If you stream on TikTok Live, your income has exactly one primary source: viewers send gifts, gifts convert to diamonds, and diamonds convert to money. Everything an agency offers sits on top of that pipeline. Understanding the pipeline is the difference between choosing a partner and signing up for a problem.
The gift → diamond → payout pipeline
Viewers buy coins with real money and spend them on gifts during your live. TikTok converts received gifts into diamonds credited to your account. When you withdraw, the platform applies its revenue share and pays out the remainder. The exact rates vary by region and program, but the shape never changes: the platform takes its share first, and what agencies compete on is everything after that.
What an agency actually adds
- Bonus programs — additional payments funded by the agency's own commission from TikTok, usually tied to activity and gifting volume.
- Operational support — scheduling, content review, account issues, policy questions, and someone to call when a live goes wrong.
- Protection — structured responses to restrictions, mass reporting and account compromise.
- Formats — interactive games and stream formats that raise gifting without raising hours.
A serious agency earns from the platform's partner program, not from its creators. If an agency's main revenue comes from fees it charges you, the incentives are backwards.
About the famous 22 days / 90 hours thresholds
Many agencies gate bonuses behind fixed activity thresholds — commonly 22 live days and 90+ hours per month, or six-figure coin targets. These numbers exist for the agency's reporting, not for your growth. They push creators into burnout streams: long, low-energy sessions that satisfy a counter but hurt retention and gifting quality.
Hours are an input, not an outcome. We would rather see 60 well-planned hours with rising retention than 100 hours of counter-filling.
Our position is public: no artificial thresholds. Bonus plans at TeamMedia scale with outcomes — viewer retention, gifting consistency, session quality — and every rule is written down before you join.
A checklist for a fair agency deal
- Every payout rule is written and dated — nothing 'depends on the manager'.
- You can leave: notice period measured in weeks, not years, and no penalty clauses on your own account.
- Bonuses have a published formula, not a discretionary pool.
- The agency explains what it earns. If that is a secret, walk away.
- Support has response-time commitments, not vibes.
If you are evaluating agencies right now, take this list with you — including to our own onboarding call. A partner that cannot answer these questions in writing is not a partner.