How much does TikTok Shop advertising cost in the UK?

How TikTok charges for Shop ads

TikTok ads are sold by auction, so there is no price list. In Ads Manager you pay either per thousand impressions (CPM and oCPM), per click (CPC) or per view (CPV). oCPM is the default for sales campaigns. You still pay per impression, but TikTok shows your ads to the people most likely to buy (TikTok Ads Manager, bidding methods).

Most UK TikTok Shop brands now advertise through GMV Max, and it works differently. You set two things, a daily budget and an ROI target, and TikTok decides the creative, audience and bids. TikTok says your budget won't be fully spent unless the campaign can roughly hit your target ROI (TikTok, GMV Max best practices). When a campaign is doing well, TikTok can raise its daily budget by 50% up to ten times in the same day, and the budget resets the next morning (TikTok, GMV Max auto budget increase).

That changes the question brands should ask. With GMV Max, the CPM matters less than the return you get for each pound spent and whether that return covers your costs. TikTok does not publish average CPM or CPC figures. The averages quoted online are third-party estimates, mostly for US accounts.

Minimum and recommended budgets

TikTok's help centre gives the Ads Manager minimums in US dollars and publishes no UK figure. They matter less for Shop brands, because most UK TikTok Shop ad spend now runs through GMV Max, which has no fixed minimum.

Here is how TikTok's GMV Max formula works in practice. A shop selling £1,000 a day outside LIVE, with an ROI target of 3, would get a recommended budget of 2 × £1,000 ÷ 3, about £667 a day. For a new shop with no sales history, the formula has nothing to work from, which is why we start smaller and let results set the pace.

That is what we did with Vita Bright, a cold-start brand. We waited until organic sales were converting, then started GMV Max at £200 a day in week four. Once ROAS reached 3.5 we moved to £400 a day. Through weeks five to eight ROAS held above 4, and we scaled to £600 to £800 a day. The shop reached £43,160 in revenue in its first 60 days (Vita Bright case study).

Our standing rule for GMV Max is an ROI target between 2.5 and 3.5, starting at 3. We run one campaign across all products by default, split out only the products whose margin needs a different target, and move the target or budget in small steps once a campaign has orders to learn from.

What UK shops are getting back

We pulled every Product GMV Max campaign that spent more than £250 across three UK shops whose ad accounts we have access to. The shops sell health products, food and drink, and home cleaning products, and the period is 7 to 29 October 2026.

Three things stand out. First, the range is wide even inside one shop. One shop's campaigns ran from 0.7 to 3.8 depending on the product. Second, the weakest campaign was an advent gift product advertised in October, well before Christmas demand. Third, a daily budget is a cap, not a spend. Several campaigns with caps of £2,000 a day or more spent a few hundred pounds a day, because GMV Max only spends when it can find orders near the target ROI.

The other costs on every order

Ad spend is only one cost. Every TikTok Shop order also carries the costs below, and they decide how much ROAS you need before an ad pays for itself.

Creator commission also applies to ads. When GMV Max runs ads on a creator's affiliate video, that creator earns commission on the sales the ad drives, at a rate you set for ads between 1% and 80% (Seller University, affiliate creatives for ads). TikTok's UK team advises setting the ads rate at 50% to 75% of your standard creator commission, and never below 50%. This is usually worth it, because creator videos tend to be the best-converting creative, but it belongs in your sums.

TikTok also runs a GMV Max commission saving for some UK sellers. Invited shops that set their ROI target at or below a given figure, and their budget at or above TikTok's recommendation, get a reduction on the commission fee (Seller University, commission saving via GMV Max). If you see the offer in your dashboard, include the saving when you work out your margin.

Your break-even ROAS

Break-even ROAS is the return at which an ad-driven sale makes exactly £0 after every cost. Below it, each order loses money. Above it, the ad is profitable.

Take a £25 product that costs £7 to make, ships through FBT as a small parcel, and sells mostly through creators on 10% commission.

At the median ROAS of 2.9, each order costs £8.62 in ads and leaves £1.56 of profit. At 3.6 it leaves £3.24. At 2.0 it loses £2.32 an order. Without creator commission, the same product breaks even at 1.97. That gap is why we agree the commission rate for ads before setting an ROI target, not after.

TikTok Shop ads budget calculator

Enter your own figures. The calculator uses the UK fees above and works out your break-even ROAS, your profit per order at the ROAS you expect, and the daily budget needed to hit a sales target from ads.

The calculator leaves out storage, samples, refunds, VAT on your own sales and any GMV Max commission saving, so treat the result as a first estimate. Shipping of £1.99 is applied to FBT orders priced at £22 or more. Under £22 the buyer pays £3.99 shipping, and the 9% fee is worked out on that too.

Example budgets for testing, launching and scaling

These examples use the same £25 product, a 2.9 ROAS and £1.56 profit per order. They show how the sums scale. They are not forecasts. ROAS usually moves as budget changes, so check it again at each step before adding more.

The test stage is there to answer one question. Does this product reach a ROAS above its break-even point with the creative you have? If it does, you have earned the right to spend more. If it does not, more budget will lose money faster, and the fix is usually the product page, the price or the videos, not the ad settings.

Ads are also optional. Qleen reached £5,000 a day in 60 days with no ad spend at all, using affiliate creators only (Qleen case study). For many new shops, the first pounds are better spent on samples and creators. Ads then amplify the videos that already sell.

How we adjust GMV Max, step by step

These are the rules we run every account by. They keep a campaign learning instead of resetting it each time someone changes a setting.

1. Start where TikTok suggests. Launch at the recommended ROI target, then move it towards our 2.5 to 3.5 band. Never set it below your break-even ROAS.
2. Wait for 20 orders. Change nothing until the campaign has at least 20 orders. Early results swing a lot, and the system learns from orders.
3. Change one thing a day. Adjust either the ROI target or the budget, never both, and no more than once in 24 hours. Then give it 48 hours before you judge the result.
4. Keep each change between 15% and 30%. A change of more than 30% to the target or the budget resets learning, and the campaign starts again.
5. Scale when it hits target and uses its budget. If ROI is at or above target and the campaign has used more than 80% of its budget, raise the budget by 15% to 30%. Turn on auto budget increase so TikTok can add more on strong days.
6. Good ROI but low spend means lower the target first. If ROI beats the target but the campaign is not spending, the target is holding it back. Lower it before you add budget.
7. Do not run out at peak times. Check budgets before weekday evenings (6pm to 10pm), Sunday evenings and payday, when demand is highest.
8. Leave a learning campaign alone. Pausing it, editing its products or changing the target twice in a day all disrupt learning.
9. Use Max Delivery sparingly. Run it for two or three days around a launch, a key LIVE or a campaign, and expect ROI to fall while it runs.

If GMV Max isn't performing, check these first

Work out where the problem is before you touch the settings. Most underperforming campaigns we're asked to look at have a problem outside the campaign, and changing the ROI target or budget only hides it for a few days.

Start with the change log in Ads Manager. It records every edit to targets, budgets and products, and it explains a lot of sudden swings. Then follow the shopper through the funnel (views, clicks, product page visits, add to basket, purchase) and find the stage where people drop off.

A large gap between the ROI target and what the campaign actually achieves is usually a sign to look at the product, price or videos rather than to keep adjusting the campaign.

Where brands lose money on TikTok Shop ads

Setting the ROI target without knowing break-even

An ROI target of 2 feels safe until you work out that the product breaks even at 2.5. Work out break-even first, then set the target above it.

Advertising before the listing converts

GMV Max finds buyers, but it cannot fix a listing with no reviews, weak images or a price above the market. We get organic and creator sales converting before we turn ads on.

Reading the daily budget as the spend

A £2,000 cap that spends £200 is TikTok telling you it cannot find orders at your target. Raising the cap will not change that. Better creative or a lower target will.

Forgetting creator commission on ad sales

Ads on creator videos usually perform best, and each of those sales also pays the creator. Leave that out and your margin looks several points better than it is.

Pushing seasonal products too early

The weakest campaign we tracked in October was an advent product. Demand for gifts arrives late, and spend before it arrives buys very few orders.

Questions brands ask us