Why the referral fee isn't the biggest problem
To answer that, let’s start with a question: what does selling on a typical marketplace cost you?
You list an item, a buyer finds it in search, and the marketplace takes its fee. That’s it! The buyer came looking for something, and the marketplace did the matching.
On TikTok Shop, the buyer usually wasn’t looking for anything. They were scrolling. Your product showed up because a creator made a video about it, or because you paid for an ad.
That’s why on TikTok Shop, you pay twice: once to TikTok for the sale, and once to whoever got the buyer’s attention. The second payment is usually more concerning.
Affiliate commission: the fee you set yourself
This is one of the few costs that TikTok doesn’t decide for you.
For those who don’t know, here’s how affiliate commissions on TikTok work: you add a product to the affiliate program, pick a commission rate, and any creator who sells it through a video or a LIVE gets that percentage. In most cases, that commission lands somewhere between 10% and 20%. In more crowded categories like beauty, creators usually expect more.
On a $30 product, a 15% commission is $4.50. TikTok’s referral fee on the same sale is $1.80.
So should you offer a high commission? It depends, but you generally have two options:
Option A: Aim for the higher end early. New shops have almost no organic reach, so creators pick products partly based on what they’ll earn. A better rate can get your product into videos faster, and one good video can do more than a month of your own posting.
Option B: Keep it modest. A high rate on a product with a not-so-great margin means every sale costs you more than it should, and selling out a product that loses money means losing even more with higher commissions.
The best advice is probably somewhere in between, and it depends on the product. Give higher rates to products with room in the profit margin and be conservative with the rest.
The changing rules for shipping
TikTok’s referral fee doesn’t cover shipping, which is exactly why shipping became a sensitive topic for US sellers in 2026.
In January, TikTok told US sellers it would end Seller Shipping, the option that let you buy labels from your own carrier, and move everyone to its own logistics: Fulfilled by TikTok (FBT), Upgraded TikTok Shipping, or Collections by TikTok.
US sellers weren’t happy with it, to say the least. In mid-February, TikTok backtracked: Seller Shipping stayed and the deadlines were dropped.
But TikTok paused the plan rather than scrapping it, and shops that onboarded in early February had to use TikTok’s logistics from day one.
Confused? You’re not the only one. Where your shop stands depends on when you onboarded and what Seller Center shows for you, so check that before you plan a shipping budget.
If you sell in the UK, you don’t have to worry about any of this. The shake-up was US-only, and shipping your own orders is still an option there.
Either way, the costs work the same. With Upgraded TikTok Shipping, you keep your own warehouse, but TikTok chooses the carrier and prints the label.
With FBT, TikTok stores and ships your stock, and you pay per-unit fulfillment fees and storage if the inventory remains unsold for long.
Both fees depend on the weight and size, meaning that a candle in a heavy glass jar is more expensive to ship than a T-shirt at the same price.
If you use FBT, check the current rate card before you price. TikTok published a new FBT fee schedule that took effect on November 1, 2026.
Returns cost you more than the fee
When an order is refunded in the US, TikTok gives you the referral fee back, minus a refund administration fee of 20% of that fee, capped at $5 per SKU. That’s 36 cents at 6% on a sale of $30, which definitely won’t ruin your business.
However, everything else a return brings will hurt more: the shipping you already paid, the product that might come back worn or damaged, and the time you spend dealing with it. Returns do even more damage to profit in apparel, where buyers often order two sizes and send one back.
UK sellers have one more thing to plan for. Under UK consumer law, online buyers can generally cancel within 14 days without giving a reason, so in the UK, change-of-mind returns are a legal right.
Look at your listings before your fees if you notice that returns are damaging your profits. Things like better size charts and honest photos can often be a much bigger budget saver.
Ads are optional (technically)
Nothing stops you from simply not running ads on TikTok Shop. But at some point, creator videos will stop bringing in sales, and, like most sellers, you’ll end up paying for ads to keep things moving.
Ads aren’t a fee, but they come out of the same profit margin and they’re much harder to predict as a cost.
Track ad spend per product instead of for the shop overall to see what’s working. Otherwise, one bestseller can hide three products that lose money whenever they sell.
Smart Promotion: the fee on top of the fee
Smart Promotion is TikTok’s own discount program, and it comes with a fee that’s easy to miss.
In the US, enrolled sellers pay 3.5% of their total store GMV, rising to 4.5% during big campaigns like Black Friday. In return, TikTok runs coupons and discounts on your products.
It’s opt-in, but staying out has a cost too: since April, you need it to join TikTok’s major campaigns. And remember how the referral fee works. Those TikTok coupons don’t lower your referral fee, and your Smart Promotion fee helps pay for them.
If you enroll, add 3.5% to your cost per order (4.5% in campaign months) before you set a price.
The new seller discount
TikTok usually gives new sellers a reduced referral rate for their first weeks (in the UK, it has offered 0% commission windows to new shops).
The terms change often, so once again, check what Seller Center offers to you specifically.
If the offer is good, take it, but don’t price around it. The discount eventually ends, the full rate takes effect, and a product priced for the promo rate starts losing money overnight.
What a $30 sale leaves you with
Here’s all of that on one creator-driven sale. Shipping and ads are assumed since yours will be different.
Cost | Amount | Share of $30 |
Referral fee (6%) | $1.80 | 6% |
Affiliate commission (15%) | $4.50 | 15% |
Shipping and fulfillment (assumed) | $5.00 | 17% |
Ads (assumed) | $3.00 | 10% |
Total before product cost | $14.30 | 48% |
That leaves $15.70 to pay for the product itself, packaging and returns. Nearly half the price is gone, and TikTok’s own fee is the smallest line on the table.
If the 8% rate applies to you, the referral fee is $2.40 and you keep $15.10. Enrolled in Smart Promotion? Take off another $1.05, or $1.35 during campaigns.
How to price all of this
All of the above brings us to the chicken-and-egg problem of TikTok Shop pricing. You need a price before you know your real cost, and you can’t know the real cost until you’ve sold for a while.
What’s the solution? Price for a realistic worst case. Assume that the sale comes through a creator, assume some returns, and account for TikTok’s shipping.
If the product still makes money, great. If it only works at 6% with no creators involved, then it doesn’t really work on TikTok Shop.
If you sell the same item elsewhere, it doesn’t need one price everywhere either.
With Crosslist’s price adjustments, you can add a markup for TikTok Shop to cover creator commission and keep the price lower where fees are lighter.
Don't put the whole shop on one platform
If your whole business depends on TikTok, every fee and policy change lands directly on your profit margin.
Selling the same inventory spreads that risk out. Crosslist lets you import TikTok Shop listings, with photos, titles, descriptions, and prices, and publish them to eBay, Depop, Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, and other marketplaces using one universal form.
When an item sells on one marketplace, autodelisting removes it from the others, so you never sell the same item twice.
Crosslist is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia with plans starting from $29.99 a month and a 3-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.
Start with Crosslist and list your TikTok Shop inventory everywhere else in one go.
The bottom line
TikTok Shop seller fees aren't high. The referral fee is competitive, there's no subscription, and payment processing is included.
But everything around the fee makes TikTok Shop expensive: creators expect a cut, shipping rules keep changing, and ads always need a bigger budget.
The sellers who make money here pay TikTok the same as everyone else. They just know their full cost per order before they set a price.
About Crosslist
Crosslist is a cross listing tool for online sellers. Create a listing once with one universal form, or import it straight from TikTok Shop, and publish it to eBay, Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, Whatnot, Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, and more.
When an item sells, Crosslist detects the sale and delists it everywhere else, and the sales dashboard shows revenue and profit across all your shops. Crosslist works on computer, iOS, and Android, and it’s available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Try Crosslist risk-free with a 3-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
Does TikTok Shop charge a monthly fee?
There's no subscription and no listing fee. TikTok makes its money from the referral fee on each completed order.
What percentage does TikTok Shop take in the UK?
9%, in place since September 2024.
Do I still pay fees if an order is returned?
In the US, TikTok refunds the referral fee but keeps a refund administration fee of 20% of it, capped at $5 per SKU. Shipping you already paid and the condition of the returned item are separate costs.
Is the affiliate commission included in the referral fee?
No. You set the affiliate commission, and it's paid to the creator on top of TikTok's referral fee.
Does TikTok Shop charge a transaction fee?
Not anymore. Some guides still list a payment processing fee of a few percent plus $0.30, but that applied only to older US orders. Today, payment processing is included in the referral fee in both the US and the UK.
Is TikTok Shop worth it for sellers?
It can be, if your product has room in the margin. The fees themselves are low, but creator commission, shipping, and returns add up fast.
Products that look good on video and sell on impulse tend to do well. Low-priced or heavy items often don’t leave enough after costs.
Selling the same inventory on other marketplaces alongside TikTok also means you don’t depend on one platform’s rules.
As a TikTok Shop seller, you already know you’re paying some fees. So why is it so hard to work out which ones and how much? And why does every guide you open cite a different number?
There are a few reasons TikTok Shop fees can get confusing.
TikTok charges you one fee for the sale itself: a referral fee of 6% to 8% in the US and 9% in the UK. On most sales that come through creators, it’s also one of the smallest costs you’ll pay.
The rest comes from affiliate commissions, shipping, returns, and ads, all of which can end up as costs you haven’t planned for.
So when you read a guide, you end up feeling like you’ve booked a $49 flight and found out at the checkout that the seat, the bag, and the boarding pass cost extra. Technically, the $49 was true.
In this article, we’ll go through every fee that lands on your settlement statement, what each one is calculated on, and which ones you should pay extra attention to.
You will learn:
How much TikTok Shop takes from sellers
Why the referral fee is not the biggest concern
The cost of affiliate commissions, shipping, and returns
What a $30 sale leaves you with once everything is accounted for
Let’s get started.
Key takeaways
TikTok Shop has no monthly subscription or listing fee. US sellers pay a referral fee per order: 6% on TikTok’s published table, though several seller reports say it rose to 8% on August 4, 2026. UK sellers pay 9%.
On creator-driven sales, affiliate commission (usually 10% to 20%) and shipping cost more than TikTok’s own fee.
Refunds cost little in fees (in the US, 20% of the referral fee, capped at $5 per SKU), but return shipping and damaged stock cost far more.
Price around your full cost per order, not just TikTok’s referral fee.
How much does TikTok Shop take from sellers?
The short answer is 6% per order in the US. Probably.
TikTok’s own referral fee table lists 6% for most categories and 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned items.
However, a few seller-focused publications report that the standard US rate went up to 8% for most non-food categories on August 4, 2026.
So which one is it? The only amount you should rely on is the one on your own settlement statement. Fee charges reach you through Seller Center first, so your statement will show you the more accurate number before any blog does (this one included).
In the UK, things are a bit simpler: the rate is 9% for most categories, and it has been since September 2024. In both countries, there’s no monthly subscription, no listing fee, and no separate payment processing charge.
In the US, TikTok’s fee policy says the referral fee covers all TikTok Shop fees except shipping and tax, which makes it a cheap way to sell compared to eBay’s seller fees.
How the referral fee is calculated
TikTok calculates the referral fee on what the customer paid, plus any discount TikTok funded, minus tax.
What the customer paid includes any shipping the buyer covered, so the fee isn’t charged on your product price alone.
In TikTok’s own example, a buyer pays $102, TikTok funds a $5 discount, and tax is $2. At 6%, the fee is $6.30.
If you fund a discount yourself, your fee goes down with the price. If TikTok funds it, you get paid as if the buyer paid the full price, and the fee is calculated on the full price as well. Platform coupons do not lower your fees.
TikTok Shop fees at a glance
Fee | Who sets it | US | UK |
|---|---|---|---|
Referral fee | TikTok | 6% on most categories (8% reported since August 4, 2026); 5% for select jewelry and pre-owned | 9% on most categories |
Affiliate commission | You | Usually 10% to 20% | Usually 10% to 20% |
Smart Promotion (opt-in) | TikTok | 3.5% of store GMV, 4.5% during campaigns | Check Seller Center |
Shipping and fulfillment | TikTok or your carrier | Label cost or FBT per-unit fee, based on weight and size | Label cost; shipping your own orders is still allowed |
Refund administration fee | TikTok | 20% of the refunded referral fee, max $5 per SKU | Check Seller Center |
Ads | You | Optional | Optional |
Subscription or listing fee | – | None | None |
But if that were the whole story, this article would end here.
Why the referral fee isn't the biggest problem
To answer that, let’s start with a question: what does selling on a typical marketplace cost you?
You list an item, a buyer finds it in search, and the marketplace takes its fee. That’s it! The buyer came looking for something, and the marketplace did the matching.
On TikTok Shop, the buyer usually wasn’t looking for anything. They were scrolling. Your product showed up because a creator made a video about it, or because you paid for an ad.
That’s why on TikTok Shop, you pay twice: once to TikTok for the sale, and once to whoever got the buyer’s attention. The second payment is usually more concerning.
Affiliate commission: the fee you set yourself
This is one of the few costs that TikTok doesn’t decide for you.
For those who don’t know, here’s how affiliate commissions on TikTok work: you add a product to the affiliate program, pick a commission rate, and any creator who sells it through a video or a LIVE gets that percentage. In most cases, that commission lands somewhere between 10% and 20%. In more crowded categories like beauty, creators usually expect more.
On a $30 product, a 15% commission is $4.50. TikTok’s referral fee on the same sale is $1.80.
So should you offer a high commission? It depends, but you generally have two options:
Option A: Aim for the higher end early. New shops have almost no organic reach, so creators pick products partly based on what they’ll earn. A better rate can get your product into videos faster, and one good video can do more than a month of your own posting.
Option B: Keep it modest. A high rate on a product with a not-so-great margin means every sale costs you more than it should, and selling out a product that loses money means losing even more with higher commissions.
The best advice is probably somewhere in between, and it depends on the product. Give higher rates to products with room in the profit margin and be conservative with the rest.
The changing rules for shipping
TikTok’s referral fee doesn’t cover shipping, which is exactly why shipping became a sensitive topic for US sellers in 2026.
In January, TikTok told US sellers it would end Seller Shipping, the option that let you buy labels from your own carrier, and move everyone to its own logistics: Fulfilled by TikTok (FBT), Upgraded TikTok Shipping, or Collections by TikTok.
US sellers weren’t happy with it, to say the least. In mid-February, TikTok backtracked: Seller Shipping stayed and the deadlines were dropped.
But TikTok paused the plan rather than scrapping it, and shops that onboarded in early February had to use TikTok’s logistics from day one.
Confused? You’re not the only one. Where your shop stands depends on when you onboarded and what Seller Center shows for you, so check that before you plan a shipping budget.
If you sell in the UK, you don’t have to worry about any of this. The shake-up was US-only, and shipping your own orders is still an option there.
Either way, the costs work the same. With Upgraded TikTok Shipping, you keep your own warehouse, but TikTok chooses the carrier and prints the label.
With FBT, TikTok stores and ships your stock, and you pay per-unit fulfillment fees and storage if the inventory remains unsold for long.
Both fees depend on the weight and size, meaning that a candle in a heavy glass jar is more expensive to ship than a T-shirt at the same price.
If you use FBT, check the current rate card before you price. TikTok published a new FBT fee schedule that took effect on November 1, 2026.
Returns cost you more than the fee
When an order is refunded in the US, TikTok gives you the referral fee back, minus a refund administration fee of 20% of that fee, capped at $5 per SKU. That’s 36 cents at 6% on a sale of $30, which definitely won’t ruin your business.
However, everything else a return brings will hurt more: the shipping you already paid, the product that might come back worn or damaged, and the time you spend dealing with it. Returns do even more damage to profit in apparel, where buyers often order two sizes and send one back.
UK sellers have one more thing to plan for. Under UK consumer law, online buyers can generally cancel within 14 days without giving a reason, so in the UK, change-of-mind returns are a legal right.
Look at your listings before your fees if you notice that returns are damaging your profits. Things like better size charts and honest photos can often be a much bigger budget saver.
Ads are optional (technically)
Nothing stops you from simply not running ads on TikTok Shop. But at some point, creator videos will stop bringing in sales, and, like most sellers, you’ll end up paying for ads to keep things moving.
Ads aren’t a fee, but they come out of the same profit margin and they’re much harder to predict as a cost.
Track ad spend per product instead of for the shop overall to see what’s working. Otherwise, one bestseller can hide three products that lose money whenever they sell.
Smart Promotion: the fee on top of the fee
Smart Promotion is TikTok’s own discount program, and it comes with a fee that’s easy to miss.
In the US, enrolled sellers pay 3.5% of their total store GMV, rising to 4.5% during big campaigns like Black Friday. In return, TikTok runs coupons and discounts on your products.
It’s opt-in, but staying out has a cost too: since April, you need it to join TikTok’s major campaigns. And remember how the referral fee works. Those TikTok coupons don’t lower your referral fee, and your Smart Promotion fee helps pay for them.
If you enroll, add 3.5% to your cost per order (4.5% in campaign months) before you set a price.
The new seller discount
TikTok usually gives new sellers a reduced referral rate for their first weeks (in the UK, it has offered 0% commission windows to new shops).
The terms change often, so once again, check what Seller Center offers to you specifically.
If the offer is good, take it, but don’t price around it. The discount eventually ends, the full rate takes effect, and a product priced for the promo rate starts losing money overnight.
What a $30 sale leaves you with
Here’s all of that on one creator-driven sale. Shipping and ads are assumed since yours will be different.
Cost | Amount | Share of $30 |
Referral fee (6%) | $1.80 | 6% |
Affiliate commission (15%) | $4.50 | 15% |
Shipping and fulfillment (assumed) | $5.00 | 17% |
Ads (assumed) | $3.00 | 10% |
Total before product cost | $14.30 | 48% |
That leaves $15.70 to pay for the product itself, packaging and returns. Nearly half the price is gone, and TikTok’s own fee is the smallest line on the table.
If the 8% rate applies to you, the referral fee is $2.40 and you keep $15.10. Enrolled in Smart Promotion? Take off another $1.05, or $1.35 during campaigns.
How to price all of this
All of the above brings us to the chicken-and-egg problem of TikTok Shop pricing. You need a price before you know your real cost, and you can’t know the real cost until you’ve sold for a while.
What’s the solution? Price for a realistic worst case. Assume that the sale comes through a creator, assume some returns, and account for TikTok’s shipping.
If the product still makes money, great. If it only works at 6% with no creators involved, then it doesn’t really work on TikTok Shop.
If you sell the same item elsewhere, it doesn’t need one price everywhere either.
With Crosslist’s price adjustments, you can add a markup for TikTok Shop to cover creator commission and keep the price lower where fees are lighter.
Don't put the whole shop on one platform
If your whole business depends on TikTok, every fee and policy change lands directly on your profit margin.
Selling the same inventory spreads that risk out. Crosslist lets you import TikTok Shop listings, with photos, titles, descriptions, and prices, and publish them to eBay, Depop, Etsy, Poshmark, Mercari, Whatnot, and other marketplaces using one universal form.
When an item sells on one marketplace, autodelisting removes it from the others, so you never sell the same item twice.
Crosslist is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia with plans starting from $29.99 a month and a 3-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.
Start with Crosslist and list your TikTok Shop inventory everywhere else in one go.
The bottom line
TikTok Shop seller fees aren't high. The referral fee is competitive, there's no subscription, and payment processing is included.
But everything around the fee makes TikTok Shop expensive: creators expect a cut, shipping rules keep changing, and ads always need a bigger budget.
The sellers who make money here pay TikTok the same as everyone else. They just know their full cost per order before they set a price.
About Crosslist
Crosslist is a cross listing tool for online sellers. Create a listing once with one universal form, or import it straight from TikTok Shop, and publish it to eBay, Poshmark, Depop, Mercari, Whatnot, Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, and more.
When an item sells, Crosslist detects the sale and delists it everywhere else, and the sales dashboard shows revenue and profit across all your shops. Crosslist works on computer, iOS, and Android, and it’s available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Try Crosslist risk-free with a 3-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
Does TikTok Shop charge a monthly fee?
There's no subscription and no listing fee. TikTok makes its money from the referral fee on each completed order.
What percentage does TikTok Shop take in the UK?
9%, in place since September 2024.
Do I still pay fees if an order is returned?
In the US, TikTok refunds the referral fee but keeps a refund administration fee of 20% of it, capped at $5 per SKU. Shipping you already paid and the condition of the returned item are separate costs.
Is the affiliate commission included in the referral fee?
No. You set the affiliate commission, and it's paid to the creator on top of TikTok's referral fee.
Does TikTok Shop charge a transaction fee?
Not anymore. Some guides still list a payment processing fee of a few percent plus $0.30, but that applied only to older US orders. Today, payment processing is included in the referral fee in both the US and the UK.
Is TikTok Shop worth it for sellers?
It can be, if your product has room in the margin. The fees themselves are low, but creator commission, shipping, and returns add up fast.
Products that look good on video and sell on impulse tend to do well. Low-priced or heavy items often don’t leave enough after costs.
Selling the same inventory on other marketplaces alongside TikTok also means you don’t depend on one platform’s rules.