How to add TikTok videos to Shopify product pages: four ways, and what each one gives up

You have a TikTok that sells the product. Someone uses it on camera, the comments ask where to buy it, and you want that video on the product page next to the price.

Shopify has no TikTok field. Product media takes uploaded video files plus links from two outside hosts, and Shopify's Help Center says YouTube and Vimeo are the only external sources it supports. Paste a TikTok URL there and nothing happens.

So there are four ways in, and each one costs you something different.

1. Upload the file as product media

This is the native route. You add the video to the product's media the same way you add a photo, and it shows up in the product gallery.

Shopify's limits for uploaded video are 1 GB, 10 minutes, up to 4K, in MP4, MOV, or WEBM. Shopify converts the file and serves it as MP4 or HLS from its own CDN, so there is no extra script on the page and nothing that depends on TikTok staying up. All of that is on the product media types page.

What it gives up:

The video is one slide in a gallery of photos. Unless you drag it to the first position, a shopper has to swipe past the photos to find it.
It lives on one product. If the same video shows three products, you add it to three products and replace it in three places.

If you still have the original export from your editing app, upload that rather than a copy saved back out of TikTok. It is the cleanest file you own.

2. A video section in your theme

Most Online Store 2.0 themes ship a video section you can add in the theme editor. Depending on the theme, it plays a file from Shopify Files or a YouTube or Vimeo link. TikTok links are still out.

The catch is how templates work. Shopify's docs say that when you edit a template, your changes apply to every page that uses the template. A video section in the default product template plays the same video on every product. To show a different video per product you create alternate templates and assign each one to products in the admin. That works for five products. It gets tedious at fifty.

3. TikTok's own embed code

TikTok lets you embed a post anywhere. TikTok's embed documentation describes the flow: open the video on tiktok.com from a desktop browser, click Share, then Embed, and copy the code. The code is a blockquote plus a script loaded from tiktok.com/embed.js. You paste it into a Custom Liquid section or block, if your theme has one.

The upside is that you never copy the file. TikTok's player shows the creator's post, and you can embed a creator's video without downloading it.

The downside is in the same documentation. Every button and text link in the embed goes to the matching page on tiktok.com. Recommended videos appear when playback ends. On mobile, a "Discover more on TikTok" button sends the shopper to the App Store or Google Play. On a product page, the exits all point off your store. And if the video is removed from TikTok, the embed stops working, so a creator deleting a post leaves a hole on your page.

You also add a third party script you do not control to the page you care most about loading quickly. TikTok decides what it loads and when it changes.

4. An app

Shoppable video apps take the video in one way or another and render it in a widget on your storefront, usually placed through an app block in the theme editor. Before you install one, check four things:

Where the file is hosted after import. The app's own servers, your Shopify Files, or a live embed of the TikTok post. Each has different failure modes.
Whether the app's blocks work on your theme. Shopify marks app blocks as unavailable on vintage themes, so an older theme rules most of these apps out.
How a video gets matched to a product page. If every product page shows the same row of videos, you are back to option 2 with extra steps.
How the app bills. Many charge by views or impressions, and we worked through what that does to your invoice in an earlier post.

The music problem that applies to options 1, 2, and 4

Any route that copies the file onto your store carries its soundtrack with it, and that soundtrack may not be yours to use there.

Business accounts on TikTok pick sounds from the Commercial Music Library. Its terms are blunt. You may share videos with those sounds only within TikTok, and commercial uses outside of TikTok are not permitted, with "posting videos on third party digital platforms" given as an example. Your product page is outside TikTok. A brand TikTok with a library track in it needs a different audio version before it goes on your store.

The fix is cheap if you plan for it. Keep an export with original sound or a track you licensed yourself, and upload that one.

If the video is a creator's rather than yours, there is a second question. TikTok's terms of service prohibit using another user's content for commercial purposes unless that user permits it. Ask first, and get the answer in writing. We wrote up what to ask a creator for separately.

Which one to pick

Route	Where the video plays from	Different video per product	Where clicks go
Product media upload	Shopify's CDN	Yes, uploaded per product	Stays on your store
Theme video section	Shopify Files, YouTube, or Vimeo	Only with alternate templates	Stays on your store, or YouTube/Vimeo
TikTok embed	TikTok's player and script	Only with alternate templates	tiktok.com
App	Depends on the app	Depends on the app	Depends on the app

If you have one hero video for one product, upload it as product media and move on. If you have a library of TikToks across a catalogue, the template routes stop scaling and you are choosing an app.

What Maxproof does

Maxproof is one of the apps in row four, so here are our answers to the four questions above.

You paste a public TikTok link, one at a time, and Maxproof downloads the video and stores a copy in your store's Shopify Files. Before the Import button works you tick a box confirming you own the video or have the owner's permission. You can also upload your own MP4 or MOV files up to 200MB, which is the route to take when you have a version with cleared audio.

Each video carries its own product tags. On a product page, the widget shows the videos tagged with that product plus any videos you left untagged, and if nothing matches it hides itself. One carousel block in your product template therefore shows different videos on different products, with no alternate templates. Shoppers choose a variant and add to cart inside the player, without leaving the page.

The widgets are a Carousel, Stories, or a Pop-up, added as app blocks in the theme editor with no code. That needs a theme that supports app blocks.

One plan, $10 a month or $100 a year, every feature included. We never bill by views. Cancel any time and the unused time is credited back to your Shopify bill.