If your brand, agency, or marketing team is interested in building out a TikTok influencer marketing strategy, you’re headed in the right direction. The social media platform has over one billion active users, and TikTok creators are increasingly influential in the purchasing decisions of their engaged audiences.

Social media marketing is the modern approach for brands and small businesses to grow their audience and revenue. Teens and twenty-somethings are using TikTok as a search engine to discover aligned brands, products, and offerings. If you haven’t started yet, influencer partnerships could be what’s keeping you from a thriving business.

Or maybe you’ve already launched a TikTok marketing strategy, but when it comes to paying your content creator partners, you haven’t found a solid system or process.

Whether you’re in crafting a TikTok strategy from scratch or already engaging with influencers on the platform, you need to know your options when it comes to the best methods and platforms to pay online creators. And that’s where we come in!

We’re Lumanu — the payment platform designed to help brands and creators pay and get paid hassle-free. But before we tell you more about our app and product, we’re sharing the pros and cons of some common methods used to pay TikTok creators so you can find the right solution for your business. 

Paper Check

Pros

A benefit to paying content creators via paper check is that it’s straightforward — send the check, receive it, and deposit it. Paper checks are also the least expensive option, as there are no processing or membership fees involved. All you have to cover is the price of an envelope and stamp for domestic payments.

Cons

Paper checks are definitely an outdated solution. Most working people don’t wait to receive a paycheck in the mail these days, and they probably don’t want to go back to the days when they did. Not to mention, TikTok creators are typically Gen Z-aged and probably don’t know much about traditional checks and balances. They were raised in the digital age and therefore will prefer digital payment.

ACH Payments

Pros

ACH payments are commonly used for companies to pay contractors. They’re best described as direct payments that move funds from a business to a payment recipient. ACH payments are known to be fairly reliable and funds usually transfer within 3-4 business days, which is good news for the content creators your brand may partner with. As far as fees go, ACH payments are comparable to the industry standard, typically ranging from $0.20 to $1.50 per transaction.

Cons

ACH payments are only available in the United States, and your aligned creator may live in another country. Also, an ACH payment will only process if you have the account and routing number of the influencer you’re paying. From a creator’s perspective, they probably don’t want to share this sensitive information with dozens of brand partners, particularly for one-off payments. It’s a hassle to set all of this info up for a singular collaboration.

Stripe

Pros

Stripe is a well-known platform used to create invoices and manage payments. They also offer Stripe Connect, a platform for businesses to send payments to content creators. After onboarding the influencer partner, you can pay via credit or debit card, ACH, wire transfer, or bank transfer, and the fees per transaction are typical of its competitors.

Cons

Stripe is known for having an outdated user face, meaning it can be clunky to navigate or slow to load. This platform could be designed to serve large companies with big budgets, not brands that are dipping their toes into the creator economy.

PayPal

Pros

PayPal is one of the most recognized payment options, probably because it was one of the first platforms dedicated to digital payments. It’s accepted worldwide, user-friendly, and simple to create an account — all you need is an email, phone number, and credit card information. A benefit to using this platform is that a TikTok creator will likely be familiar with receiving payments via PayPal.

Cons

PayPal is a very basic platform. If your brand’s social media marketing strategy is growing, it doesn’t offer the organizational tools or functions to track and manage influencer collaborations and budgets.

PayPal doesn’t charge a monthly membership fee – just a 2.9% transaction fee (which is standard), but there are also other possible fees depending on the type of transaction. A business looking for affordable payment solutions may see these extra fees as a major red flag to using the platform.

‍‍
Lumanu‍

Pros

Lumanu is a payment solution created specifically for enterprise companies who work with content creators like TikTok Influencers. Lumanu is a membership platform for teams to manage creator payouts, send invoices, and provide partners with early access to working capital via our one-of-a-kind feature, InstantPay. The monthly subscription is competitively priced and offers 24/7 customer support.

Lumanu’s app is free to use for creators and doesn’t charge a fee for bank transfers. Lumanu also handles vendor onboarding and 1099 tax paperwork for these collaborations. This is the platform that truly covers all the influencer partnership bases.

Cons

We may be biased, but we don’t see many! Lumanu is the only payment platform designed to serve the creator economy from all angles while integrating seamlessly with your existing accounting software.
Whether you’re a brand, manager, agency, or TikTok influencer, payments are a central part of your professional experience. You want to invest in a solution that benefits all parties. Each platform above has its benefits, but Lumanu is the secure, efficient, and creator-minded solution for paying TikTok creators.

Schedule a demo to learn more about how Lumanu can serve as your all-in-one payment platform and make your TikTok influencer payment process hassle-free.