How the TikTok side works
How the TikTok side works
The four built exchanges, the headcount each room opens at, the full pacing table with its configuration keys, and the nine things deliberately not built. None of it is open.
The four built exchanges
In the product's own rotation order. Watch leads and Saves sits immediately after it, because a save is only ever offered as the second step of a watch-then-save pair on the same video.
Watch
One video, watched through.A matched creator opens your video in the TikTok app and watches it to the end. Watch time is the signal TikTok weighs most heavily and the one that costs a viewer the most. It is also the only one of the four whose price is not flat: a ninety-second video asks far more of a viewer than a twelve-second one, and the cost follows the ask.
- Room opens at
- 4 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 1× to 2.25× by length, up to 5.175× looped
- Delivery checkable
- No — self-reported
Saves
One tap, on a video you were already watching.A save is never served on its own. It is offered only as the second step of a watch-then-save pair on the same video, because a burst of saves arriving with no watch time behind them is exactly the fingerprint automated-engagement detection looks for.
- Room opens at
- 4 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 0.5×
- Delivery checkable
- No — self-reported
Comments
Reading the video properly, then writing something true about it.The only TikTok exchange whose delivery can be checked against a public surface — comments are visible on the video, so the system can confirm one arrived rather than take a member's word for it. It is also the one that carries the most risk if done badly, which is why it is one of only two exchanges with a cap of its own, and the tighter of the two.
- Room opens at
- 5 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 3×
- Delivery checkable
- Yes — publicly visible
Deep Dive
Three videos, watched end to end.A visit to your profile rather than to a single video: a matched creator opens your account and watches several videos through. It is the most expensive action on the board because it asks the most of the person performing it, and it is the only one aimed at the profile rather than a post.
- Room opens at
- 6 creators
- Spend multiplier
- 3.5×
- Delivery checkable
- No — self-reported
Three of the four cannot be verified by anyone. TikTok exposes no third-party signal for watches, saves or profile visits, so they run on the honour system backed by pattern review rather than by proof. Only comments are visible on a public surface. This is stated here rather than buried because the alternative is implying a verification that does not exist.
Six pages, in order
How TikTok matching works
Matching weighs follower bracket first and subject second — the same order as the Instagram side, for the same reason. Two accounts of wildly different sizes cannot help each other: the smal...
Rooms and the headcount thresholds
Rooms are closed by default and open two ways: on a headcount, or at an announced time. In a room of N creators each person can engage a given video once, so N − 1 is the ceiling — but the g...
Every safety rail, with its config key
Coordinated attention is detectable by its shape, not by any single action: forty identical actions in four minutes, saves arriving with no watch time, the same two accounts trading every da...
Verification, and what is read
Ownership is proved by putting a short code in your TikTok bio and having the system read it back from your public profile. No password is ever requested. No OAuth token is held. Nothing is...
Points, and what each action costs
You earn points by engaging and spend them to receive. Actions are priced by the attention they cost the person performing them rather than by how many taps they take — a deep dive is three...
What was deliberately not built
A feature list read backwards. Nine mechanisms that exist on the Instagram side, or that any competitor would ship, are absent from the TikTok side — each for a stated reason. The shape of w...