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TikTok Shop has two standing ways a seller gets affiliate creators onto ordinary, non-live product listings: Open Collaboration, where any eligible creator finds and picks the product themselves in the Affiliate Marketplace at a public rate, and Target Collaboration, where the seller invites specific creators directly. When both are active on the same product, the Target rate always wins.
Open Collaboration is how TikTok Shop lets a seller make a product available to any eligible affiliate creator, with no one selected in advance. Per TikTok's own documentation, an open collaboration makes a seller's products visible for promotion to all TikTok Shop creators, and TikTok's own guidance is explicit about when to use it: "Choose an open collaboration if you don't have a specific creator in mind."
The seller sets the commission per product within TikTok's own published range — "You can choose an affiliate commission between 1% and 80% of your GMV for each order" — and can optionally require approval before a creator is allowed to start, for sellers who want to vet who promotes a product. In practice the model assumes enough inventory to support an open inflow of creators; TikTok's own guidance specifically reminds sellers to confirm stock before setting a collaboration up.
Target Collaboration is the opposite starting point: the seller already has specific creators in mind and invites them directly to promote specific products. TikTok's own documentation defines it plainly: "A target collaboration allows you to invite certain creators to promote specific products on your behalf." Per TikTok's own seller guidance, sellers can invite creators several ways — directly by username, in bulk from a Manage Creators list, or by copying and sharing an invitation link. Once a creator accepts, the collaboration begins on the date the seller chose, and it's managed from the Target collaboration page in Affiliate Center. For the affiliate model's underlying mechanics outside TikTok Shop's own closed system — how tracking and commission normally work — see affiliate influencer marketing: how the model works.
A target collaboration offers two fee models, per TikTok's own documentation: a flat fee — a one-time payment to TikTok Shop, which TikTok then pays out to the creator once the video is approved, and which applies to the video format only — or a commission-only model, where the seller pays only when a sale actually happens, and the creator's video needs no review and isn't limited to a specific format.
A product can have both an Open Collaboration and a Target Collaboration active at the same time — that's actually the normal setup for most brands. But a creator only ever earns one commission rate per product, and TikTok's own documentation is unambiguous about which one wins: "The target collaboration commission rate will always supersede the open collaboration commission rate." TikTok itself recommends setting a higher rate on target collaborations for exactly this reason — that's the rate that actually reaches the creators the seller went out of their way to invite, regardless of what the open rate on the same product is set to.
| Open Collaboration | Target Collaboration | |
|---|---|---|
| Who initiates it | The creator finds and picks the product themselves | The seller invites specific creators directly |
| When to use it | No specific creator in mind, want broad reach | Already know who you want to work with |
| Commission range | 1–80% of GMV, set by the seller | 1–80% of GMV, set per product/creator |
| Fee model | Commission only | Flat fee (video only) or commission-only |
| Seller approval required? | Optional — can require approval before a creator starts | Creator must accept the invitation |
| If both are active on the same product | Always loses to the target rate | Always wins, regardless of the open rate |
Open and Target Collaboration are the underlying enrollment mechanic — how a creator becomes an affiliate on a product in the first place. That's distinct from the two mechanisms built on top of it: TikTok Shop LIVE Shopping already mentions open and target collaboration briefly as the two ways a creator can sell during a livestream — this article goes deep on the mechanics behind both models for ordinary, non-live product listings. And GMV Max is another layer again: when GMV Max uses "Affiliate post" as a video source, it draws on videos from creators already enrolled through either Open or Target Collaboration — the collaboration model is the precondition, GMV Max is the paid amplification on top of it.
TikTok's own documentation for open and target collaborations doesn't itself state a separate follower requirement. General eligibility to be an affiliate creator on TikTok Shop at all requires, per TikTok's own Creator Eligibility Policy, at least 1,000 followers and a minimum age of 18 — the same threshold that applies to LIVE Shopping affiliates (see TikTok Shop LIVE Shopping). A creator under 5,000 followers is, however, automatically placed in a 30-day pilot program capped at 3 shoppable videos a day, 3 shoppable LIVEs a week, and no eligibility to join campaigns — which in practice limits how much a nano or micro creator can actually promote via an open or target collaboration, even though they can technically participate.
A caveat worth flagging: several independent, non-TikTok sources describe a separate 5,000+ follower requirement specifically for participating in Open Collaboration. That figure doesn't match TikTok's own open-collaboration documentation, which states no follower requirement of its own, and it may stem from conflating that number with the pilot program's 5,000-follower graduation threshold. Until it's confirmed on a TikTok source specific to open collaborations, treat the 5,000+ figure as unverified rather than a fixed rule — use the confirmed 1,000-follower baseline instead, with the pilot program's cap as the real constraint on the smallest creators.
IF you don't have a specific creator in mind and want broad reach fast → use Open Collaboration and set a competitive but sustainable commission.
IF you already know exactly who you want to work with → use Target Collaboration, and set the rate higher than your open rate on the same product so the target rate is guaranteed to win.
IF you want the best of both → run both at once: leave Open Collaboration open for broad reach, and use Target Collaboration to give your most important creators a clearly better deal.
IF you're planning a flash sale → remember that TikTok's own documentation requires a flash sale request to go to a single creator with LIVE-streaming access, not a bulk invitation.
The numbers below are hypothetical and only illustrate how open and target rates pay out differently for two creators on the same product — this is not a claim about expected performance, and it is not a real Make Influence customer case.
A brand lists a product at DKK 349 with an Open Collaboration commission of 10% and a Target Collaboration commission of 18% for three named creators it invited directly.
What the brand is actually paying for with the higher target rate isn't extra sales by itself — it's the guarantee that the specific creators it chose and invited get a visibly better deal than any random creator who finds the product through Open Collaboration.
In Make Influence's experience, the most common mistake isn't picking the wrong model — it's using only one of them. Open Collaboration alone rarely surfaces the creators who actually perform best for a specific product, and Target Collaboration alone requires the brand to spot the right creators before anyone else does. We recommend leaving Open Collaboration running as an ongoing source of new affiliate creators, actively tracking who performs best through it, and then moving exactly those creators onto a Target Collaboration with a clearly better rate — so the strongest performers aren't left on the open rate where a competitor could out-invite them elsewhere.
Yes — that's actually the most common setup. But a creator only earns one rate per product, and the target rate always wins if both are active.
No. The creator has to actively accept the invitation before the collaboration starts on the chosen date.
Only with a restriction. TikTok's own documentation prohibits bulk flash sale requests — they require inviting a single creator with LIVE-streaming access.
Only if you already sell into one of the European markets where TikTok Shop is live. TikTok Shop hasn't launched in Denmark yet, so neither Open nor Target Collaboration is available for a purely Danish sale.
Open and Target Collaboration are about getting a creator enrolled as an affiliate on a product — organic content for commission. Whitelisting and Spark Ads is a separate step where the brand runs a specific, already-existing video as a paid ad from the creator's account, with the creator's permission.
Per the established practice also described in TikTok Shop LIVE Shopping, an eligible affiliate creator browses products in TikTok Shop's Affiliate Marketplace and can pick up any product set up with Open Collaboration. The wider comparison of TikTok's and Instagram's own creator marketplaces is covered in TikTok Creator Marketplace vs Instagram Creator Marketplace.
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