Short answer: for each creator, over the last 30 days, profit = their sales × your margin − commission paid − samples sent × cost per sample. Your margin is what you keep from a sale before paying the creator (after product cost, TikTok's fee, shipping and returns). Rank creators by that number, not by GMV. A creator who brings a lot of sales on a high commission and plenty of samples can earn you less than one who sells a fifth as much.
TikTok Shop puts your fees in one report, affiliate commission in another, and free samples in neither. Returns land weeks after you counted the sale. So a creator showing £2,000 of GMV can look like your best partner and still be close to break-even. The fix is to stop looking at profit per order and look at profit per creator, because that's where sample costs hide.
Step 1: work out your margin before creator commission
Do this once per product. Take the selling price and subtract everything you pay on every order, apart from the creator:
| Per order (UK, £20 product) | £ |
|---|---|
| Selling price | 20.00 |
| Product cost (COGS) | −6.00 |
| TikTok commission (9%) | −1.80 |
| Postage + £0.50 Shipped by Seller fee | −3.50 |
| Allowance for returns | −0.70 |
| Kept before creator commission | 8.00 (40%) |
Your numbers will differ. If you're VAT-registered, work on prices excluding VAT. Our UK fee & profit calculator does this step for you, including FBT.
Step 2: put a price on every free sample
A free sample costs you the product and the postage, whether or not the creator posts. In this example that's £6 + £3 = £9 a sample. Count every sample you shipped to a creator in the period, including the ones that never turned into a video.
Step 3: profit per creator
Use settled sales and commission where you can. TikTok reduces the commission base when an order is refunded, so settled figures already have returns taken off.
Worked example: five creators, one month
Same product, 40% margin, £9 per sample. These creators are made up to show the pattern:
| Creator | Sales | Commission | Samples | Profit | Per £100 of sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A: big account | £2,000 | 25% · £500 | 12 · £108 | £192 | £9.60 |
| B: small, niche | £400 | 15% · £60 | 1 · £9 | £91 | £22.75 |
| C: never posted | £0 | £0 | 3 · £27 | −£27 | – |
| D: high rate | £1,200 | 30% · £360 | 6 · £54 | £66 | £5.50 |
| E: highest rate | £600 | 35% · £210 | 5 · £45 | −£15 | −£2.50 |
By GMV, A is the star and B barely registers. By profit, B earns you almost half of what A does on a fifth of the sales, and E loses money on every order despite £600 of GMV. Across all five, £4,200 of creator sales leaves £307 of profit.
Each creator's break-even commission
The highest commission you can pay a creator without losing money is:
For E that's 40% − (£45 ÷ £600) = 32.5%. Paying 35% loses money however much they sell. For A it's 34.6%, so there's room to keep the relationship but not to send another dozen samples. Our affiliate commission calculator works out your maximum rate from your own costs.
Keep ads out of the creator numbers
If you run GMV Max or Shop Ads on creator videos, don't subtract ad spend creator by creator. It's hard to split fairly and it double-counts orders the ads would have brought anyway. Judge ads at shop level instead: compare the ROAS you get with your break-even ROAS in the GMV Max ROAS calculator.
Where to get the numbers
- Affiliate orders: export affiliate orders from Seller Center's affiliate section for the period. Each line has the creator, the product, sales and commission (estimated, then settled).
- Samples: list the free-sample requests you approved and shipped, with the creator for each.
- Join on the creator's username in a sheet, add your margin and cost per sample, and apply the formula. Our creator ROI calculator does it for a list you paste in.
What to do with the answer
- Profitable and posting: offer a higher rate (below break-even), a second product or a bonus for another video.
- Selling but losing money: lower the commission on the next collaboration, or stop sending samples. They can buy the product or use one they already have.
- Didn't post: don't approve another sample. See why samples don't get posted and how to follow up.
- Big follower count, no sales: follower count is a poor predictor. Approve on past sales and posting record instead (how to find creators who sell).
FAQ
Does TikTok Shop show profit per creator?
Seller Center reports affiliate sales and commission by creator, but it doesn't combine them with your product margin and the cost of the free samples you sent. You have to add those yourself, in a spreadsheet or a tool.
What margin should I use?
Use what you keep from a sale before paying the creator: selling price minus product cost, TikTok's commission, shipping and an allowance for returns, as a percentage of the price. Work it out once per product.
Should I include GMV Max or Shop Ads spend?
Not in the per-creator number. Judge ads separately at shop level against your break-even ROAS, otherwise ad-driven orders get credited to creators.
How long a period should I look at?
Thirty days is a good default, and 90 days for creators who post rarely. Leave the last week or two provisional, because returns and settled commission keep changing.
What is a creator's break-even commission?
Your margin minus their sample cost as a share of their sales. Paying more than that loses money on every order they bring, however much GMV it is.
Related guides
Profit per creator, without the spreadsheet. GMVize joins your affiliate orders and free samples automatically and ranks every creator by what they actually earn you.