WE OFTEN see OnlyFans models showing off their lavish lifestyles online – from living in mansions to designer shopping sprees.
But the sad reality is that those eager to try and make easy money, and lots of it, will earn just pennies.
According to Variety, the average creator earns just £1,032 ($1,300) a year – or £85 ($108) a month, a lot less than the likes of Bonnie Blue who claims to earn £600,000 a month or Sophie Rain who made £34 million in her first year on the site.
One model on the site was ranked in the top 71 percentile of all creators but had just two active subscribers, reports Range Media.
We often only hear about the top 0.01 percent of OnlyFans models who are able to rake in millions a year – but the reality is vastly different.
Despite many seeing OnlyFans as an easy way to quit your 9 to 5 and become a millionaire overnight, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Most top earners on OnlyFans were already famous before participating in sex work reports MailOnline, meaning they had plenty of adoring fans waiting to subscribe to their account.
Top Stars
Blac Chyna, a reality TV star and ex to Robert Kardashian already had thousands of followers before taking to the site and raking in over £15 million.
Another top creator is Australian rapper Iggy Azalea who is thought to make £7 million a month.
It’s not just regular celebrities making a boatload of cash, Australia‘s Anna Paul makes £200,000 a month but rose to fame by becoming an influencer on TikTok.
Sophie Rain is just 20 and claimed to make £34 million in her first year on OnlyFans, making her one of the biggest money makers in the site’s history.
Now Sophie and seven other OnlyFans models live together in a mansion in Miami named the ‘Bop House’ and has been compared to the modern Playboy Mansion.
The opulent residence, which costs £60,000 a month to rent, spans across 8,890 sq ft with six bedrooms and five bathrooms.
There’s no grotto – but there is a pool, rooftop sundeck and direct access to the water with a space to park a yacht or jet ski.
While the UK’s top OnlyFans star, Bonnie Blue, has revealed she makes £600,000 a month.
That means the 25-year-old from a rural village in Derbyshire is making at least £7.2 million per year.
What is OnlyFans?
OnlyFans is a subscription content service based in London.
As of 2023, it is thought to have more than 220million registered users and over three million content creators.
Sex workers charge monthly fees for access to pictures, videos and more.
While popular for porn, the site isn’t exclusively designed with that in mind – anyone who wants to build up a fan base and charge them for it can set one up.
Celebs like Katie Price and Kerry Katona are popular personalities on the platform.
“Whether you’re uploading tutorials, tips, behind-the-scenes footage or just endless selfies, a lot of your followers would be willing to pay for them,” the company states.
For every subscription that’s sold to a viewer, performers get 80 per cent of the cash while OnlyFans gets the rest.
It isn’t limited to adult content, as it has become popular with physical fitness experts and musicians.
Sad Reality
Watching their lavish lives on social media has left many people wondering if they should jump on the bandwagon amid the cost of living crisis.
One person on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: “Maybe I should just start an OnlyFans.”
“The urge to start an Onlyfans is so real,” penned another, while a third added: “Just lost my job who wanna start an OnlyFans?”
But some women are actually doing it, Laura Watson, a spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) which supports sex workers across the UK, says there’s an increase in women looking for sex work.
She told ITV: “Since the start of the cost of living crisis we saw an increase in calls to our helpline: women, specifically, asking how to go into prostitution, asking how to get back into it – many women after having left for many years thinking about how to get back into it. So we knew that many people were turning to prostitution to fill the gap.”
Despite what OnlyFans models show online, creators in the top 1 percent of earners roughly make £38,000 annually, just over the median UK salary of £37,430.
While the big payouts go to those in the 0.1 percent, who earn around 15 times the amount of the average creator in the top 1 percent, according to Matthew Ball.
Last year, the CEO of OnlyFans revealed the company has paid out $20 billion to its creators since its creation in 2016.
CEO Keily Blair was speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles when she revealed the incredible figure.
“Porn is free on the internet. think the reason why people pay for OnlyFans is because they want to engage with those particular creators,” Blair said.
“It’s because of the ability to customise, as well as to ask for specific content.”
She continued, “Everyone assumes it’s sexy content. Some of it sexy content and we’re very happy with that, we’re an inclusive platform, and we’re that way for a reason.
“We believe it’s very important for adult content creators to have a safe space, to be able to monetise and also to be able to do that alongside other content creators.
“We’re all adults, we’re all grownups, we can all choose what content we subscribe to.”
