How to Go Live on TikTok

TikTok LIVE turns short-form video audiences into real-time communities. Creators can broadcast live video directly to their followers, while viewers can join the livestream, leave comments, ask questions, and interact as the broadcast happens.

TikTok’s LIVE ecosystem operates at scale. More than 100 million creators went LIVE on TikTok in 2024, generating 269 billion comments from viewers throughout the year.

However, starting a TikTok livestream requires more than opening the camera and pressing LIVE. TikTok enforces eligibility requirements, and creators configure their stream settings before the first broadcast goes out.

So, how do you go LIVE on TikTok?

This guide walks you through how to go LIVE on TikTok, including the eligibility requirements, how to start your first livestream, which video and LIVE settings to check, and how to keep your audience engaged throughout the broadcast.

What is TikTok Live?

TikTok LIVE is TikTok’s real-time broadcasting feature. You stream from your account, viewers join while you’re on air, and everyone in the room can comment, react and send virtual gifts that convert into Diamonds you cash out.

It differs from a posted video in three ways that matter for planning:

• It only exists while you’re broadcasting. A video finds viewers for days. A stream ends when you end it.
• Discovery works differently. Posts surface through the For You feed. Streams surface through the LIVE feed and through notifications to your followers.
• It earns in real time. Gifts land during the broadcast rather than after a monthly payout cycle.

How Many Followers on TikTok to Go Live?

You need 1,000 followers to go live on TikTok, and three other conditions have to be true at the same time.

Disclaimer: There’s no reliable route below 1,000. A host can invite you onto their broadcast as a guest, and TikTok tests lower thresholds in some markets, but buying followers and paying agencies to switch LIVE on both violate TikTok’s rules and put the account at risk.

Why Can’t You Go Live on TikTok?

If you’ve cleared 1,000 followers and the LIVE option still isn’t showing, work down this list in order. The first two account for most cases.

• Your age isn’t confirmed. Check your birthdate in Settings and complete any verification prompt TikTok shows you.
• You have an active violation. Settings, then Account, then Account Status shows strikes and restrictions.
• Your follower count dipped. Bot purges and unfollows can drop you under 1,000 without warning.
• Your app is out of date. Update from the App Store or Google Play. Modified and sideloaded builds lose LIVE access.
• You’re on a business account. LIVE Gifts and parts of the LIVE toolset are limited to Personal and Creator accounts.
• LIVE isn’t offered in your region. Your account region decides this, not the country you are streaming from.

How to Go Live on TikTok from Your Phone

The phone path takes five steps once your account qualifies.

1. Open TikTok and tap the plus button at the bottom of the screen.
2. Swipe across the capture modes until you reach LIVE. It sits past the video and photo options.
3. Write a LIVE title that tells people what they’re walking into. Viewers scrolling the LIVE feed decide in about a second.
4. Pick a LIVE topic and add a cover image so your broadcast is easier to surface in the LIVE feed.
5. Tap Go LIVE. Your followers get a notification and the stream appears in the LIVE feed.

If LIVE also appears in your profile menu under Creator Tools, you have access even if you missed it in the create menu.

How to Go Live on TikTok from a Computer

TikTok issues a stream key that lets external software broadcast to LIVE. This is the path for anyone using a dedicated camera, an external microphone, a capture card or more than one video source.

Two routes exist and they carry different requirements:

1. Open TikTok LIVE Center in a browser and sign in.
2. Copy the Server URL and Stream Key it displays.
3. Paste both into your encoder. In OBS Studio, that’s Settings, then Stream, then Service: Custom.
4. Start streaming. Generate a fresh key before every broadcast, because TikTok issues single-session keys.

How to Go Live on TikTok with Castr

Castr sits between your encoder and TikTok, taking one video feed in and pushing it out to TikTok and up to 29 other destinations at the same time. Adding a second platform is one extra click rather than a second broadcast, which is why multistreaming is the practical way to run a desktop setup.

Follow these steps to connect Castr with TikTok and start broadcasting your live video to your audience.

1. Create a livestream. In your Castr dashboard, click Create New, name the stream, and pick the ingest region closest to where you’re broadcasting.
2. Connect your encoder. Copy Castr’s RTMP or SRT ingest URL and stream key from the Source Setup panel, then paste them into OBS under Settings, then Stream, then Custom.
3. Get your TikTok credentials. Open TikTok LIVE Center in a browser and copy the Server URL and Stream Key.
4. Add TikTok as a destination. In Castr, open the Destinations tab, click Add Destination, choose Custom, then RTMP, and paste TikTok’s two values in.
5. Add your other platforms. In the same way, connect YouTube, Facebook, Twitch or LinkedIn through their own accounts, or add any other endpoint as a second custom RTMP destination.
6. Set a vertical canvas in your encoder at 1080 x 1920. TikTok renders portrait video, and a landscape feed sits letterboxed in a narrow strip.
7. Toggle everything on and go live. Start sending video from your encoder and Castr relays the single feed to every destination at once.

Castr duplicates the stream server-side, so your upload connection carries one feed no matter how many platforms receive it. That matters on venue Wi-Fi, where pushing four separate streams from one laptop saturates the uplink and drops frames.

Every session records automatically as a VOD, and an embed player puts the same broadcast on your own site.

What Encoder Settings Should You Use for a TikTok Live?

TikTok accepts a narrow set of encoder settings, and a mismatched codec fails silently rather than throwing an error.

What Can You Do During a TikTok Live?

TikTok gives hosts a set of tools for running the room while broadcasting.

• Comments: viewers type in real time and you answer on camera. You can pin one so late arrivals see it.
• Gifts: viewers send animated gifts that convert into Diamonds in your balance.
• Co-hosting and multi-guest: invite another creator onto a split screen with you.
• Moderators: appoint trusted viewers who can mute, block and delete comments.
• Q&A: viewers submit questions to a queue and you work through them.
• LIVE Shopping: pin TikTok Shop products so viewers buy without leaving the stream.

Appoint a moderator before your first broadcast. Presenting, reading chat and removing bad actors at the same time is more than one person can do well, and unmoderated comments count against your account standing.

When Is the Best Time to Go Live on TikTok?

Weekday evenings between 7 and 11 p.m. in your audience’s local time, with Tuesday through Thursday the strongest days. Use this as a starting point and replace it with your own data as soon as you have four weeks of it.

Duration matters more than start time. Ninety minutes is a working minimum, because TikTok needs sustained watch time and comment activity before it surfaces you in the LIVE feed, and a 20-minute broadcast ends before that happens.

How to Make Money on TikTok Live

Gifts are the main route and they open at the same 1,000 followers that open LIVE itself. Four steps sit between your viewer’s bank account and yours.

1. Viewers buy Coins with real money inside the app or on TikTok’s website.
2. Viewers spend Coins on Gifts during your broadcast, from a 1-Coin Rose to a 34,999-Coin Universe.
3. Gifts become Diamonds, and TikTok keeps 50% of the value at this step.
4. Diamonds become cash through PayPal or a linked account once you clear the withdrawal minimum.

Between 1.5% and 4% of unique viewers send a gift in a typical session, which is 15 to 40 gifters per 1,000 viewers. Earnings track concurrent viewers far more closely than follower count.

Three other routes pay during the same broadcast:

• LIVE Subscription: viewers pay monthly for badges, emotes and subscriber-only chat.
• TikTok Shop: commission or margin on products sold during the stream.
• Brand partnerships: a sponsor pays you directly, so nothing routes through TikTok’s revenue share.

TikTok keeps the largest cut of any major live platform. Twitch takes half of subscriptions, YouTube takes 30% of Super Chat, and a pay-per-view paywall on your own site leaves you 91%. That’s the argument for streaming to more than one place rather than for leaving TikTok, which has the discovery you can’t replace.

What Are the Rules for TikTok Live?

Community Guidelines apply in real time, and moderation happens while you’re broadcasting rather than afterwards. Streams get cut and accounts lose LIVE access for:

• Nudity or sexual content, including anything that only implies it.
• Dangerous acts or stunts that risk physical harm on camera.
• Regulated goods, covering alcohol, tobacco, firearms and drugs.
• Hate speech or harassment, whether from you or left unmoderated in your chat.
• Misleading gift solicitation, such as fake charity appeals.
• Copyrighted music or video you don’t hold broadcast rights to.
• Pre-recorded or looping video presented as an authentic live broadcast. Unattended streams are also ineligible for monetization.

What Should You Check Before Your First TikTok Live?

Run through this before you tap Go LIVE for the first time.

• A fresh stream key, if you’re broadcasting from a computer. Expired keys are the most common connection failure.
• A vertical canvas, checked in your encoder preview rather than assumed.
• Audio levels tested on a private test stream, not on your audience.
• A title that promises something. Hanging out promises nothing.
• A moderator briefed and ready before you start.
• Ninety minutes blocked out, so you aren’t ending just as TikTok starts surfacing you.
• A wired Ethernet connection where possible, or a tested upload speed with headroom above your bitrate.

What Else Should You Know About Going Live on TikTok?

Can anyone start a TikTok Live?

No. You need 1,000 followers, confirmation that you’re 18 or older, an account in good standing, and LIVE availability in your region. Watching a LIVE is open to everyone, including logged-out viewers on the web.

How do you activate LIVE on TikTok?

There’s no application to submit. TikTok enables access automatically once your account meets all four requirements, normally within 24 hours of crossing 1,000 followers.

How long can a TikTok Live last?

TikTok publishes no fixed session cap, and creators routinely stream for hours. Your real limits are battery, bandwidth and connection stability, which is another argument for a desktop setup over a phone.

Do you need 1,000 followers to join someone else’s LIVE?

No. An invitation from an eligible host is the standard route onto a broadcast early, and it’s the one dependable way to be live on TikTok before you qualify yourself. Co-host eligibility can vary by region.

Wrapping Up

Going live on TikTok takes five steps on a phone and a stream key on a computer, once you’ve cleared 1000 followers and the three conditions behind it. Castr connects to TikTok as a custom RTMP destination and sends the same broadcast to up to 30 platforms at once, recording every session as video you keep. 

Start a 7-day Castr trial and go live on TikTok from your own camera setup.