Likee Business Model | Inside the Growing Short-Video Platform

When I look at Likee from a business perspective, I see more than a short-video app. Its model connects short-form content with livestreaming, creator participation, social interaction, and advertising, giving the platform multiple ways to generate value from its audience.

Likee’s current product goes beyond video feeds. Users can watch short videos, join livestreams and voice chat rooms, send virtual gifts, play games, and participate in live battles. This combination makes Likee worth studying for anyone exploring the social-entertainment market.

The interesting question is not simply how Likee attracts users, but how it turns content and engagement into a business. In this article, I’ll break down Likee’s business model, revenue streams, creator economy, competitive positioning, and the key decisions involved in building an app like Likee.

What Is Likee and How Does It Work?

Likee is a global short-video social platform owned and operated by JOYY Inc. as part of its BIGO business. JOYY is the parent company behind Likee, while BIGO is the business group through which Likee operates alongside JOYY’s other social and livestreaming products.

Likee allows users to discover, create, and share short videos through creation tools and personalized recommendations. The platform also extends beyond short-form videos with features such as livestreaming, voice rooms, live battles, and interactive gifts.

The basic model is straightforward. Users discover and interact with content through the platform, while creators continuously produce videos and livestreams that keep the content ecosystem active. This creates two important sides of Likee’s platform: an audience that consumes and engages with content, and creators who supply that content.

What Is Likee’s Business Model?

Likee follows a free-to-use social-entertainment model. The platform attracts users through short-form content and social features, then monetizes specific forms of engagement rather than charging users for access.

Its business model can be summarized through four core components:

Component	Likee’s Approach
Users	Viewers, creators, livestream hosts and paying users
Product	Short videos, livestreaming and interactive social features
Engagement	Video consumption, creator interaction and live participation
Monetization	Virtual tips and advertising

The important part is how these components connect. Content brings users in, creators keep the content supply active, and interactive features create deeper engagement. That activity gives Likee opportunities to monetize both users and advertisers.

How Does Likee Make Money?

Likee mainly makes money through livestreaming and advertising. Its model combines direct spending from users with advertising revenue generated from the platform’s wider audience.

Livestreaming and Virtual Gifts

Livestreaming gives Likee a direct way to monetize creator-audience interaction. Viewers can purchase virtual gifts and send them to creators during live sessions, turning engagement into in-app spending.

Likee has also introduced features such as Superlike and Superfollow, giving users additional ways to support creators and allowing creators to offer exclusive content through subscriptions.

Livestreaming remains an important part of the wider BIGO business. In 2025, JOYY reported $1.53 billion in full-year livestreaming revenue across the company, although this figure covers JOYY’s broader operations and should not be treateds as Likee-specific revenue.

Advertising

Advertising gives Likee another way to monetize users who may never purchase virtual gifts or subscriptions. The platform can generate advertising revenue from the attention and traffic created by its short-video and social content.

There is also direct evidence of growth in this channel. In Q3 2024, Likee’s advertising revenue increased 33.4% year over year, while JOYY said Likee remained profitable during the quarter.

The broader advertising business has continued to expand. Across JOYY, full-year advertising revenue increased 37.1% in 2025 to $442.7 million, while BIGO Ads revenue increased 38.5% to $398.5 million. These figures describe JOYY and BIGO rather than Likee alone, so they provide context for the advertising infrastructure around Likee rather than a Likee revenue figure.

Together, these channels give Likee two different monetization routes: livestreaming captures direct spending from highly engaged users, while advertising monetizes the broader audience.

Likee Business Model Canvas

Business Model Canvas	Likee
Customer Segments	Viewers, creators, livestream hosts, paying users and advertisers
Value Proposition	Short-form entertainment and interactive social experiences
Channels	Mobile app, personalized feed and livestreaming
Customer Relationships	Content recommendations, creator interaction and live communities
Key Activities	Content distribution, creator support, livestreaming, advertising and moderation
Key Resources	Users, creators, content, technology and advertising infrastructure
Key Partners	Creators, agencies, advertisers and technology partners
Revenue Streams	Virtual tips and

The canvas highlights a simple point: Likee’s business is built around audience attention and creator activity, with monetization added around the highest-value interactions.

How Does Likee’s Creator Economy Work?

Creators are essential to Likee because they provide the content that users come to consume. But keeping creators active requires more than giving them publishing tools.

JOYY has described Likee’s creator-support programs as providing traffic, creation tools, professional guidance, and monetization opportunities.

Livestreaming adds another earning opportunity. A creator can build an audience through short-form content and then engage that audience through live sessions where virtual gifting becomes possible.

For a similar platform, this means the creator proposition needs to be considered alongside the user proposition. If creators have limited reasons to remain active, the platform eventually has less fresh content for its audience.

What Makes Likee Different From Other Popular Short-Video Apps?

Likee operates alongside popular short-video platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. While all four offer video-based social experiences, each platform brings its own mix of content formats and user interactions.

Platform	Core Experience	Notable Features
Likee	Short-video social entertainment	Livestreaming, voice rooms, live battles, games, and virtual gifts
TikTok	Short-form video entertainment	Personalized feeds, trends, creator content, LIVE, and effects
Instagram	Social networking and content sharing	Reels, Stories, messaging, posts, and creator features
YouTube	Video entertainment	Shorts, long-form videos, livestreaming, and creator memberships

Likee’s distinct touch comes from bringing short videos and real-time interactive entertainment together. Users can discover content, connect with creators through livestreams and voice rooms, join live battles or games, and send virtual gifts without leaving the platform.

That combination gives Likee a broader social-entertainment experience and helps explain why its product goes beyond the typical short-video feed.

How to Build a Short-Video App Like Likee

Building a platform inspired by Likee starts with defining the business model rather than immediately developing a large list of features. The product needs a clear audience, a content strategy, a creator proposition, and a monetization path that work together.

1. Define the Market and Business Model

The first decision is who the platform is actually being built for. A general entertainment platform requires a different content and acquisition strategy from a niche creator community focused on music, gaming, regional content, or a particular interest group.

That choice should influence everything else, including creator recruitment, recommendation logic, moderation policies, marketing channels, and monetization.

2. Build the Core Content Experience

The first version needs to make content discovery and creation simple. Users should be able to move quickly through relevant content, while creators need straightforward tools for recording, editing, publishing, and managing their profiles.

Recommendation quality becomes increasingly important as the content library grows. A large volume of videos is not enough if users cannot quickly find content that matches their interests.

3. Create a Strong Creator Experience

Creators should have more than an upload button. Analytics, audience insights, creation tools, livestreaming, engagement features, and monetization options can help turn occasional creators into consistent contributors.

The goal is to make the creator side of the platform commercially attractive without making the user experience complicated.

4. Add Monetization and Trust Systems

Virtual gifts, advertising, subscriptions, or other monetization models can be introduced according to the target market and audience behavior. But monetization should be developed alongside trust and safety systems.

Content moderation, reporting, age controls, payment security, copyright management, and platform policies are fundamental parts of a social product. They should not be treated as additions after the platform has already scaled.

5. Launch, Measure and Improve

After launch, downloads alone will not tell you whether the model is working. Product and marketing teams should monitor retention, watch time, creator activity, content production, livestream engagement, paying-user conversion, advertising performance, and the relationship between creator activity and audience retention.

The purpose of these metrics is to identify where the product is creating real value. Once those patterns become clear, the business can invest more heavily in the features, creators, markets, and acquisition channels that support the core model.

Key Lessons From Likee’s Business Model

Content is the starting point, not the entire business. Likee uses short-form content to attract attention, but livestreaming and other interactive features create additional engagement and monetization opportunities.

Creators need a reason to stay. Creation tools, discovery, audience reach, and monetization all contribute to creator retention. A platform that focuses only on attracting viewers can struggle to maintain its content supply.

Monetization should follow engagement. Likee’s virtual gifting model works because it is connected to an existing creator-audience relationship, while advertising monetizes broader user attention.

More features are useful only when they support the model. Likee’s livestreams, voice rooms, games, and live battles matter because they extend the social-entertainment experience. A similar product should add features based on a clear business or user need.

Build a Short-Video App Like Likee

Likee shows how short videos, livestreaming, creator engagement, and multiple revenue channels can come together in one platform. If you want to build a short-video app like Likee, your product needs the right mix of content discovery, creator tools, livestreaming, social interaction, and monetization features from the beginning.

Oyelabs can help you build a Likee-like short-video platform tailored to your business goals and target audience. From user profiles and video creation to livestreaming, virtual gifts, and admin controls, we can help turn your app concept into a launch-ready product.