Kenyan platform UrbanTok launches to compete with TikTok

A Kenyan-owned video-sharing and livestreaming platform called UrbanTok has officially launched. The app positions itself as a local alternative to TikTok in a market where the Chinese-owned app currently dominates, with over 18.4 million users aged 18 and above.

Owned by Mzawadi Group, UrbanTok was unveiled at the Connected Africa Summit and is designed to let creators share videos, go live, sell products, crowdfund, and charge for premium content, all on a platform built and operated locally. The web version is already live with creator content, while an Android app was briefly available on the Google Play Store before being taken down, suggesting the rollout is still in progress.

Principal Secretary for ICT and Digital Economy John Kipchumba Tanui, who attended the launch, according to Techweez, framed the platform as a direct response to long-standing complaints from Kenyan creators.

“Kenyan creators have struggled with external algorithms and foreign payment gateways to earn from their hard work,” he said. “UrbanTok is designed to put monetisation directly into the pockets of our local talent seamlessly.”

That frustration is real and well-documented. Creators in Kenya and across Africa who earn from TikTok face a system in which gifts are purchased at higher rates than in wealthier regions, and earnings often have to be withdrawn through foreign platforms like PayPal, adding friction and fees at every step.

Beyond monetisation, account closures on platforms like TikTok, X, and Facebook, with limited or opaque appeals processes, have left many African creators feeling exposed and powerless on platforms they cannot influence or hold accountable.

Why UrbanTok’s emergence matters

UrbanTok’s launch could not come at a more relevant moment for African creators. In Nigeria, TikTok’s Creator Rewards Programme remains unavailable to most creators, meaning Nigerian users can build massive audiences on the platform but earn almost nothing directly from it.

Earlier this year, X triggered widespread backlash, including from Nigerian creators, when it proposed a local impressions weighting system that would have significantly reduced earnings for accounts with global audiences. Elon Musk eventually paused the change, but the episode highlighted how dependent African creators are on decisions made by foreign platforms with little regard for their economic realities.

A locally owned platform like UrbanTok, at least in theory, removes that dependency. Data stays local. Payment infrastructure is built around local realities. Creators have a direct line to the people running the platform rather than an algorithm they cannot appeal to.

The challenge, however, is that the idea has been tried before. Yafreeka, a Kenyan video platform launched by content creator Andrew Kibe after his YouTube channel was shut down, attracted early attention but has since faded, sitting at just over 10,000 downloads on the Play Store with little active conversation.

Also read: TikTok adds $200k to its AI media literacy fund in Sub-Saharan Africa, now totalling $2.2m

Building a social platform is one thing. Getting creators and audiences to abandon the network effects of a service with 18 million users in a single country is another thing entirely.

UrbanTok will need more than a launch event and government endorsement to make that shift happen. It will need a monetisation system that demonstrably pays better than TikTok, a content discovery algorithm that surfaces new creators fairly, and a community large enough to make going live feel worth it.

These are significant challenges. But given how visibly the current platforms are failing African creators, the appetite for a credible local alternative has arguably never been higher.