Tumblr Expands Tip Jar Feature, Blog Creators Can Harvest Money

JAKARTA - Tumblr recently expanded its tip jar feature, which can allow blog creators to earn a lot of money on the platform. Dubbed blog-level tips, it will roll out to iOS users and its web app.

Last month, Tumblr rolled out a tip jar feature that allows users to leave tips on posts, but this expansion of the feature allows users to leave tips on the blog.

The company says the expansion will benefit blog creators as it allows their followers to tip at the blog level rather than on specific posts.

Users who want to try it, can activate tips for blogs in their profile or blog view. After registering to tip, a tip button will be available in the header of the blog view.

While to tip blogs on the web, users can select the "Tip" button and choose how much they want to give. In the iOS app, users can select the "Support" button to send a tip.

Tumblr says it's working on adding a blog-level tip feature to its Android app soon. When a user gives a blog creator a tip, they can post a note alongside the tip.

Anonymous tips are also allowed, but in this case, the tipper cannot leave messages. Users can send tips of up to 100 US dollars each which is equivalent to Rp. 1.4 million.

It's worth noting that Tumblr doesn't take a deduction from these payments, but users will still be charged the standard 2.9 percent credit card fee.

For all of these transactions, Tumblr insists it won't rely on Apple and Google's internal billing systems, meaning that blog creators won't be charged 30 percent of the tax.

Tumblr is among several other platforms that offer a jar tip feature to allow users to send one-time payments to content creators.

Twitter launched a tip jar feature last May that was designed to give users a quick way to tip content creators with just a few taps.

Apart from that, TikTok also started testing a new in-app tip feature in October last year. This feature also benefits content creators receiving money from fans outside of TikTok LIVE streaming, where gift giving is already supported.