How Much Do OnlyFans Creators Really Make? The Public Numbers, Without the Fantasy

In this guide

• Where the real numbers come from
• A very short history
• The headline figures: fans, creators, money
• The 80/20 split
• What the “average” creator makes — and why it misleads
• Subscriptions are not where the money is
• What I would tell someone thinking of starting

I am asked about OnlyFans almost as often as I am asked about stamina. Friends, followers, women I have worked with, men who want to “manage” a creator. Everyone has seen the screenshot: some creator showing a five- or six-figure month. Everyone wants to know if that is normal.

So I went to the one source that cannot be faked with a screenshot: the company’s own annual accounts.

Where the real numbers come from

OnlyFans is owned by Fenix International Limited, a UK company. UK companies must file annual accounts at Companies House, which makes them public. That is why we know more about OnlyFans’ finances than about most private platforms. The figures below are for the financial year ending 30 November 2024, as filed and as reported by the trade press (Variety, 2025; Wikipedia: OnlyFans).

I am only using publicly reported numbers. No “insider” figures, no agency claims, no screenshots.

A very short history

OnlyFans launched in 2016 in London as a general subscription platform for creators of all kinds — fitness coaches, musicians, cooks. It became synonymous with adult content because that is where the demand was. Its growth exploded during the 2020 lockdowns, when millions of people were at home and looking both for entertainment and for income.

In August 2021 the company announced it would ban sexually explicit content, citing pressure from banks and payment providers. Within days, after a furious reaction from creators, it suspended the decision (Wikipedia: OnlyFans). That episode taught every creator something important: you do not own the platform. Payment processors, banks and policies can change the rules overnight. The smartest creators I know keep their own website, their own mailing list and more than one income stream for exactly that reason.

The headline figures

Sources: Fenix International accounts as reported by Variety; 2023 comparatives as reported alongside the 2024 results.

Two things jump out. First, this is a very big business: more than seven billion dollars a year moving from fans to creators. Second, growth is slowing. Fan payments grew about 9% in 2024, much less than in the boom years.

Note what those account numbers are: registered accounts, not active ones. A creator account that was opened once and never used still counts. So does a fan account created to look at one free page. Keep that in mind; it matters in a moment.

More than $7 billion a year moves from fans to creators. But “4.63 million creators” counts every account ever opened, not every woman making a living.

The 80/20 split

OnlyFans takes 20% of what fans pay; the creator keeps 80%. That is in the platform’s terms and matches the accounts: net revenue of $1.41bn is about 19.6% of $7.22bn (OnlyFans Terms of Service; Variety).

But 80% is not what lands in the creator’s pocket. From her 80% come:

• Taxes. Creators are self-employed in most countries.
• Agencies and chatters, if she uses them. Agency cuts are often reported in the range of tens of percent of earnings — I have seen deals I would never sign.
• Production costs: cameras, lighting, clothing, travel, collaborators, editors.
• Promotion: paid shoutouts, social media management, sometimes ads on other platforms.

When someone tells you she “made $50,000 last month”, ask: gross or net? Before or after the agency? Before or after tax?

What does the “average” creator make?

Here is the simple division that everybody does: $5.8 billion paid to creators, divided by 4.63 million creator accounts, is about $1,250 per account per year — around $100 a month.

That number is both too low and too high:

• Too low, because millions of those accounts are inactive. The real active creators earn more on average.
• Too high, because averages are pulled up by a small number of huge earners. In almost every creator platform, a small top slice takes a large share of the money. The median creator — the one in the middle — earns much less than the mean.

OnlyFans does not publish a median, so nobody outside the company can tell you exactly what a “typical” creator earns. Anyone who gives you a precise median without a source is guessing. What we can say with confidence from the public numbers is this: for most accounts, OnlyFans is a side income, not a fortune.

Subscriptions are not where the money is

One detail in the accounts surprised a lot of people: most of the money does not come from monthly subscriptions. In the 2024 accounts, about two-thirds of revenue (66.7%) was recognised from content bought one item at a time — pay-per-view messages, tips and paid posts — rather than from subscriptions, up from 58.6% a year earlier (Elvision Studios analysis of the Fenix accounts).

That matches what I see. The subscription price gets people through the door. The income comes from attention: answering messages, custom requests, live sessions, consistency. It is a customer-service business as much as a content business. That is also why so many creators hire chatters — and why fans sometimes discover the “girl” they have been talking to is a team.

The US is still the market

Revenue is concentrated. According to the same analysis of the 2024 accounts, 64.3% of revenue came from the United States and 20.1% from the UK and Europe combined (Elvision Studios). For creators outside those markets, that is an opportunity — dollars are worth a lot in many countries — but also a challenge: you are competing for the attention of the same fans as everyone else, in English, in their time zones.

Why I care about this as a performer

The money in adult content has moved. Ten years ago, almost everything went through studios. Today, studio scenes are often the shop window, and fan platforms are the till. I wrote about what a studio day looks like in is porn real? what actually happens on a porn set. Many of the women I have worked with earn more from their own pages than from scenes, and the best of them run it like a company.

What I would tell someone thinking of starting

I am not a financial adviser, and every country has its own rules. But this is what I would say to a friend:

1. Look at the public numbers, not the screenshots. The accounts say most accounts earn modest amounts.
2. Audience first. Creators who do well usually already have an audience somewhere else — social media, a studio career, a niche community.
3. Be careful with agencies. Read every contract. Know what percentage you are giving away and for what.
4. Assume it is permanent. Content on the internet does not disappear. Think about family, future jobs and safety before the first post.
5. Treat it as a business. Taxes, records, a separate bank account, boundaries on time.
6. Protect your privacy. Never show where you live. Never.

The bottom line

OnlyFans is a real, very large business that paid creators around $5.8 billion in its 2024 financial year. The split is 80/20. But the money is extremely concentrated, the account numbers count dormant accounts, and the viral screenshots are the exception that makes everyone else feel like they are failing. If you are a fan, enjoy it knowing it is work. If you are thinking of becoming a creator, go in with the real numbers.

Sources

1. Variety. OnlyFans 2024 financials: gross revenue $7.2 billion, up 9%, 2025.
2. Wikipedia. OnlyFans.
3. OnlyFans. Terms of Service.
4. Elvision Studios. OnlyFans statistics: figures from the annual accounts.
5. Fenix International Limited. Filing history at UK Companies House.