A trivia TikTok channel earned about ¥9 million over two years — average monthly income of ¥400,000, and RPM collapsing into the ¥20s

TikTok ad revenue alone sustaining ¥400,000 a month for two straight years is the kind of case that rarely surfaces. Reports of tens of thousands of yen from a single viral hit are common, but a 24-month record of sustained earnings is rare. What trivia TikToker Okarada Ryo disclosed is exactly that: 24 months of data.

At the same time, this article isn’t simply a story of success trending upward. The second half clearly enters a downturn, and the cause is shown, with numbers, to lie outside the creator’s own effort, which is what gives this case its value.

The 24-month record

The source of the record is also separated out. September 2023 to August 2024 comes from bank transaction history. September 2024 to August 2025 comes from TikTok’s insights dashboard. The peak month, December 2024’s roughly ¥720,000, was paid out in two separate transfers.

The number to look at is the ratio of posts to hits: more than 300 out of over 3,000 posts crossed 1 million views, roughly 1 in 10. That’s a fairly high hit rate for social media, but it’s a cumulative figure across six years, not a single-month batting average.

How is revenue determined?

Under TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, payouts are determined by “views × RPM.” RPM is the rate per 1,000 views, per the creator’s own figures, the per-view rate ranges from ¥0.01 to ¥0.07, meaning an RPM range of roughly ¥10-70.

Not every view counts, however. To be counted as a valid view, it must come through the For You feed, be watched for at least 5 seconds, and count only once per person, fraudulent views are excluded. Views from direct visits by existing followers don’t generate revenue. This design means follower count doesn’t directly translate into earnings.

Factors the creator cites as influencing RPM include watch-through and completion rates, the viewer’s region (the US commands higher rates), genre (finance and education rank high, trivia is disadvantaged), originality and search demand, and engagement.

Working backward from this, the weight behind the ¥400,000-a-month figure becomes clear. At an RPM of ¥30, roughly 13.33 million valid views are needed per month. If RPM falls to ¥20, roughly 20 million views are needed for the same ¥400,000. When unit price drops to two-thirds, required view count rises by 1.5x.

The turning point came after the peak

The turning point in this case arrived in April 2025, the month after the December 2024 record, not with the record itself.

Lining up the creator’s account as an RPM timeline makes the shift clear. Through 2024, there was a pattern: “RPM would plunge past ¥300,000 a month, and hit a ceiling around ¥500,000.” Effectively, a cap kicked in the more one earned. December 2024 was an exceptional case of sustained high rates driven by holiday demand, which is what produced the roughly ¥720,000 peak month.

From January 2025, the “high early in the month, dropping toward month-end” mechanic was abolished and rates stabilized, but at a lower level, around ¥30-40. And from April 2025 onward, rates fell further, to around ¥20. The creator attributes this to TikTok revising rates in response to a growing number of creators.

Framed as before/after: monthly income of about ¥720,000 in December 2024 passed through an RPM range of ¥30-40, entered a phase of roughly ¥20, and monthly income has been declining since April 2025. Entering a phase where the same number of posts generates less revenue is the substance of the second half of this case.

What sustained two years of stability?

Stock is generating recurring views. A count of 3,000 posts isn’t simply a measure of diligence. Because TikTok’s For You algorithm allocates views to older videos too, the sheer volume of posts becomes the base for monthly view counts. A handful of videos posted that month alone can’t produce the roughly 13.33 million valid views implied by ¥400,000 divided by an RPM of ¥30. The natural reading is that six years’ worth of inventory is circulating simultaneously.

The low production cost of the trivia genre. Trivia content requires less production effort, from concept to publication, than live-action location shoots or long-form explainer videos. That’s precisely what makes producing 3,000 videos feasible. There’s a structural trade-off here, though, as the creator writes, trivia is unpopular with advertisers and therefore a low-RPM genre. It can be produced cheaply and in bulk, but the unit price is low. This case can be understood as six years spent using volume to offset a low unit price.

The platform had designed in a ceiling. The pattern of “RPM plunges past ¥300,000, hits a ceiling around ¥500,000” shows a cap placed by the system itself, one individual effort couldn’t exceed. Put differently, the roughly ¥400,000 average is also the result of persistently bumping up against just below this ceiling. Stability wasn’t purely a matter of skill. It can also be read as the system converging results toward that level.

How is the creator responding to the price decline?

The creator names three countermeasures: expanding the viewer region, introducing higher-RPM genres, and improving engagement. All three act directly on the components of RPM rather than on increasing view count. Behind this appears to be a judgment that, in a phase where unit price is falling, increasing post volume can’t keep pace with the rising number of views required.

Beyond that, the creator states things turned around with the construction of a “second income source,” centered on music (BGM) royalties, with detailed strategy to be published in a separate article. This is a move away from a structure entirely dependent on platform rates toward one with a separate source of funds.

What can and can’t be replicated

The conditions that resist replication are clear. The six years of time itself, and the accumulated 3,000 posts, neither can be shortened. RPM, which determines the level of revenue, sits outside the creator’s control as well. The reason for the drop in monthly income wasn’t a decline in video quality, but a rate revision on the platform’s side. The same amount of effort yields different results depending on when one entered.

Furthermore, the creator’s own assessment is that “further RPM decline is quite likely.” Someone reading this case and considering entering trivia TikTok today should calculate based on the current rate of around ¥20, not the 2023-2024 levels this creator earned at.

What is replicable is the way of thinking. Decomposing revenue into “views × unit price” and tracking which one is moving each month. Rather than fighting a falling unit price with sheer volume, adjusting the components that make up that price, region, genre, completion rate. And building a structure that doesn’t bet the entirety of one’s income on a single platform’s rate. These three apply to every ad-revenue business, TikTok included.

More valuable than the ¥9 million over 24 months is the fact that the breakdown, including the downturn, has been disclosed openly.

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