What Is LTK? The LTK App, LTK Shop and LTK Con Explained (2027)

Key takeaways

• LTK began in 2011 as rewardStyle, a commission tool for fashion bloggers, and put rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it under one name, LTK, on 30 June 2021.
• The LTK app is free. You follow creators, tap the products in their posts and buy from the retailer, which pays the creator's commission.
• "An LTK" usually means a creator's LTK post or shop page, as in "shop my LTK" in an Instagram bio.
• LTK Con is LTK's invite-only creator conference in the Dallas area. The 2026 edition ran 25 to 27 August at the Omni PGA Frisco.
• Creators earn commission on sales, paid weekly since 2024, plus brand deals. TIME reported in 2024 that 419 LTK creators had become millionaires.
• Brands invested $450 million in LTK creators in the 12 months to September 2026, according to LTK.
• Creators in the UAE have needed a UAE Media Council Advertiser Permit for promotional posts since 1 February 2026.
• An LTK-style MVP costs about $61,920 to $123,840 to build by our estimate; our white label LTK clone costs $16,850.

What is LTK?

LTK is a shopping platform built around creators. Fashion, beauty, home and fitness influencers post photos and videos of things they use, tag each product, and earn a commission when someone buys through those tags. The company was founded in 2011 by Amber Venz Box, now co-founder and president, and her husband Baxter Box, co-founder and CEO, and it is still based in Dallas. It started as rewardStyle, a way for bloggers to get paid for sales they were already driving, and today it runs two apps: LTK for shoppers and LTK Creator for the people posting.

The idea came from a problem Amber Venz Box had as a blogger. In a 2024 interview with TIME, she described readers buying the clothes she featured while she earned nothing for the recommendation. rewardStyle turned that influence into commission, and LTK still works the same way: the creator recommends, the shopper buys from the store, and the store pays for the sale.

What does LTK stand for?

LTK takes its letters from LIKEtoKNOW.it ("like to know it"), the consumer service that made creators' Instagram posts shoppable in the mid-2010s. On 30 June 2021 the company retired both of its older names and put rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it under one brand, LTK, a change Dallas Innovates reported as taking effect immediately. The same announcement launched LTK in seven more markets: the UK, Germany, France, Australia, China, South Korea and Brazil.

LIKEtoKNOW.it grew fast. Dallas Innovates says it welcomed 1 million shoppers in its first nine months, and TIME put its sales at $50 million in 2015 and $150 million in 2016. Accounts of its launch year differ, with TIME saying 2013 and other outlets 2014.

What is the LTK app?

The LTK app is the shopper side of the platform, and it is free. On the US App Store it is listed as LTK: Shop Trusted Recs by rewardStyle, Inc., rated 4.91 out of 5 from 460,349 ratings when we checked on 8 November 2026, and there is an Android version on Google Play. You follow creators, scroll their outfit, beauty, home and fitness posts, and tap any tagged item to go to the store that sells it.

LTK has kept adding to it:

• LTK AI (February 2026): a chatbot inside the app that answers questions such as what to pack for a trip with real posts, outfits and reviews from creators. NetInfluencer reported that it launched on the App Store and draws on more than a decade of creator content.
• Brand Profiles (October 2025): pages for brands such as Nordstrom, Sephora, Ulta and Abercrombie & Fitch, filled with creator posts that feature their products.
• Social features: group chats, comments, likes and subscriptions, part of LTK's push to make the app a community and not only a catalogue.

The audience is large and young. LTK told NetInfluencer in September 2025 that its users include nearly 40% of US Gen Z and Millennial women. Creators use a separate free app, LTK Creator, to publish shoppable posts and earn from them.

What is the LTK shop?

"LTK shop" means two things. The first is the website, shopltk.com, the web version of the app, where you can browse the same creators and posts without downloading anything; the old liketoknow.it address now redirects there. The second is a creator's own shop page, which lives at shopltk.com/explore/ followed by their handle and collects every post they have tagged. That page is what creators link in their bios when they write "shop my LTK".

LTK itself does not sell anything. When you tap a product, you land on the retailer's website and buy there, at that store's price. TIME describes the flow plainly: followers click through to a retailer's site, and the retailer pays the creator a commission and LTK a transaction fee. Because the order is with the store, shipping, returns and customer service go through the store too, not LTK.

What is an LTK?

"An LTK" is creator shorthand. Most of the time it means an LTK post or shop link: "it's on my LTK" means the creator has tagged the item in their LTK shop. People also say "an LTK creator" or "an LTK influencer" for someone approved to earn commission on the platform. Whenever you see the term in a caption, the practical meaning is the same: the creator earns a commission if you buy through that link, and it comes out of the retailer's side of the sale, not from an extra charge to you.

What is LTK Con?

LTK Con is the company's yearly creator conference, and you cannot buy a ticket to it. The 2026 edition ran 25 to 27 August at the Omni PGA Frisco in Frisco, Texas, north of Dallas, and a talent agency press release described it as "the invite-only Creator Commerce conference" for creators, brands and social platforms. One talent agency booked a private house at the resort so its creators could meet LTK staff and brand partners one on one.

The event dates back to the rewardStyle years. PaperCity called the 2022 edition, held at the Adolphus hotel in downtown Dallas, the 10th annual conference and said about 300 top-earning creators were invited. The program mixes business sessions for creators with brand meetings and events, and LTK announced its 2025 LTK Awards winners at the conference. For creators, an invitation is a sign of standing on the platform; for brands, it is three days with the creators who sell the most.

How does LTK work and make money?

Every sale on LTK involves four parties, and the money moves in one direction. The creator posts and tags products. The shopper taps a tag in the app or on shopltk.com and buys on the retailer's site. The retailer then pays twice: a commission to the creator and a transaction fee to LTK. LTK also takes a cut of brand deals it arranges, and it sells premium tools to brands on top of its free brand platform.

That model is why LTK can stay free for shoppers and creators. Retailers pay only when a sale happens, which makes LTK a performance channel for them rather than an ad buy, and brands can add paid collaborations on top.

How do LTK creators get paid?

Creators earn in two main ways. The first is commission: when a follower buys through one of their links, the retailer pays a commission, and the rate depends on the retailer and the product. The second is brand work. LTK says it supports more than 60,000 creator-brand collaborations a year, and brands invested $450 million in LTK creators in the 12 months to September 2026, according to NetInfluencer.

LTK moved commission payouts to a weekly schedule in August 2024, when it also launched LTK DM, a tool that automates Instagram direct messages to followers with up to 10 custom trigger words per post. LTK said LTK DM raised shopper clicks to retailers by 122%, per NetInfluencer. The top end is real: TIME reported that 419 LTK creators had become millionaires. That is 419 out of hundreds of thousands of creators, so most earn far less.

How to become an LTK creator

LTK approves creators by application. Its help center lists what it looks for:

• Public social media profiles.
• A high number of engaged followers.
• Original content about brands and products you love and use.
• Regular posting; LTK says its ideal applicant posts daily.

LTK does not list a minimum follower count, so engagement and consistency carry more weight than one number. Approved creators post through the LTK Creator app and share their LTK links wherever their audience is.

What does LTK offer brands?

For brands, LTK is a way to find creators who already sell. More than 8,000 retailers work with LTK. Since September 2025 the core of its brand platform has been free, with multiple user seats, access to creator content, analytics, direct messages with creators, gifting, Quick Collabs and campaign postings, while custom campaign management and advanced analytics stay paid, NetInfluencer reported. The same launch added Brand Profiles to the shopper app, so a brand's page fills with creator posts that feature its products.

The pitch to brands is trust. LTK's own shopper research, cited in its 2026 awards announcement, says 77% of consumers trust creators mainly for honest reviews and 92% of LTK shoppers have bought something in a store because of a creator video. Those are LTK's numbers, so read them as marketing, but they explain why brands keep paying for the channel. For the full brand playbook, from Boost ads and connected TV to content licensing and LTK vs ShopMy, see our guide to LTK brand partnerships, ads and content licensing.

How big is LTK?

By its own figures, LTK has grown from a blogger tool into one of the largest creator commerce networks. LIKEtoKNOW.it sales were $150 million in 2016, according to TIME. By November 2021, when SoftBank invested, shoppers had bought more than $3 billion of products through LTK creators in a year and more than 150,000 influencers used it, per Dallas Innovates. LTK put annual sales at nearly $5 billion in 2024 and more than $6 billion in September 2026.

Two caveats. These are company-reported numbers, not audited results, and LTK is private, so there is no public revenue figure. The sales total is what shoppers spent at retailers, not what LTK earned.

LTK vs ShopMy vs Amazon Influencer Program

LTK is not the only way creators earn on product links. ShopMy and Amazon's Influencer Program work in a similar way, with real differences in where the sale happens and who keeps what:

Amazon's program needs a qualifying YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or Facebook account, and Amazon judges content quality, engagement and follower count, according to Amazon. ShopMy's creator guide spells out its 82/18 split. LTK's edge is its retailer network and an app with tens of millions of shoppers already browsing; Amazon's edge is that almost every product is there and checkout is familiar. Apps that keep checkout inside the app, such as TikTok Shop, work differently again.

Is LTK legit and safe to use?

Yes. LTK has operated since 2011, raised $300 million from SoftBank in 2021, and its shopper app is rated 4.91 from more than 460,000 ratings on the US App Store. Because you check out on the retailer's website, your payment goes to the store, and the store's normal return policy applies.

The thing to watch is disclosure. Creators earn on every sale, and in the US the FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers guide says a financial relationship with a brand must be disclosed with the post itself, not only on a profile page, and that a platform's own disclosure tool is not enough by itself. Good LTK creators say when links earn them money. Treat their picks as recommendations from someone who is paid when you buy, and compare prices as you would anywhere else.

Can you use LTK in the UAE and Dubai?

Yes, as a shopper. The LTK app is listed on the UAE App Store, though it had only 180 ratings there on 8 November 2026, against 460,349 in the US, which shows where its audience is. LTK's 2021 international launch covered the UK, Germany, France, Australia, China, South Korea and Brazil, not the Gulf.

For creators based in the UAE, the bigger question is the law. Since 1 February 2026, anyone promoting products on social media in the UAE, paid or unpaid, needs an Advertiser Permit from the UAE Media Council, Gulf News reported. Commission-earning product posts are promotional content, so a UAE-based LTK creator should treat the permit as required.

Permit details come from Gulf News and a Khaleej Times FAQ. LTK's retailer network and audience are centred on the US, which leaves room for creator shopping apps built around Gulf retailers and Arabic content, a gap founders in Dubai often ask us about.

Can you build your own app like LTK?

You can build the software. The harder part is the network around it. An LTK-style app needs four things working together: creators who post consistently, retailers or affiliate networks that pay commission, tracking that ties each sale to the right creator, and payouts creators can trust. LTK says its data now covers more than 100 billion signals across 15 years, and no new app starts with that.

Most founders start narrower than LTK: one category such as modest fashion, one region such as the Gulf, or one group of retailers. That cuts the build and makes the first creators easier to recruit. Our social commerce app cost breakdown shows how live shopping, group buying and other models change the budget.

How much does it cost to build an app like LTK?

By our estimate, an LTK-style MVP costs about $61,920 to $123,840 (AED 227,000 to AED 455,000) and takes 7 to 15 weeks. That covers iOS and Android shopper apps, creator tools, affiliate tracking, a product catalogue, weekly payouts and an admin panel. Full parity with LTK, adding a brand dashboard, an AI shopping assistant and social features, runs about $90,720 to $181,440 (AED 333,000 to AED 666,000).

How we estimated these costs

We priced each module in engineering hours and multiplied by a $50 blended hourly rate, then added 20% for design, QA and project management and another 20% for contingency, the same method as our app development cost guide. A team of three or four ships about 120 hours a week, which sets the timeline. A team in Eastern Europe or South Asia can bring the total down, and a US-only team will push it up. To price your own feature list, use our app development cost calculator.

Build from scratch or buy a white label LTK clone?

Make An App Like sells a white label LTK clone, so weigh this section with that in mind. Our white label LTK clone costs $16,850 one-time and goes live in about 15 days with 3 months of support, branded and deployed on your own server; full source code is a $1,999 add-on. It ships the shopper, creator, brand and admin sides, which lets you test a niche or a region before you fund a custom build.

The honest part: software is the easy half. LTK's advantage is its creators, its retailer relationships and 15 years of sales data, and neither a clone nor a custom build comes with those. Plan your creator recruiting and retailer deals before launch day.

Sources

• Company history and model: TIME interview with Amber Venz Box (20 November 2024), Dallas Innovates on the LTK rebrand (30 June 2021) and Dallas Innovates on the SoftBank investment (22 November 2021).
• Scale and products: NetInfluencer on the 2026 LTK Awards, LTK AI, weekly payouts and LTK DM and Brand Profiles and the free brand platform.
• LTK Con: Newswire on LTK Con 2026, PaperCity on LTK Con 2022 and LTK's 2025 awards announcement.
• Apps and joining: LTK on the App Store, LTK on Google Play, LTK Creator on the App Store and LTK's help center on becoming a creator.
• Alternatives: Amazon on its Influencer Program and ShopMy's creator guide.
• Rules: the FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers (ftc.gov), Gulf News on the UAE Advertiser Permit and Khaleej Times permit FAQ. App Store figures checked on 8 November 2026.