How to find TikTok Shop creators for your brand

Where to find TikTok Shop creators

Start with the tool you already have. Your Affiliate Center is built into your shop, and its Find creators tool lets you filter creators by revenue and units sold.¹ Directories let you book creators at posted prices with less back and forth.

The directory lists TikTok Shop creators. Creators who are on Rateful have a public page showing packages and prices, so you know the cost before you talk to them. The directory also lists public TikTok accounts marked Not on Rateful yet. Those creators haven't signed up and may not reply, so not every listed creator can be booked or has packages and prices.

How to use Find creators in Affiliate Center

Open Affiliate Center, go to Discover creators, then open Find creators.¹ That screen is your main hunting ground.

The filters that matter most for sales are revenue and units sold. Those two numbers count a creator's sales from LIVE, shoppable video, or showcase in the last 30 days.¹ Filter by them first, because a creator who sold products last month is a far better bet than a creator with a big follower count and no sales history.

The rest of the filters help you narrow the list. They include product category, follower size, average commission rate, content type, creator agency, Fast growing, Not invited in past 90 days, follower age and gender, average views, engagement rate, and partnered brands.¹ Use product category and follower age and gender to match the creator's audience to your buyer.

From the list you can do three things: send a target collaboration invite, send a direct message, or add creators to Manage Creators for batch invites.¹

One limit to plan around: you can send up to 1000 target collaborations in 24 hours.³ If you batch invites through Manage Creators, you can invite 50 creators at a time.⁴

Outreach to new creators has its own cap. Your quota is based on your shop's past 30-day GMV and resets weekly. Once it is used up, you cannot send invites or messages to creators you are not already connected with.⁵

Target, open or shop collaboration

You have three ways to work with affiliates, and each fits a different situation.

A target collaboration lets you invite specific creators to promote specific products, and you choose how long it lasts.⁶ An open collaboration makes your products available for any TikTok creator to promote. You can also require approval before a creator starts.⁷ Qualified shops also get a Shop Collaboration: one universal commission rate across all your affiliate products.⁸

You set the commission per product, anywhere from 1% to 80% of GMV per order. A target collaboration rate always overrides the open collaboration rate for the same product.⁶ Timing matters when you change rates. Commission edits take effect 5 days later for target collaborations and 30 days later for open collaborations.⁴

The practical setup: run an open collaboration so any creator can find your products, and send target invites to the creators you actually want. The open rate covers everyone, and the target rate lets you offer your best creators a better deal without changing what the rest get.

There is no proven best rate. Test your commission, watch who picks up your products, and adjust.

How to vet a creator before you invite them

Watch their last ten videos. It's the quickest way to vet a creator.

Do they show the product in their hands, in use, and say why they like it? Or do they hold it up for two seconds and read a script? The first kind sells and the second kind only posts.

Then check the numbers in this order:

• 30-day sales first. Filter by revenue and units sold, which count LIVE, shoppable video, and showcase sales from the past 30 days.¹ Follower count is a weak signal next to actual sales.
• Engagement rate second. It is one of the Find creators filters.¹ A creator whose audience comments and clicks is worth more than one with passive viewers.
• Fulfillment rate third. If you plan to send free samples, sellers can see a creator's sample record and use it to reject future requests.⁹ A low rate means the creator has skipped posting after past samples.

Skip creators whose content is all trends and dances with no product in sight, unless your product fits that format. You want creators whose feeds already show the kind of video you need.

Use free samples to get creators posting

Free samples give creators the product to post about. You turn them on per product with the Offer free sample toggle in the open collaboration's Added products tab.¹⁰

You can set creator eligibility thresholds based on follower count, average views per video, 30-day sales volume, and estimated post rate. Thresholds let you send samples to creators who already sell.¹⁰

Once a creator receives a sample, they must post promotional content within 14 days.¹¹ If they do not, their sample fulfillment rate drops, you can see it, and the overdue sample keeps using their sample limit until the content is posted.⁹ The system punishes flakes for you, but only if you check the rate before approving requests.

For the full setup on shipping, thresholds, and what to do when creators go quiet, read the guide on product seeding for TikTok Shop brands.

Paying creators a flat fee

Commission is only one way to pay. Some creators charge a flat fee per video on top of commission, or instead of it. Target collaborations on TikTok Shop also offer a flat fee option, paid through TikTok Shop.⁶

On Rateful, each creator has a public page with their packages, recent videos and numbers, where brands can book them directly. Brands pay booking protection of about 5% on top of the deal amount, shown before they pay. On a creator's own deals, the creator's deposit is released before filming, and Rateful holds only the rest until the posts are live. The exact payment plan is set in the agreement. If the deal comes from a brand's creator list, Rateful holds the whole payment until 3 days after every post is verified live.

Flat fees make sense when you want specific content, like a launch video or a scripted demo. Commission makes sense for volume. You can run both: open collaboration for the crowd, flat fees for the handful of creators who drive real orders. If you want a sense of the going prices, here is what creators on Rateful charge for one TikTok Shop video.