TikTok business vs personal account: What’s the difference and which should you be using?

What do Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson have in common — apart from, obviously, being big celebrities?

They are all on TikTok.

You might even have followed them there, and not just to consume the delectable morsels of content they post on this video-sharing app.

Right now, there’s never been a more exciting time to become a content creator. According to economists, the creator economy could swell to half a trillion dollars in value by 2027. Even if you don’t want to specialize just in creating videos, you can use TikTok to promote other digital products — like podcasts, ebooks, and courses.

Key to the appeal of TikTok is its ubiquity.

As of 2024, the platform is estimated to have more than a billion monthly active users (MAUs). This gives you a massive potential audience for your short-form video content.

To many longtime internet users, TikTok seemed to appear out of nowhere back in the late 2010s. It originated as an international version of the Chinese video-sharing service Douyin, with both brands today still owned by the Beijing-headquartered ByteDance.

TikTok soared in popularity after its conception in September 2016. Within just four years, TikTok’s MAUs surpassed the 500-million tally.

This growth has likely been accelerated by the app’s availability on a wide range of platforms. Those include Android, iOS, and iPadOS. The iPad version has been specially optimized for the tablet, as demonstrated by the ‘landscape mode’ advertised in the App Store listing.

You can make a lot of money on TikTok, too. In 2023, TikTok’s top creators had a combined net worth of $27 million. If you are a prolific creator on TikTok, you might have heard that it’s possible to switch to a ‘business account’ on the platform.

This could have come as big news to you, too. Is running a business on TikTok a genuine option? If you are already accruing earnings there, could you bring in even more by making your TikTok business status ‘official’?

What is a TikTok personal account?

A personal account is what you would have originally got by default when joining TikTok. Many people enjoy using TikTok just to watch short-form video content and create some of their own, without any intention of monetizing it.

It’s certainly still possible to make money with a personal TikTok account — or, to be more specific, with content you create on it.

It’s no accident that you might even sometimes see a TikTok personal account being referred to as a ‘creator account’.

Now, this could confuse you if you have been on TikTok for quite a few years now. You might recall a time when TikTok offered a creator account as an option entirely separate to a personal account.

Yes, TikTok genuinely used to do this. TikTok members wanting to use the app in a professional capacity were able to opt for either a creator account or a business account. 

The former was suited to individuals looking to build their personal brand on TikTok. The creator account granted TikTokers access to valuable resources, including tools and analytics, which they would be able to use to this end.

However, in 2021, TikTok axed the creator account, transferring its toolkit to the standard personal account. If you were a TikTok creator back then, you might remember TikTok itself sending you an email notifying you of this change. 

If you have a TikTok personal account, it’s easy to unearth the creator tools you now have at your disposal. The suite of these tools, once referred to as Creator tools, was renamed TikTok Studio in May 2024.

While logged into the TikTok mobile app, tap ‘Profile’ (on the bottom navigation panel). Then, tap the three-line symbol (what TikTok calls ‘the Menu icon’ in support documentation) in the top right corner. Tap ‘TikTok Studio’ in the menu that subsequently appears.

There’s also a standalone TikTok Studio app you can install to access an even wider range of creator tools. 

In this article we go into further detail about these tools and how they differ from those available to business account holders.

What is a TikTok business account?

Perhaps you own a company and like the idea of marketing it via TikTok? This can especially pay off if your brand is aimed at a young crowd.

According to TikTok advertising audience data, the most represented age group on the app was the 18-to-24 segment, making up 39% of the user base. The same data revealed that: 

• 33% of users were aged 25 to 34
• 16% of users were aged 35 to 44
• 8% of users were aged 45 to 54
• 6% of users were aged at least 55

With a TikTok business account, you can launch marketing campaigns targeting users across a broad spectrum of age groups. Crucially, you would be running these campaigns under your brand’s name — not your own.

All the same, your heart could sink at the thought of having to sign up for a TikTok business account.

Cast your mind back to when you originally registered on TikTok. The process might have entailed filling in forms like the one pictured below.

It could come as a relief, then, that getting hold of a TikTok business account doesn’t necessarily mean going through this whole sign-up process again. What you can do instead is repurpose your existing personal TikTok account for commercial use.

Formally switching a TikTok account’s status from ‘personal’ to ‘business’ takes just a few seconds. Just be warned that although this unlocks an array of extra features, it also removes some.

That’s why you need to tread carefully before going down this route. You must familiarize yourself with how TikTok personal and business accounts compare in their feature sets.

TikTok business account vs personal page: What's the difference?

It’s important to emphasize that, on TikTok, personal and business accounts have a lot in common. You can use either of them to attract social media followers, share short-form videos with them, and broadcast live streams. 

Both personal and business accounts on TikTok are free — and can join the app’s Creator Marketplace, where brands collaborate with creators.

Once you do have a personal or business account, you can also apply for verification. This application, if successful, will give your profile a ‘blue tick’ verification badge.

Personal and business accounts have similarities but also important (if often subtle) differences. Here they are:

🔒 Business accounts are ineligible to use every single sound in TikTok’s library. Some are off-limits for copyright reasons and therefore only available for personal accounts. 

🎨 With a business account, you have many more profile customization options. You can specify your website URL, support email address, and industry — and add custom call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

📊 Though personal accounts let you promote posts, only business accounts offer access to TikTok Ad Manager. From its comprehensive dashboard, you can run ad campaigns and analyze their performance.

💡 Many businesses can understandably be unsure what to post and when. Fortunately, those on TikTok can get valuable inspiration by turning to Creative Hub — a resource unavailable to personal account holders.

💬 If you have a personal account, you can only send TikTok messages to users you are friends with on the platform. Transitioning to a business account would give you unlimited capabilities to message any TikTok user. 

📅 A business account would already let you schedule posts but also include access to TikTok Business Center. With this multifaceted hub, you can authorize members of your team to post TikTok content on your behalf.

🔗 Want to use a third-party social media management app, like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, to schedule and manage your TikTok content? Only a business account will leave this option open to you.

📈 Both types of TikTok accounts can provide analytics, e.g. numbers of post views and profile views and insights into your viewers’ age and gender. However, these analytics are only relevant for the last 60 days. The analytics on a business account are richer in detail and allow you to identify longer-term trends. Those analytics can also be downloaded, enabling you to check them outside of the app.

🔐 Want to make a TikTok business profile private? You can’t. That’s only possible with a TikTok personal profile.

🚀 Also, only as a TikTok personal account holder would you be able to access Creator Next. This development program is designed to help TikTok users find more and more opportunities to monetize what they do on the platform.

💰 TikTok can help businesses to thrive financially by providing them with a popular place to put promotional videos. However, only with a personal account can you monetize TikTok content itself. You can do this through various means, including receiving payouts from TikTok’s Creator Fund program and earning Tips from followers.

With a personal TikTok account, you can also use the platform’s Series service to offer subscriptions to premium content. What if you would like to include a wide range of digital products — rather than just short-form video — in your subscription packages?

Quick comparison of features

TikTok personal vs business account: Which is more user-friendly?

If you've been a creator on TikTok for a while, you might be convinced you know the platform inside out. Nonetheless, there could remain many settings you have never dived into. Perhaps you just never felt like you needed to?

Given these factors, you’ll be relieved to hear that it’s very easy to convert a TikTok personal account to a business one. You can even turn that business account back into a personal one later if you like. However, TikTok does not encourage you to switch between these two account types too often.

The onus is on you to think carefully beforehand about the merits of a TikTok business account vs the personal route. Remember that sticking with the latter wouldn’t rule out chances of you making money on the platform. 

One crucial question is how much you genuinely enjoy using TikTok. You might love uploading the occasional short of yourself while out and about, but the crucial word there is ‘occasional’. Making it a full-time thing could throw up fresh little irritations that all add up and render TikTok a surprisingly dispiriting experience for you.

If you only have a passing interest in creating TikTok content, consider doing it as a side hustle. You can then get your main living from elsewhere — such as with one of these small business ideas.

Generally, a personal account works best for side hustling, while a business account is better for aspiring full-time TikTok creators.

Decided to go for a business account? It’s time to log into the TikTok app and act on the following instructions…

Creating a TikTok business account

Start by tapping ‘Profile’ at the bottom and then the Menu icon in the upper right corner.

In the menu that appears, look for ‘Settings and privacy’. Tap this and, after that, ‘Account’. This will bring up yet another menu, this one including the self-explanatory option ‘Switch to Business Account’.

Keep tapping the pink ‘Next’ button to find out more about various benefits of a business account, including…

• Gaining valuable insights about your audience 🔍
• Launching promotions to grow your brand 🚀
• Using additional tools to enhance your conversion rate 📈

Eventually, you will be asked to select the category (from a long list of provided options) best describing your account.

For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that your business is an electronics store. You could draw more attention to your company by using its TikTok to publish a range of gadget unboxing videos. When a major new smartphone, tablet, or similar device is released, many people will want to see what it’s like to unbox it!

In this hypothetical situation, you could select ‘Electronics’ or ‘Shopping & retail’ as the category. This action will give you a pink ‘Next’ button to tap.

The subsequent prompt will let you add an email address to your TikTok profile. This will enable your customers to reach out to you directly. However, you might prefer to skip this step.

Either way, you will soon be left with the following screen.

Why not tap ‘Visit Business suite’ to start browsing the new set of tools you have been handed? (You can also later, from your profile page, return to those tools by tapping the Menu button and then ‘Business suite’.)

How to switch back to a personal account on TikTok

Many people relatively inexperienced with TikTok could be too tempted by the business account option. 

It is logical to think: “If I’m already making money on TikTok, couldn’t I make even more by switching to a business account?” Alas, the situation isn’t quite as simple as that — because, by making the switch, you could lose some functionality you had previously relied upon.

For example, you can monetize a YouTube channel with Whop and, for that matter, with TikTok. However, in your attempt to promote your YouTube channel via a TikTok business account, you could be frustrated by limits applied to the latter. One possible bugbear would be the restricted range of sounds you can use in videos you post to your TikTok page.

So, if you have ill-advisedly changed your TikTok personal account to a business account, how can you change it back? Fortunately, it’s a simple procedure.

Firstly, bring up your TikTok profile by tapping ‘Profile’ at the foot of the screen. Then, click the Menu button and, after that, ‘Settings and privacy’. You will see this menu:

Tap ‘Account’. Now you will see a new list of options, one of which should stand out pretty quickly: ‘Switch to Personal Account’.

Yes, this is the option you need to tap. Do that and watch as this notice pops up:

Once you’ve taken sufficient account of what it says (and made sure you are okay with it), tap ‘Switch anyway’. The message ‘Switched to Personal Account’ will appear momentarily on the screen, confirming the change.

Comparing TikTok business and personal accounts

In the contest of ‘TikTok business account vs personal account’, it can be hard to pick a clear winner. That’s because these two account types are largely suited to different purposes.

It naturally follows, then, that you need to take into careful consideration what you specifically are trying to achieve with your TikTok. Here is a rundown of potential purposes for a TikTok account — and which type of account would be best for each.

🏆 Best for ecommerce: Business

If you are accustomed to the ‘old guard’ of the social media scene, like Facebook and Instagram, you will likely also know about ‘social commerce’. This is where social media users sell products through the platforms’ ecommerce arms.

On several social networks, you can essentially open your own digital store and stock it with products of your choosing. Customers can then make their product purchases within the social media app they are already familiar with using.

One good case in point is Facebook Marketplace, where you can directly sell physical items like clothes, jewelry, and furniture. So, does TikTok have its own equivalent of Facebook Marketplace? Yes — TikTok Shop.

The good news is that both ‘personal’ and ‘business’ TikTok users can take advantage of TikTok Shop. However, the latter will be able to make much more extensive use of it.

With a business account, you can sell a vast range of your own merchandise — emblazoned with your company logo, if you wish — on TikTok Shop. This is assuming your business is located in any of these countries: 

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Indonesia 
• Malaysia
• Thailand 
• Vietnam
• Philippines 
• Singapore 

There’s some bad news for creators, though. With a personal account, you can’t sell your own products on TikTok Shop. Instead, you can only use it to promote and sell products on behalf of brands. In this situation, you can still earn a commission on each sale, making this form of affiliate marketing potentially ideal as a side gig.

Before being permitted entry to this affiliate scheme, you must: 

• Be at least 18 years old
• Have posted at least one TikTok video in the last 28 days
• Have over 1,000 followers

You’re probably fine with the first two, but the third can be a daunting hurdle for novice TikTokers to jump. 

Even if you have a business account on TikTok, you can’t use TikTok Shop to sell digital products, services, or subscriptions. This is a major omission given that digital products are more financially efficient to sell than physical goods.

What you could do is sell the former from Whop — and use your TikTok presence to direct your followers to your ‘whop’ (web shop) there.

Hence, a TikToker on a personal account can stick with it (and all its unique features) while using it to promote their own products.

🏆 Best for personal branding: Personal (unsurprisingly!)

There’s no getting away from the fact that a business needs to prioritize making money — and there’s nothing wrong with that. It creates jobs and livelihoods and helps to keep the economy’s motor running.

It stands to reason, then, that a company’s marketing materials will ultimately be aimed at encouraging people to buy, buy, buy.

None of this is to say that those marketing materials can’t teach its recipients a thing or two as well. If you want to instill loyalty to your brand, it must genuinely help people. This can start with providing useful tips here and there.

The short-form nature of TikTok videos makes them ideal conduits for such nuggets of wisdom. However, as a business owner, you could feel under pressure to squeeze a ‘call to action’ (CTA) into each TikTok video you shoot.

Even just cursory CTAs, like a rushed “visit our website today”, can risk coming across as ‘salesy’. In fact, the mere sight of your company’s name and logo on a TikTok profile can make people wary of what the posted videos contain.

As you can probably relate, it’s instinctive to trust friendly, personable people more than faceless, distant brands. So, imagine how much better an impression your TikTok profile could make when your own smiling face is front and center.

🏆 Best for educational value: Personal 

This follows on nicely from the previous point. When you run your TikTok as a person, rather than as a brand, you can build a higher level of intimacy with your viewers.

This can all help you to foster the perfect teaching environment. Regardless of your passions, hobbies, and background, you probably know dos and don’ts your viewers would benefit from learning.

So, why not share those tips and tricks in TikTok videos? If you do go down this route, there’s no shortage of TikTokers to inspire you. For example, if you enjoy visiting historical monuments while on your travels, check out the British historian Alice Loxton’s TikTok clips.

These often show her at landmarks across the United Kingdom and tell fascinating stories about their past. You could do something similar, even if you aren’t planning any trips to the UK soon. Every country has its own intriguing history, after all…

Is it possible to sell courses on TikTok? Not directly — but TikTok is a great place to promote online courses. That’s because, on TikTok, you can post short videos giving people a taste of what to expect on the courses.

There are literally hundreds of subjects you can choose from for your online courses. Fancy teaching mindfulness, nutrition, time management, or SEO? Those are just a few suggestions.

As for where you ought to sell those courses, Whop would be a strong candidate. Open a whop and then add Whop’s Courses app to implement the online infrastructure you need for your tutoring endeavors.

🏆 Best for versatility: Personal (just)

Whether you are hankering to predominantly use TikTok for business or simply pleasure, you could continually struggle to decide on the right type of account.

This all begs the question: do you really have to choose just one or the other? The short answer: no! Not strictly, anyway.

As acknowledged earlier, TikTok advises against switching back and forth between a personal account and a business account. TikTok suggests instead registering entirely separate personal and business accounts.

Yes, one person can set up multiple TikTok accounts. So, you could get yourself a personal account just to use in your own time, e.g. to capture video snippets of yourself having fun on vacation.

As you will have gathered from this article, however, the lines between a TikTok creator and a TikTok-based business can be somewhat blurred. Indeed, if your personal TikTok takes off, you could use it to direct viewers to your whop.

There, you would be able to sell digital products on the same general subject as the TikTok itself. Imagine if you were an avid swimmer and used TikTok to demonstrate various swimming strokes. You could start (and link to) a whop similar to this one…

Given how snappy your TikTok videos need to be, they might only be able to provide ‘beginner-level’ advice. Conversely, a whop like ‘Swim & Slim: 90-Day Challenge’ can helpfully go into much more depth (excuse the swimming pun).

A key part of putting together a whop is equipping it to provide the online products you have in mind. For example, with the 1-1 Coaching Calls app from Whop, you can sell time slots for coaching sessions to be delivered on a one-on-one basis.

🏆 Best for the longer term: Business

Even if you become a successful TikTok creator, you might not want to stay in that game for years — or even get the chance to.

So, what will you do if you have to move on at some point? Yes, you could permanently delete the account. You can do that in the app…

Tap ‘Profile’ at the bottom and then the Menu icon at the top. In the actual menu that appears, tap ‘Settings and privacy’. Next, tap ‘Account’. At the bottom of the Account menu will be the text ‘Deactivate or delete account’. Tapping this will present you with these two options: 

Deactivating the account might be the better option if the circumstances that made you want to delete the account look likely to be temporary.

Yet another option is to abandon the account, leaving a notice along the lines of “this account is no longer active” in your TikTok bio.

However, over the years, you could have built up a massive SEO (search engine optimization) profile with this account. Many big-name websites could be linking to it. Whether you delete or just leave the account, all of this SEO juice will go to waste.

How can you avoid running into this awkward scenario? One thing you could do is start a company before creating a TikTok account for it. You would then be able to name this account after the company (rather than yourself).

Hence, if you do eventually decide to call it a day with the account, you could potentially just hand it over to someone else. This person will stand to reap the promotional benefits of the SEO edge you have spent (possibly loads of) time sharpening.

As mentioned earlier, if you already have a personal TikTok account you use just for fun, you can register a separate business account. If you do, though, be careful which of the following methods you use to sign up…

Registering with a personal Facebook or Apple account could cause trouble for the future — as this account would belong to you as an individual.

Consider instead signing up with a work-specific (but not person-specific) phone number or email address. Options include using a generic ‘info@companyname.com’ email address or a phone number reserved for general queries.

TikTok business account vs personal portal: Which is best overall?

There’s no simple, straightforward answer to this question. It’s easier to figure out which kind of TikTok account would be best for your specific wants and needs.

Are you already running a business you would like to promote on TikTok? If so, a business account presents the most sensible step forward.

One shrewd strategy would be to establish your company’s main web presence elsewhere, using TikTok merely as a marketing channel. In doing so, you can follow the lead of ParlayScience. This brand has its own website and whops — like ’ParlayScience Discord Access’ — but also a TikTok page.

What if your biggest priority is content monetization? You can do that, too, on both TikTok and Whop. This two-pronged approach would work best with a personal — rather than business — TikTok account.

That way, you will have access to a wider range of creator-friendly resources — including trendy songs and sounds. Also, it will be easier for you to keep your own personality at the forefront. As a result, you can convey greater authenticity.

One thing you won’t get is the more powerful analytics dashboard that comes as standard with a business account. However, companies have a more pressing need for this detailed data — especially when (often squeezed) ad budgets are on the line.

Monetize your TikTok presence with Whop

No matter what kind of TikTok creator you are, you might understandably be wondering whether you ought to take up a TikTok business account. Would making money on TikTok as a creator count as a business pursuit?

Seeking to monetize content? Go for a personal account. The creator tools built into it are next level. At the helm of a business with a large team and multiple marketing channels besides TikTok? With a business account, you make your marketing more cost-effective by advertising strictly to specific demographics.

Ideally, you need to build other sources of income outside of TikTok lest your fortunes on that app unexpectedly wilt (or in the case that TikTok becomes banned). Hence the rationale for opening a whop and using it to sell ebooks, podcasts, and other digital products, as well as serving as a community space for your followers.

You can’t sell these through your TikTok, but could use it to promote your whop! It’s easy to get started with Whop in just minutes.

Unlock the lucrative potential of your TikTok and start earning with Whop. Create and sell digital products, grow your brand, and turn your creativity into income today!