Getting paid when your song trends on TikTok: SoundOn, the royalty pool and why a viral sound can earn little

A song can sit under a hundred thousand videos and still earn very little for its owner. That isn't always a scam or an accounting error. It comes from how TikTok buys music. Here is how the chain works, what SoundOn, TikTok's own distributor, keeps today, and what you can do so that a trend at least gets credited to you.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Check your own contracts.

Who does TikTok actually pay?

Not you, directly. TikTok licenses music from rights holders: major labels under their own deals, and independent labels and distributors under direct deals. Those licensors are paid, and they pay you under whatever split your contract sets.

The formula changed in late 2024. Independents' collective deal through Merlin ended, and labels and distributors signed direct deals instead. Digital Music News, reporting on Billboard's interviews, said TikTok now works out each licensor's market share from views rather than from the number of videos made with a song, then divides the licensor's payment from there. One executive expected about a 4% difference in what they would receive, and executives described TikTok as one of the "smallest revenue earners" for a music company.

SoundOn confirms the mechanics for its own artists. Its royalty FAQ says royalties are now based on views of videos using your music, relative to an overall royalty pool, with the change taking effect on 25 December 2024. It also says it cannot give an exact rate per view.

Why can a viral sound earn so little?

Four reasons stack up.

1. It's a share of a pool, not a rate. Your share depends on everyone else's views as well as yours. Nobody, SoundOn included, will tell you what a view is worth.
2. The pool is small. In its January 2024 letter to artists, Universal Music Group said TikTok accounted for "only about 1% of our total revenue", according to the full text published by Hypebot. If even UMG gets that little, a single independent track gets a sliver of a sliver.
3. Middlemen take a cut. Your label or distributor takes its share before you see anything (see SoundOn's terms below).
4. The views may not be yours. Pex, a company that sells music-identification services, documented edited and sped-up versions of hit songs posted as separate sounds and credited to the uploader. One sped-up version of a Noah Kahan song had been used in 142,000 videos. Pex says TikTok lets only one rights holder claim a sound, and allows one sound per video. Pex has a product to sell, so treat its examples as illustrations rather than a measure of how common this is.

What does SoundOn keep now?

SoundOn launched in March 2022 promising 100% of royalties in the first year and 90% after that. Those are no longer the terms. The pricing page now offers three plans:

• Lite, free: one primary artist, and you keep 90% of streaming earnings.
• Core, $2.50 a month billed annually: up to two artists, and you keep 100% of streaming earnings.
• Max, from $6.25 a month: five to 500 artists.

The 100% on Core and Max covers streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. SoundOn's FAQ on the same page says separate fees may apply to YouTube, Meta and TikTok. In the plan comparison, a note on social platforms says a 10% platform fee applies to earnings from all social platforms, and YouTube Content ID carries a 20% fee. So even paying users keep 90% of their TikTok money.

The table also shows that Lite users don't get CapCut integration, the TikTok artist checkmark, the Commercial Music Library (pre-cleared music brands can use in ads) or SoundOn's promotion tools. Those come with Core and Max. In other words, the free tier of TikTok's own distributor leaves out some of TikTok's own features.

One clause is worth reading before you sign up. SoundOn's US terms (last updated 22 January 2026, with the US service run by TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC) say that deleting your account does not affect the rights you have already granted over music you uploaded under the separate licence agreement. SoundOn's rights FAQ says you keep your masters, and the terms say the licence is not a transfer of ownership. Even so, read the licence agreement you are offered at upload, so you know how long it lasts.

How do you claim your sound?

1. Deliver to TikTok through one distributor only. If you use SoundOn for TikTok and someone else for streaming, SoundOn says to tell your other distributor not to deliver to ByteDance, and to use the same ISRC and UPC codes on both.
2. Choose the clip on purpose. SoundOn describes official sounds as 15 to 60-second clips and recommends a 60-second section that is melodically or lyrically expressive. If you don't pick the section people will use, someone else's re-upload will.
3. Claim your artist account. TikTok's help centre gives the route: Profile, then the three-dot menu, then TikTok Studio, then Artist Hub under "More tools". Tap "Apply now", search for your artist name and tap "Claim", then upload screenshots of your distributor or streaming dashboard that show the edit buttons, your artist name and your track titles. TikTok says it replies within 30 days. The artist tag only appears once you have more than four songs delivered and more than 100 videos using them.
4. Fix your Music Tab. Once you're approved, you can pin songs. TikTok's Music Tab page has a webform for adding songs that are missing. If you use SoundOn, it also asks you to bind your TikTok account to SoundOn.
5. Look for re-uploads every week while the song is trending. Search for your title along with "sped up", "slowed" and "original sound". When you find a misattributed sound, Pex lists three options: a DMCA takedown, a report to TikTok, or contacting the uploader. Ask your distributor whether it can file a claim for you as well.
6. Read the statement, not the analytics. SoundOn publishes monthly statements around the 25th and has a minimum payout of 10 US dollars. A song can be missing from a statement because the store hasn't reported yet or has flagged the streams as artificial. Our guide to reading a royalty statement line by line covers the rest.

Checklist

• One distributor delivers to TikTok, with matching ISRC and UPC codes everywhere
• Official clip chosen, ideally the 60-second hook
• Artist account claimed, with Music Tab songs pinned
• SoundOn account bound to TikTok (if you use SoundOn)
• Weekly search for sped-up versions and "original sound" re-uploads while the song trends
• For brand money: SoundOn's Commercial Music Library requires a single songwriter who controls 100% of the publishing, with no outside publisher

What we think

TikTok is a marketing channel that pays a small fee, and artists should plan around it that way. Counting views rather than videos sounds fairer, and it rewards reach. But a share of a pool with no published rate is still a black box. Neither TikTok nor SoundOn will put a number on a view.

The bigger problem is attribution. If the money follows the sound, and a sped-up re-upload can be its own sound, the views on that re-upload don't count towards your share. That cost falls hardest on independent artists, who don't have a rights team checking the app every day. In our view, TikTok should match audio to the original recording automatically and split the money between the rights holders involved, rather than leaving artists to find re-uploads and file takedowns themselves.

On SoundOn, the change from "100% in year one" to a subscription plus a 10% social fee is a normal distributor business model, and $2.50 a month is cheap. Still, the free tier no longer looks like TikTok's gift to independent artists. If TikTok is the reason you're signing up, price in Core.

The money from a trend comes afterwards, from streams, tickets and fans who stay. Make sure the trend has your name on it. For more on how TikTok's licensing deals are made, see our coverage of the UMG and TikTok renewal.