今日头条 (Toutiao)
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
今日头条 (Jīnrì Tóutiáo, commonly Toutiao) is a Chinese news and content service run by ByteDance, the same company that owns TikTok and 抖音 (Dǒuyīn). The feed here is not subscription-based but recommendation-based: the platform describes its task as picking a few interesting items out of a pool of hundreds of thousands and millions of units — articles, images, short videos, questions and answers.
The creator side is called 头条号 (Tóutiáohào) — the author dashboard. It is what makes the platform interesting: direct payouts to authors, published thresholds and documentation about how the recommendation feed works that is unusually candid.
A caveat about availability. The storefront and the dashboard are served only by a script: the home page returns the line "you need to allow this site to run JavaScript", and the dashboard returns only the heading «头条号». The help centre baike.toutiao.com, however, reads freely, and the whole substantive part of this article rests on it. It is in Chinese only.
Who's here
Here we have to be honest: we were unable to confirm any audience figures. ByteDance publishes no MAU or DAU for 今日头条 in the help centre, and the storefront cannot be read without a script. Any figure about "hundreds of millions of users" you may meet in retellings has no owner here, and we do not quote it.
What is known for certain is the make-up of the platform by account type. Registration is open to five kinds of entity: "personal", "enterprise", "government body", "news media" and "other organization". This describes the platform better than any reach estimate: alongside bloggers, government bodies and licensed media are officially present, and the rules are written with that neighbourhood in mind. Authors outside mainland China are admitted, but on different terms: the platform separately sets out the thresholds for personal authors from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and abroad. The ecosystem is tied to ByteDance's other services: followers are counted as the sum across 今日头条 and 西瓜视频 (Xīguā Shìpín), while those synced from 抖音 are not counted.
Getting started
Company verification is 蓝V (blue V). The conditions: account type "enterprise", normal status, a name, description and avatar that comply with the rules, a photo of the operator with their identity document, and an industry that is not on the prohibited list; a three-step procedure — details, verification via the corporate account, an official letter; valid for one year with a re-application.
The list of industries barred from verification is the most useful page for planning market entry. It includes medicine, medical devices and dietary supplements; finance without a regulator's licence (including microloans, P2P, cryptocurrencies, forex and crowdfunding); tobacco and e-cigarettes; adult goods; bathhouses, massage and spas; marriage agencies and dating sites; funeral services, religion and superstition; antiques; some gaming subjects; law firms. Checks are also carried out by background research, including a review of the company's website.
What you can publish
The formats are listed in the help centre's table of contents: articles (图文), audio, collections, 微头条 (Wēitóutiáo, short notes), mid-length and short video.
The requirements for the accounts themselves are detailed: a name must not contain the words «今日» or «头条» or professional titles ("doctor", "journalist", "lawyer") without supporting documents; the description may not contain contact details or marketing information; the avatar must not resemble the logos of ByteDance products or contain QR codes, website addresses or contact details.
In content, the key section for marketing is "malicious marketing" (恶意营销), which prohibits contact details (phone number, WeChat ID, QR code, WeChat group), marketing links and codes for obtaining coupons on third-party marketplaces, prompting people to write to you in private messages in order to receive a link or a contact, and "pure advertising" — material whose sole purpose is to promote a product or a commercial service. There are licensing barriers by subject too: without a permit to distribute news information you may not publish socio-political news, without accreditation in the field of health you may not publish material about treatments and medicines, and without financial accreditation you may not publish investment guides; recommending specific shares and lotteries is prohibited separately.
How to grow
The platform describes the mechanics of its recommendations in unusual detail: a match is built on three elements — user, content, interest; a user profile is assembled from age, gender and viewing history, while content is tagged with keywords and by audio and video recognition. The life cycle of a post is described in stages: initial moderation → "cold start" → normal recommendation → repeat moderation. During the cold start the material is shown to a portion of users, and from clicks, reposts and likes the machine works out which groups will like it; repeat moderation kicks in on a large volume of impressions or on numerous negative reactions, and if clickbait, a misleading cover image, vulgarity or unreliability is detected, impressions are stopped. The platform is also honest about why reach is unstable: the volume of recommendations depends both on the current situation and on how other material in the pool is performing.
What counts as inflating metrics and is prohibited: mass publication of repetitive or meaningless content; buying machine services to inflate followers and likes; buying "live" mutual-follow services; mass-following other users in the hope of a follow back; mutual "follow-for-follow" (引导互粉).
Path to monetization
Toutiao pays authors directly. The rights are granted in steps by follower count: the basic ones are available from 0 followers — income from articles, from 微头条 and from video, plus an image bank for news subjects; at 1,000 followers "donations" on articles and videos open up; at 10,000 — paid columns, giveaways and product cards.
For video the formula is disclosed step by step: enabling it requires a credit rating of exactly 100 points, and the video must be horizontal; views shorter than 10 seconds and inflated ones are subtracted, then an engagement coefficient is applied (likes, comments, saves, time spent on the profile) up to a maximum of three times, then advertising value, total consumption time and content quality. The reasons for "views but no money" are named too: the right is not enabled; the video is vertical; the credit rating was below 60 points at the time of publication; too few counted views in a day.
The credit rating is the key mechanism of the whole system. The starting and full score is 100, a violation deducts 10–50 points, and every 10 days without violations returns 10; at 100 points both existing rights and applications for new ones are available, at 60–99 only existing ones, and at 0–59 everything is switched off.
The payout rules are set out with rare precision. Personal accounts: withdrawal only through the mobile app, every Thursday from 9:00 to 23:00, no more than 3 operations a day; the threshold is from 1 yuan, and for authors from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and abroad from 240 yuan; the card must be a debit card in the name of the same person who passed verification. The platform withholds the tax: the income is classified as remuneration for services (劳务报酬); the platform's own example — on withdrawing 2,000 yuan in a calendar month the deduction is (2,000 − 800) × 0.2 = 240 yuan, leaving 1,760 in hand. Two more restrictions: for 15 calendar days after your first publication withdrawal is unavailable although income accrues, and during a publishing ban withdrawal is closed but the income is not zeroed out. For organizations it works differently: withdrawal on the 2nd to 4th of the month through the desktop dashboard, a threshold above 5,000 yuan, a corporate account belonging to the same legal entity; there is no service fee and no tax withheld, but a VAT invoice is required.
Tools and automation
We found no public API for third-party developers: there is no developer section in the help centre. There are, however, built-in facilities.
Automatic content import is officially supported: for content arriving by RSS sync, the advertising display status is set in the "Data — Income — Income settings" section, and the setting applies only to automatically synced content. An RSS bridge from your CMS into Toutiao is provided for by the platform.
The help centre also lists other sections: MCN, the 巨量星图 (Jùliàng Xīngtú, a marketplace for brand orders to creators) platform, 头条加油包 (paid boosting of impressions), 头条小店 (a built-in shop), 付费专栏 (paid columns) and the publishing assistant 发文助手.
Limits and rules
- Accounts and verification. 1 personal account per identity document, 2 organizational accounts per company licence; the blue tick is valid for a year, and sole traders do not get it.
- Subjects and marketing. News, health and finance — only with confirmed qualifications; contact details, QR codes, marketing links and "pure advertising" are violations. A separate clause prohibits incorrect depiction of the map of China and distorted geographical names: for a foreign company this is a real risk when publishing infographics. The sanctions range from deducted points and a publishing ban to blocking, purging of followers and switching off the income right.
- Money. Personal withdrawal on Thursdays from 1 yuan (240 yuan outside mainland China), organizational on the 2nd to 4th from 5,000 yuan; standard income comes only from horizontal video.
Who it's for
It suits companies making a serious entry into the Chinese market and ready for the local formalities: a corporate account, a licence, an operator with a Chinese identity document, annual renewal of verification. Without that set you cannot launch an organizational account or withdraw money. It suits authors writing in Chinese: the entry threshold for income is zero, and the calculation rules are published more honestly than on most platforms.
It does not suit you if your industry is on the list barred from verification: medicine, finance without a licence, dating, tobacco, legal services. It does not suit you if you plan direct advertising in posts: that is classified as "malicious marketing". It does not suit projects without a Chinese-speaking team: the help centre, the dashboard and moderation are all in Chinese.
Tools for this platform
The list is built from the tools' own facts: every line is a tool's statement that it supports the platform, with the source named. A tool missing from the list only means we have no such statement.
Social listening:
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the service belongs to ByteDance; the ecosystem is tied to 西瓜视频 (Xīguā Shìpín) and 抖音 (Dǒuyīn)
Followers are counted across 今日头条 and 西瓜视频; followers from 抖音 are not counted
source, checked 2026-07-28
Getting started
registering a «news media» account requires a transfer of 0.01 yuan from a corporate account on the day the application is filed, quoting the user name and the last four digits of the phone number; if no payment arrives within four working days the application is rejected
头条号 help centre
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
registration is open to five kinds of entity: «personal», «enterprise», «government body», «news media», «other organization» · the source is dated 2026-04-14
头条号 help centre, the «账号注册» page, updated 14 April 2026
source, checked 2026-07-28
an account name must not contain the words «今日» or «头条»; professional titles (doctor, journalist, investment adviser, lawyer, teacher) require supporting documents; the description may not contain contact details or marketing information; the avatar must not contain QR codes, website addresses or contact details
头条号 help centre, the 审核规范 section
source, checked 2026-07-28
Business terms
enterprise verification (蓝V) requires account type «enterprise», normal status, a name, description and avatar that comply with the rules, and a photo of the operator with their identity document; a three-step procedure, valid for one year with a re-application · the source is dated 2026-01-26
The «企业认证» page, updated 26 January 2026
source, checked 2026-07-28
the help centre lists the sections MCN, 巨量星图 (a brand-order marketplace), 头条加油包 (paid boosting of impressions), 头条小店 (a built-in shop), 付费专栏 (paid columns)
The names are visible in the table of contents; we did not open the pages themselves and quote no prices
source, checked 2026-07-28
the mp.toutiao.com author dashboard is served only by a script: without a browser it returns only the heading «头条号»
The dashboard interface was not checked
source, checked 2026-07-28
Promotion
a post goes through the stages of initial moderation, «cold start», normal recommendation and repeat moderation; during the cold start the material is shown to a portion of users and the audience is determined from clicks, reposts and likes · the source is dated 2025-02-19
The «推荐机制» page, updated 19 February 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
a match is built on three elements: user, content, interest; the user profile is assembled from age, gender, viewing history and environment characteristics; content is tagged with keywords and by AI audio and video recognition
The «推荐机制» page
source, checked 2026-07-28
How the money works here
Outbound links to marketplaces are forbidden. In the "Rules for the management of content-commerce creation", in the section "违规推广" (impermissible promotion), it is directly named a violation to "发布社交、导购、团购、促销、购物平台等外部网站或APP的名称、超链接、二维码、口令、红包、联系账号等信息" — "to publish the names, hyperlinks, QR codes, code words, coupons and contact accounts of external sites and applications: social, product-recommendation, group-buying, sale and marketplace ones". In the same place: "展示联系方式或以任何形式导流用户私下\线下交易" — "to show contacts or by any means lead the user into a private or an offline transaction". A direct instruction on what to replace the link with: "使用商品卡功能，不要在内容中直接粘贴商品链接" — "use the product card feature, do not paste product links directly into the content". In the "Community norms" the same prohibition is in the milder category "the platform does not encourage", the section "恶意营销": "营销链接：带有明显营销意图的第三方网址" — "marketing links: third-party addresses with an obvious commercial intent" · the source is dated 2025-12-01
our translation; the original is in Chinese; "内容电商创作管理规范" (mp.toutiao.com/docs/dianshang/4268/31581) and "今日头条社区规范" in the version of 1 December 2025 (https://baike.toutiao.com/detail/236/238/0) were read; the platform ties earning on goods to its own tools — the product card, "头条小店", the 巨量星图 platform
source, checked 2026-08-04
The category "the platform does not encourage", the point "恶意营销" (unscrupulous marketing): "以营利、获益为目的，内容附带联系方式、售卖链接，或诱导私信联系转线下交易" — content which for the sake of profit and gain carries contacts and sales links or leads into private messages and an offline transaction. Here also "纯广告：以推广产品、盈利为目的作品，包括产品宣传、商业服务宣传、商业赞助宣传、商业展销宣传、商家优惠酬宾宣传等" — "pure advertising: works for the sake of promoting a product and of profit, including advertising of a product, of commercial services, of commercial sponsorship, of commercial trade fairs and of merchants' discount campaigns". In the category "the platform does not permit" the point "违规推广" forbids promotion through the images of state bodies and leaders, financial pyramids, illegal lending, unregulated advertising of cars, tobacco and lotteries, and also trade in goods forbidden for sale. For product publications a connection between the product and the text is required separately, as is an "information gain" (专业知识、科学测评、亲身体验、理性观点); invented stories for the sake of a sale and exaggeration of the properties of a product are forbidden · the source is dated 2025-12-01
our translation; the original is in Chinese; "今日头条社区规范" in the version of 1 December 2025; the punishments run from a reduction of impressions to the closing of the right to income ("关闭营利权限") and the blocking of the account
source, checked 2026-08-04
the rights are granted in steps: from 0 followers — income from articles, from 微头条 and from video plus an image bank; from 1000 followers — donations on articles and videos; from 10,000 — paid columns, giveaways and product cards · the source is dated 2025-03-27
The «创作者计划» page, updated 27 March 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
credit rating: 100 points to start and at maximum, a violation deducts 10–50 points, and every 10 days without violations returns 10; at 100 all rights and new applications are available, at 60–99 only existing rights, and at 0–59 all rights are switched off
The «创作者计划» page
source, checked 2026-07-28
an author with the advertising income right chooses by default, when publishing, to show advertising, and all the income belongs to the author; the advertising is not shown on every refresh of the feed; advertising can be switched on for a published article but not switched off · the source is dated 2025-01-02
The «文章创作收益» page, updated 2 January 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
video income requires a credit rating of exactly 100 and an account type that is not «government body» or «other organization»; the video must be horizontal; the calculation: subtract views shorter than 10 seconds and inflated ones, apply an engagement coefficient of up to three times, then account for advertising value, total consumption time and quality · the source is dated 2025-05-30
The «头条视频创作收益» page, updated 30 May 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
personal withdrawal is only through the mobile app, every Thursday from 9:00 to 23:00, no more than 3 operations a day, credited in real time; the threshold is from 1 yuan, and for authors from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and abroad from 240 yuan through the app · the source is dated 2026-06-18
The «收益提现» page, updated 18 June 2026
source, checked 2026-07-28
organizational withdrawal is through the desktop dashboard on the 2nd to 4th of each month, with a threshold above 5000 yuan and a corporate account belonging to the same legal entity; the platform charges no service fee and withholds no tax, but a VAT invoice is required
The «收益提现» page
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
no more than 1 personal account per identity document; no more than 2 organizational accounts per business licence or certificate of incorporation
头条号 help centre
source, checked 2026-07-28
for 15 calendar days after the first publication withdrawal is unavailable, although income accrues; during a publishing ban withdrawal is closed but the income is not zeroed out
The «收益提现» page
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
enterprise verification is not granted to: medicine and medical devices, dietary supplements, pharmacies, aesthetic medicine; finance without a regulator's licence; tobacco and e-cigarettes, adult goods; postnatal care, bathhouses, massage, spas; relationship counselling and marriage agencies; funeral services, religion; dating sites and apps; antiques and collectible coins; some gaming subjects; law firms
Sole traders holding an individual entrepreneur licence cannot obtain verification
source, checked 2026-07-28
«malicious marketing» prohibits contact details (phone number, WeChat, QR code, group), marketing links and codes for third-party marketplaces, prompting people to write in private messages to get a link, and «pure advertising» — material whose sole purpose is to promote a product or service · the source is dated 2025-12-01
今日头条社区规范, updated 1 December 2025
source, checked 2026-07-28
without a permit for online distribution of news information you may not publish socio-political news; without the relevant accreditation, material about treatments and medicines; without financial accreditation, share-buying guides and investment guides
今日头条社区规范
source, checked 2026-07-28
mass publication of repetitive and meaningless content, buying machine and «live» services to inflate followers and likes, mass-following in the hope of follows back, and mutual following by arrangement are prohibited
今日头条社区规范
source, checked 2026-07-28
a separate clause of the standards prohibits incorrect depiction of the map of China and incomplete or distorted geographical names
A substantial risk for foreign companies publishing infographics
source, checked 2026-07-28
enforcement measures: warning, deduction of points, publishing ban, blocking, follow ban, purging of followers, switching off the income right, limiting traffic distribution
今日头条社区规范
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
a personal author's income is classified as remuneration for services (劳务报酬); the tax agent for non-contracted authors is Hainan Jinri Toutiao Keji; the platform's example: on withdrawing 2000 yuan in a calendar month the deduction is (2000 − 800) × 0.2 = 240 yuan
The «收益提现» page
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
content sync by RSS is officially supported: for synced content the advertising display status is set in the «Data — Income — Income settings» section and applies only to automatically synced material
There is no public API for third-party developers in the help centre
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
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