The Most Valuable 2021 TikTok Songs, Ranked by Payout

Angelo Ilumba Senior Writer

Updated 30 July 2021

We all know TikTok as the social media phenomenon offering up endless hours of short user-generated video clips, but is it also a legitimate medium for musicians to get their music out there? Whether as background soundtracks or integral parts of memes, music is heavily featured in TikTok videos. Certainly, a viral TikTok played a huge role in getting the classic Fleetwood Mac song “Dreams” to a new and younger audience. The Backyardigans, a TV show that hasn’t aired new episodes since 2013, has gained attention with two songs regularly played on TikTok.

We set out to find out if bands and artists benefit monetarily from being heavily featured in TikTok.

The Most Played Songs on TikTok

These songs top our list of most played songs on TikTok:

“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod—31,612,975,915 plays
“Oh No” by Kreepa— 30,406,767266 plays
“Steven Universe” by L.Dre—10,681,174,626 plays

“Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” and “Steven Universe” are both popular songs to use as background music for TikTok videos. “Oh No” is part of a popular funny TikTok meme that captures the moments right before unfortunate events happen.

Unfortunately, for the artists behind these songs, there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between TikTok plays and revenue. “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” has earned a relatively small $14,577 from Spotify, while “Oh No” actually beats it out with $114,933 (still pretty small) in Spotify earnings.

The Highest Earning Songs from TikTok

Topping our list of highest earners of the heavily played songs on TikTok are the following:

“Montero (Call Me by Your Name)" by Lil Nas X—$2,992,743
“Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf—$2,693,099
“Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo—$2,275,954

Again, we can’t find a strong correlation between earnings and TikTok plays. “Good 4 U,” for instance, only has 965,217,397 plays on TikTok yet earns significantly more than “Oh No” by Kreepa. Olivia Rodigro’s meteoric rise in pop culture likely has more to do with her overall earnings than TikTok plays.

The complete list of most valuable TikTok songs

For your reference, here are the 30 most played songs on TikTok and their Spotify earnings:

Track	Artist	Payout Rank	Spotify avg. payout ($.0045 per play)	Spotify plays	Tik Tok plays
MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)	Lil Nas X	1	$2,992,743	665,054,005	1,694,857,032
Astronaut In The Ocean	Masked Wolf	2	$2,693,099	598,466,338	3,395,396,227
good 4 u	Olivia Rodrigo	3	$2,275,954	505,767,531	965,217,397
Kiss Me More (feat. SZA)	Doja Cat	4	$1,976,048	439,121,761	1,418,308,783
Day 'n' Nite	Kid Cudi	5	$1,856,185	412,485,494	3,270,587,639
telepatía	Kali Uchis	6	$1,765,858	392,412,807	1,202,594,351
deja vu	Olivia Rodrigo	7	$1,742,185	387,152,327	768,229,907
Up	Cardi B	8	$1,374,870	305,526,586	2,502,055,026
Levitating	Dua Lipa	9	$1,103,350	245,188,889	768,229,907
SugarCrash!	ElyOtto	10	$710,540	157,897,740	8,881,363,407
Rasputin (7" Version)	Boney M.	11	$566,568	125,904,095	4,775,873,193
Body (Remix) [feat. ArrDee, E1 (3x3), ZT (3x3), Bugzy Malone, Buni, Fivio]	Tion Wayne & Russ Millions	12	$550,248	122,277,402	925,810,530
Cry Baby (feat. DaBaby)	Megan Thee Stallion	13	$486,538	108,119,472	2,302,265,163
Buss It	Erica Banks	14	$378,173	84,038,510	6,264,706,275
Two®	Lil Uzi Vert	15	$318,808	70,846,143	798,036,109
Моя голова винтом	kostromin	16	$216,178	48,039,491	1,506,892,080
Jalebi Baby	Tesher	17	$199,825	44,405,566	1,600,475,838
Oh No	Kreepa	18	$114,933	25,540,579	30,406,767,266
Castaways	The Backyardigans	19	$97,868	21,748,469	1,137,190,199
Steven Universe	L.Dre	20	$96,531	21,451,349	10,681,174,626
Plastic	Unghetto Mathieu	21	$92,581	20,573,469	1,768,567,021
Renai Circulation (English Cover) [TV Size]	Lizz Robinett	22	$59,157	13,146,031	1,190,823,818
Aesthetic	Xilo	23	$54,151	12,033,476	2,597,636,685
Punk Monk	Playboi Carti	24	$41,820	9,293,274	277,408,385
Clap For 'Em (feat. Flo Milli & Sada Baby)	YungManny	25	$34,913	7,758,473	924,950,148
Into The Thick Of It!	The Backyardigans	26	$26,277	5,839,408	705,316,447
Monkeys Spinning Monkeys	Kevin MacLeod	27	$14,577	3,239,303	31,612,975,815
VANO 3000	VANO 3000	28	$13,373	2,971,757	270,286,219
Hai phút hơn	marlene	29	$10,095	2,243,244	4,754,857,749
Spongebob	Dante9k	30	$709	157,580	6,101,731,002

Methodology

To compile our list, we gathered data from Tokboard to find the top 10 played songs on TikTok in each month between January 2021 and June 2021. Our list excludes songs with explicit titles as well as songs that are not available on Spotify.

To calculate earnings, we multiplied each song’s number of plays on Spotify by the average payout per stream as according to Forbes.

Sources:

Tokboard—TikTok song popularity
Spotify—Song play counts
Forbes—Spotify payout per stream

This content was produced by WhistleOut and is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with TikTok, Spotify, or Forbes.

Angelo Ilumba

Senior Writer

Angelo is a highly experienced writer for WhistleOut, specializing in unraveling the complexities of the mobile and tech world so that readers can easily understand what is relevant to them. Angelo has been featured on several publications such as MoneyTalksNews, Yahoo Finance, NPR and more.

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