Questions
Do you need followers to start clipping?
No. Clipping pays for views, and short video apps show clips to people who do not follow you. Here is why a new account can earn, and what to do in week one.
3 min readUpdated September 11, 2026
Short answer
No. You are paid for the views your clips get, not for the size of your account. TikTok, Reels and Shorts push short clips to people who have never seen you, so a brand new account can land a clip with 100,000 views in its first week. There is no follower minimum on The Creators Club.
No. This is the single biggest difference between clipping and the old kind of influencer work.
Why followers do not matter much
A sponsored post is sold on followers because the brand is paying for your audience. A clip is paid on views, and views on short video come mostly from the app's recommendations, not from your followers.
TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts all work the same way. Every new clip is shown to a small test group. If enough of them watch to the end, it goes to a bigger group, then a bigger one. Your follower count decides who sees it in the first hour. After that the clip is on its own.
That is why an account with 40 followers can post a clip that gets 300,000 views, and why an account with 100,000 followers can post one that gets 800.
What the campaigns require
On The Creators Club there is no follower minimum. Signup takes a couple of minutes and your page is live the moment you finish. Most campaigns ask you to apply before you can post, and the brand looks at your account when it approves you. What they are looking for is that the account is real, posts in a fitting niche, and is not full of spam. Ten good clips beat ten thousand bought followers.
What to do in your first week with a fresh account
- 1Make the account look like a person or a channel, not an empty shell. A name, a picture, a two line bio. Brands skip blank accounts.
- 2Pick one niche and stick to it. An account that posts gym clips on Monday and cooking on Tuesday confuses the recommendation system.
- 3Post two or three clips a day for a week before you judge anything. The first posts on a new account get a smaller test group.
- 4Apply to two campaigns in your niche, not eight in random ones.
- 5When a clip does better than the rest, make five more like it.
One thing followers still do
A verified account with a history of good clips gets approved for campaigns faster. Some brands run private campaigns and invite clippers who have delivered before. So followers are not the currency, but a track record is. You build one by posting.
Start with the zero followers playbook if you want the week by week version.
Keep reading
Post your first clip and get the welcome bonus
No follower minimum. Pick a campaign, post from your own account, and the views turn into a balance you can withdraw.