OnlyFans in 2025 Statistics, Earnings & Creator Economy
OnlyFans is no longer a niche website. In 2025 it is a multi‑billion‑dollar marketplace with millions of creators, hundreds of millions of fans, and an 80/20 revenue split that quietly powers a huge slice of the modern creator economy.
OnlyFans in 2025: Key Statistics
In less than a decade, OnlyFans has gone from experiment to infrastructure: a subscription stack and payment layer that quietly routes billions of dollars from fans to creators every year.
A High-Margin Marketplace
Official filings show that OnlyFans processed roughly $5.6B in fan payments in 2022, $6.6B in 2023 and about $7.2B in 2024. With a standard 80/20 split, around four‑fifths of this gross merchandise volume (GMV) is passed on to creators, while the remaining 20% becomes platform revenue and covers payment costs, operations and profit.
Cumulatively, the company reports that it has paid out in the region of $25B to creators since launching in 2016. That puts OnlyFans in the same order of magnitude as some global music, sports and streaming ecosystems in terms of cash routed directly to individual talent.
At the same time, the platform itself is extremely lean. With a few hundred staff across product, compliance and moderation, OnlyFans generates well over a billion dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of millions in pre‑tax profit. From an investor lens, it looks more like a fintech/marketplace infrastructure business than a traditional media company.
Fan spending on OnlyFans has compounded from the mid‑billions in 2022 to over seven billion dollars by 2024. The chart shows gross fan payments before the platform's 20% fee.
For each engineer or compliance staffer on payroll, OnlyFans generates tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. It's one of the most profitable and operationally efficient consumer platforms on the internet — but it depends on highly sensitive content categories and continued access to financial rails.
How the OnlyFans Business Model Works
Under the surface, OnlyFans is a familiar marketplace: fans, creators and a platform that takes a cut. The nuance lies in how that cut is structured and which behaviours it rewards.
The 80/20 Revenue Split
OnlyFans keeps 20% of almost everything that flows through the platform – subscriptions, pay‑per‑view (PPV) content, tips, bundles and paid private messages. The remaining 80% is paid out to creators, subject to currency conversion, processing fees and any local taxes.
In practice, this means that when a fan spends $100 in a month with one creator:
- Roughly $80 ends up as gross creator revenue inside that account dashboard.
- About $20 stays with OnlyFans as platform revenue.
The standard 80/20 split turns fan spending into a recurring revenue stream for creators, while giving OnlyFans software‑as‑a‑service style margins on billions of dollars of GMV.
Core Monetisation Levers
For creators, "OnlyFans income" is rarely just a subscription number. The typical revenue mix includes:
- Monthly subscriptions – recurring access to a private feed. Prices usually range from low single digits to tens of dollars per month.
- Pay‑per‑view messages – locked photos or videos sent via DM and unlocked for an extra fee. For top creators and agencies, this can outweigh subscription revenue.
- Tips – one‑off gratuities that reward custom content, fast replies or emotional connection.
- Bundles and discounts – pre‑paid months or upsell packages that improve cash flow and reduce churn.
- Cross‑selling – moving high‑value fans into higher‑ticket experiences (custom clips, off‑platform services, meet‑and‑greets, etc.).
OnlyFans' role is mostly infrastructure: identity verification, content hosting, paywall logic, payouts, compliance and basic promotion tools (lists, discounts, mass DMs). Marketing, brand and fan acquisition are overwhelmingly the creator's responsibility.
Creator Earnings Tiers & Income Distribution
The headline number – billions paid out to creators – hides a brutal reality: only a tiny fraction of accounts make serious money. Most creators sit in a long tail of low or near‑zero earnings.
A Power-Law Income Curve
OnlyFans ranks creators by percentile (Top 0.01%, Top 1%, Top 5%, etc.). Independent analyses of these percentile bands show a steep power‑law curve:
- Top 0.01–0.1% – high six‑figure monthly earnings are common, with some accounts grossing $200k–$300k+ per month.
- Top 1% – typically in the high four‑ to low five‑figure range per month (around $20k on average).
- Top 5–10% – often between ~$1k and ~$10k per month, enough to be a solid full‑time income in many markets.
- Middle 50% – earnings cluster between tens and a few hundred dollars per month.
- Bottom 40–50% – effectively make little to nothing: incomplete profiles, abandoned attempts, or creators who never convert viewers into paying fans.
Across the entire platform, the average creator earns roughly $1,300 per year – a stark contrast to the outlier stories featured in the press.
| Tier | Monthly Gross | Typical Profile |
|---|---|---|
| Elite (Top 0.01–0.1%) | $95k–$300k+ | Global brand, big social media audience, dedicated agency support, diversified income. |
| Top Performers (~1%) | $20k+/month | Highly optimised funnels, strong niche positioning, near‑full‑time operation. |
| Working Creators (5–10%) | $1k–$10k/month | Consistent posting and fan engagement, meaningful but not celebrity‑level reach. |
| Side Income (~50%) | $50–$1k/month | Irregular posting, limited promotional footprint, small group of loyal fans. |
| Long Tail (~40–50%) | <$50/month | Very low fan conversion, experimental accounts, or creators who never scale. |
Studies of creator earnings suggest an extreme power‑law: the top 0.1% of creators capture the majority of revenue, while the bottom 90% share only a few percent between them.
Where the Money Really Comes From
Subscription price is only one dial. In 2025, the creators who climb the earnings ladder treat OnlyFans like a full funnel: traffic, conversion, retention and lifetime value.
Traffic In, Money Out
Most creators don't discover fans inside OnlyFans. Instead, they funnel traffic from:
- Social media – Twitter/X, TikTok, Reddit, Instagram and niche forums.
- Search and directories – link‑in‑bio tools, creator ranking sites, and adult search engines.
- Agencies – for top accounts, specialised agencies run paid ads, manage DMs and optimise pricing.
Once fans land on a creator's profile, the game is to convert them into paying subscribers, then into higher‑value PPV buyers and tippers, while keeping churn under control.
Chat, Automation and the "Girlfriend CRM"
A major portion of creator income now flows through private messages rather than public posts. Many high‑earning accounts rely on "chatters" – specialised staff or agencies – and, increasingly, AI‑assisted responders to keep fans engaged and upsell PPV content.
Investigations have shown that fans who believe they are chatting directly with a creator are often speaking to a trained operator or AI system working from scripts. This doesn't necessarily break the business model – but it does shift the skill‑set from pure performance to CRM, scripting and segmentation.
Regulators and litigants are starting to pay attention, especially where automated flirting and upsells might blur into deceptive marketing or mis‑sold intimacy.
OnlyFans vs Fansly vs FanCentro
OnlyFans remains the default brand in adult subscription content, but alternative platforms like Fansly and FanCentro compete on discovery, features and creator‑friendly tooling.
| Platform | Creator Share | Positioning & Best Use‑Case |
|---|---|---|
| OnlyFans | 80% | The largest paying user base and strongest brand recognition. Limited native discovery, so success depends on off‑platform marketing. |
| Fansly | 80% | Launched as a close OnlyFans alternative with similar UX but richer tagging and discovery. Useful as a hedge against policy shocks. |
| FanCentro | ~75% | Higher platform fee but leans into discovery, clip stores, link‑in‑bio tools and affiliate programs. |
Headline revenue shares are similar across OnlyFans and Fansly (80% to creators), while FanCentro takes a slightly higher cut in exchange for more aggressive promotion and commerce tooling.
Strategic Choice for Creators
For new creators, the safest assumption is that no single platform is permanent. Policy changes, payment‑processor pressure or ownership shifts can dramatically alter what is allowed or how payouts work.
Practically, that means:
- Building a portable audience (email lists, messaging channels, standalone sites).
- Mirroring core content on at least one alternative platform (Fansly, FanCentro or niche regional players).
- Owning your brand and search footprint so that fans follow you, not just your OnlyFans URL.
Risks, Regulation & Platform Dependence
The creator economy built on adult subscriptions sits on contested ground: payment processors, regulators, platforms and lawmakers all pull in different directions.
Financial Rails and Policy Shocks
OnlyFans has already experienced what happens when financial rails wobble. In 2021 the company briefly announced a ban on sexually explicit content after pressure from banks and card networks, only to reverse course days later following an intense backlash from creators and fans.
Behind the scenes, the platform must constantly reassure regulators, payment partners and brand‑sensitive stakeholders that it can manage age verification, consent, piracy and fraud at scale. Any future breakdown in that trust could resurface the existential risk of losing payment processing.
Safety, Moderation and Automation
Investigations and academic work have highlighted both strengths and weaknesses in OnlyFans' moderation regime. On one hand, the platform demands extensive ID verification for creators and collaborates with child‑safety organisations. On the other, news reports and lawsuits document cases where abusive content, under‑age material or fraudulent chat practices persisted for long periods before removal.
The rise of agencies and AI chatbots further complicates the picture. When a fan is paying for "personal" interaction, but most of the labour is outsourced or automated, lines between entertainment, parasocial relationship and misrepresentation blur – and regulators are beginning to take note.
What This Means for the Creator Economy
OnlyFans, Fansly and FanCentro are niche by topic but mainstream by economics: they are proving out direct‑to‑fan subscription and high‑touch CRM models that other creator verticals are now copying.
- OnlyFans is effectively a payments and CRM layer for millions of micro‑businesses, not just a "spicy Instagram clone".
- Income is extremely unequal: the vast majority of dollars go to a tiny minority of creators who treat content as a full‑scale business.
- DM‑driven monetisation (PPV messages, scripted chats, AI assistants) is becoming as important as public posts or subscription price.
- Multi‑homing is rational: creators who spread risk across OnlyFans, Fansly, FanCentro and their own properties are less exposed to policy shocks.
- The playbook is portable: the same mechanics – recurring access, premium tiers, scarcity, 1:1 messaging – are now being applied to fitness, education, gaming and music communities far beyond adult content.
