快手 (Kuaishou)

Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.

Overview

快手 (Kuàishǒu, "Kuaishou") is a Chinese short-video and live-streaming platform. The operating company is listed in Hong Kong: in its own press release it gives the codes "HKD Counter Stock Code: 01024 / RMB Counter Stock Code: 81024" and describes itself as a "content community and social platform".

The practically important difference from international platforms is that Kuaishou operates inside the Chinese legal framework and the Chinese ecosystem. Its own rules page lists the laws under which the platform moderates content: the PRC cybersecurity law, the administrative procedure for internet services, the rules on managing internet live-streaming services, the rules on reviewing the content of short online videos and others — as stated in «快手社区管理规范» (the community management rules).

The second difference is that Kuaishou is not a single app but a bundle of services. In the footer of the legal documents page the platform itself lists: 快手音乐人 (musicians), 创作者服务平台 (the creator services platform), 快手直播 and 直播伴侣 (streaming and the streaming app), 直播开放平台, 磁力引擎 (the advertising engine), 快手电商 (e-commerce), 快手小程序 (mini-programs), 快币 (the internal currency).

There is a separate international product, Kwai. These are different catalogues, different rules and different accounts; this guide has a separate article about it.

Who's here

The company publishes figures in quarterly reports. In its press release for the first quarter of 2026 (Hong Kong, 27 May 2026) Kuaishou Technology reports: average daily audience of the Kuaishou app — 412.7 million, up 1.2% from 408.0 million for the same period in 2025; average monthly audience — 771.7 million, up 8.4% from 711.7 million. These are the company's own statements.

The same document gives the money: quarterly revenue of 33.7 billion yuan (+3.4%), of which 58.3% came from online advertising and 25.2% from streaming, with the remaining 16.5% from other services. As a separate line the company gives revenue from advertising services — 19.6 billion yuan (+9.3%) — and a 13.5% fall in streaming revenue to 8.5 billion yuan.

Geography is visible indirectly through the accounting: the same release separates a "domestic segment" with operating profit of 3.1 billion yuan and an "overseas segment" with an operating loss of 31 million yuan — meaning the overseas part of the business is orders of magnitude smaller than the Chinese one.

Getting started

Sign-up and the feed are available only from a browser or the app. The creator account lives on a separate domain, cp.kuaishou.com; the page calls itself «快手创作者服务平台» (the creator services platform) and requires JavaScript to be enabled, and after that a sign-in.

The step-by-step sign-up scenario, the age requirements and the verification procedure are behind a sign-in. The platform provides links to the relevant sections itself — the footer of the legal documents page has entries for 用户认证 (user verification), 机构入驻 (organisation registration), 上传视频 (video upload) and 娱乐直播公会入驻 (registration of entertainment streaming guilds).

What you can publish

The platform lists formats through its products: short videos, live streams, images and mini-programs — this list follows from the community rules, where the objects of moderation are listed as «短视频、直播、图片、标题、评论、弹幕、字幕、背景音、表情包» (short videos, streams, images, headlines, comments, flying comments, subtitles, background audio, stickers).

The upload screen with the technical file requirements — duration, weight, codecs — requires a sign-in. In the official documentation the only figure about video length applies to the short-drama vertical: the 小说剧 API documentation requires an episode to be «20分钟以内» (no more than 20 minutes) and accepts MP4 and m3u8.

The prohibitions are set out in detail in the community rules. Separate chapters cover content banned by law, material that defames state symbols and the memory of heroes, terrorism and extremism, pornography and low-grade content, infringement of third parties' rights (including «盗用、转载、搬运他人作品» — appropriating and re-uploading other people's works), illegal trading, and advertising in regulated niches — medicines, food supplements, medical services, futures, shares, funds, tobacco and alcohol — which requires an official qualification check.

How to grow

What the platform describes outright is the set of sanctions that affect visibility. The community rules list three groups of measures: on content (banning comments, «减少推荐» — reducing recommendations, deletion), on the account (a ban on posting, a ban on following the account, reduced recommendations, freezing) and on streams (stopping the broadcast, restricting rights, freezing).

Advertising for brands is bought in a separate circuit — the account for commerce sellers at niu.e.kuaishou.com, which calls itself «磁力金牛官网-快手电商商家广告投放平台» (the ad placement account for merchants).

Path to monetization

Kuaishou describes one payout scheme for creators publicly — and not in the help centre but in the API documentation. The «达人开放平台» interface (the open platform for creators) lets an advertiser create a task for creators, and the task parameters reveal how the deal is structured:

• promotionType with the value 3 — «广告分成» (a share of advertising revenue); the list also includes mini-program promotion, app downloads, revenue share and lead generation;
• divideRatio — the creator's share of advertising revenue, a whole number from "0 - 99";
• baseBid — the guaranteed minimum sum in cents (the unit is 分);
• baseBidCondition — the condition for paying the guarantee; the documentation gives the example «vv:1000», that is, payment at more than 1000 views;
• minFansNum and maxFansNum — limits on the creator's follower count, «不填则表示无要求» (left blank means no requirement).

Note the date and the status: the same page warns that «批量上传接口已于2025年10月31日关闭» — the bulk task upload interface was closed on 31 October 2025, and creating a distribution plan is offered instead.

The platform names other ways to earn: gifts in streams (the 快币 currency), 快手电商 e-commerce, and the 快手音乐人 music strand — all listed in the footer of the legal documents page.

Tools and automation

An official programming interface exists and is documented in detail. Publishing a video is described in the «创建视频» section of the open platform and consists of three steps: an upload request, the file upload, and publication.

• Rights: the user_video_publish scope.
• Start: POST https://open.kuaishou.com/openapi/photo/start_upload, which returns an upload_token and a gateway address, endpoint.
• Upload: direct — «适合小于10M的文件» (for files under 10 MB), as a binary body or multipart/form-data; for large files, in parts, with a recommended part size of «不大于10M» (no more than 10 MB) and resuming through /api/upload/resume.
• Publication is asynchronous: the documentation warns outright that the interface's response does not mean the video has already appeared on the user's page — the result has to be checked with a request by photo_id.

Tokens are issued via OAuth 2.0. For service scenarios the client credentials mode is used: the documentation shows a request to /oauth2/access_token with app_id, app_secret and grant_type=client_credentials, and expires_in: 172800 seconds in the response.

A limitation worth knowing in advance: access is not granted to everyone. The same page says of its own set of interfaces «目前接口未对外部开放» (the interfaces are currently not open to external developers), and scope rights are «需要提供appId 联系运营 线下人工添加权限» — granted manually after contacting a manager.

A separate large circuit is mini-programs: the 快手小程序 documentation is divided into the sections «介绍, 设计, 开发, 运营, 数据, 第三方平台, 开发者课堂, 行业解决方案».

Limits and rules

Jurisdiction. Chinese. The community rules rest directly on a list of Chinese regulations and apply «适用于快手所有用户» — to all users.

Who penalises. Under the same rules, community management is carried out by the platform's team and by the «自律委员会» (the self-regulation committee), which works to its own charter. Breaches are found in two ways: by active search and through user complaints.

Complaint channels. In the footer of the legal documents page the platform publishes a complaints line, 4000066666, a minors' care line, 4001502277, and the address support@kuaishou.com, plus links to state centres that take complaints about harmful information.

Licences. The same page lists the licences the service operates under — for value-added telecommunications services, for online cultural activity (number 京网文〔2025〕0487-152号), for the production of television and radio programmes, for the distribution of audiovisual programmes over information networks, and for internet news information services (number 11220240001).

Programmatic access. Only through the official open platform, with app registration and manual granting of rights. The platform's rules provide no way around this.

Who it's for

It suits you if your audience is in mainland China and you are ready to work in Chinese, with a Chinese legal entity or partner: without that you cannot pass verification or connect to the advertising and commerce products. It suits technical teams that have a local contact: the open platform is documented carefully, and video publishing and task handling are described down to the parameters.

It suits brands that want to buy integrations from creators through the official task exchange: the deal structure is transparent — the share of advertising revenue, the guaranteed sum and the views threshold are set by API fields.

It does not suit you if you need to check the terms without an account: the creator account, the upload screen and the ad accounts are all behind a sign-in. It does not suit an audience outside China — there is a separate product, Kwai, for that.

Verified data

The checked data this deep dive rests on.

About the platform

the operator is Kuaishou Technology; in its own press release the company gives the share codes "HKD Counter Stock Code: 01024 / RMB Counter Stock Code: 81024" and describes itself as a "content community and social platform" · the source is dated 2026-05-27

The company's own press release of 27 May 2026; the ir.kuaishou.com site did not respond to our requests

source, checked 2026-07-28

revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was 33.7 billion yuan; 58.3% came from online advertising, 25.2% from streaming and 16.5% from other services

The company's report; the overseas segment posted an operating loss of 31 million yuan

source, checked 2026-07-28

on an ordinary HTTP request the www.kuaishou.com home page serves service JSON of the form {"result":2,...} instead of markup

The feed and sign-up are available only from a browser or the app; we did not bypass the protection

source, checked 2026-07-28

Who's here

Daily audience. the company reports an average daily app audience of 412.7 million for the first quarter of 2026 (up 1.2% from 408.0 million a year earlier)

The company's claim in a quarterly release; the counting methodology is not disclosed

source, checked 2026-07-28

Monthly audience. the company reports an average monthly app audience of 771.7 million for the first quarter of 2026 (up 8.4% from 711.7 million a year earlier)

The company's claim in a quarterly release

source, checked 2026-07-28

Getting started

the «快手创作者服务平台» creator account requires JavaScript to be enabled and a sign-in

Sign-up, verification and the upload screen went unverified

source, checked 2026-07-28

What you can publish

in the short-drama vertical an episode must fit within 20 minutes, and MP4 and m3u8 are accepted

The only official figure found about video length; it does not apply to ordinary clips

source, checked 2026-07-28

Content

the community rules rest on a list of Chinese regulations and apply to all users; the objects of moderation are short videos, streams, images, headlines, comments, flying comments, subtitles, background audio and stickers

The «快手社区管理规范» document

source, checked 2026-07-28

Advertising

the ad account for commerce sellers is called «磁力金牛»; during the check the page served only a title, with no description of formats or prices

The xingtu.kuaishou.com and juxing.kuaishou.com domains did not respond during the check

source, checked 2026-07-28

How the money works here

in the interface for creating a task for creators, the share of advertising revenue is set by the divideRatio field as a whole number from 0 to 99; there is a guaranteed sum field, baseBid (in 分), and a condition for paying it, baseBidCondition, with the example «vv:1000» (more than 1000 views); follower limits are set by minFansNum and maxFansNum

Parameters of advertising tasks, not a public offer to all creators

source, checked 2026-07-28

Restrictions

three groups of measures: on content (banning comments, reducing recommendations, deletion), on the account (a ban on posting, a ban on following, reduced recommendations, freezing), on streams (stopping the broadcast, restricting rights, freezing)

Chapter 2 of the community rules

source, checked 2026-07-28

Legal

the footer of the legal page lists the licences: for value-added telecommunications services, for online cultural activity (京网文〔2025〕0487-152号), for the production of television and radio programmes, for the distribution of audiovisual programmes and for internet news information services (11220240001)

__

source, checked 2026-07-28

complaints line 4000066666, minors' care line 4001502277, address support@kuaishou.com

The footer of the legal page

source, checked 2026-07-28

API access

publishing a video through the open platform: the user_video_publish scope, POST /openapi/photo/start_upload, then the upload and publication; direct upload is recommended for files under 10 MB, and parts in chunked upload must be no more than 10 MB; publication is asynchronous, and the result is checked with a request by photo_id

The document's update date is 23 May 2025

source, checked 2026-07-28

tokens via OAuth 2.0; the client_credentials mode through POST /oauth2/access_token with app_id and app_secret, token lifetime expires_in 172800 seconds · the source is dated 2026-03-16

Documentation of the short-drama vertical, updated 16 March 2026

source, checked 2026-07-28

access to the interfaces is granted manually: the documentation says outright «目前接口未对外部开放» (the interfaces are not open to external developers) and requires contacting a manager to have the scope granted

Relates to the 小说剧 vertical

source, checked 2026-07-28

the bulk task upload interface was closed on 31 October 2025, and creating a distribution plan is offered instead

A warning in the document's header

source, checked 2026-07-28

Languages

Sources diverge: the feed home page is served with the attribute lang="zh-CN"

source, checked 2026-07-28

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