OnlyFans launched in 2016 as a social media platform designed to help influencers, musicians, and other creators connect directly with their fans through paid subscriptions. Adult content creators, in particular, flourished on the platform, with some earning six figures annually — and others bringing in that much in a single month.
While that kind of money may sound enticing in a “should-I-quit-my-day-job-and-give-it-a-shot?” kind of way, the work isn’t easy. OnlyFans creators say that building a fan base, streamlining your workflow, and maintaining a content calendar takes far more strategy and consistency than many people realize. Plus, the platform itself can be unpredictable: In 2021, OnlyFans announced plans to ban sexually explicit content, only to reverse course days later following intense backlash.
What Does It Take to Make Bank on the Site?
Below, OnlyFans adult content creators who are making it work delve into that, and what they think of the recent controversial “Euphoria” storyline involving Sydney Sweeney’s character, Cassie, joining the site. Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Skylar Mae: “I’m making roughly over $1 million dollars a month right now.”
“I’m making roughly over a million dollars a month right now, which still feels surreal to say out loud. But I’ve worked incredibly hard to build this business and make it successful,” said Skylar Mae.
“I got into OnlyFans while I was in dental school. My family was struggling with medical bills after COVID, and I wanted a way to help support them financially. At first, I saw it as a side hustle, but it quickly became my full-time career. The growth happened really fast. My first month was honestly mind-blowing, and by the second month, I realized this was something real that I needed to fully focus on. Eventually, everyone at my dental job found out, and I ended up getting fired.
When I first started on OnlyFans, I was only posting bikini and lingerie content. There was no nudity at all in the beginning. Over time, my content naturally evolved month by month into more suggestive content, and years later, I eventually released my first boy-girl video.
Across all my platforms, I have around 9 million social media followers total — 4.5 million on Instagram, over a million on TikTok, and another 1 million on Twitter. Building that audience has taken years of consistency and hard work. I’m making roughly over $1 million dollars a month right now, which still feels surreal to say out loud. But I’ve worked incredibly hard to build this business and make it successful.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that this job is somehow easier than a traditional 9-to-5. In reality, I work constantly — holidays, birthdays, weekends, all of it. When you run your own business and want to succeed at a high level, you’re always ‘on.’
Another misconception is that success on OnlyFans only comes from doing extreme or outrageous content. I completely disagree with that. I’m one of the top creators on the platform, and I’ve built my business by creating content I’m personally comfortable making. If your audience connects with what you create, you can absolutely be successful without constantly pushing boundaries.
As for ‘Euphoria,’ I actually think it’s great publicity when mainstream shows reference OnlyFans because it opens the door for people to better understand how the platform works. Of course, some portrayals are exaggerated or unrealistic, but overall I think it helps normalize conversations around creators and online work.” — Skylar Mae
Jessica Barton: “You go from 9-to-5 to 24/7.”
“Content creation is no joke, and it kind of sucks that it’s hard for normal people to understand that, but you go from 9-5 to 24/7,” Jessica Barton said.
“I was working in a strip club during COVID and we immediately shut down, so I had to pivot. Who knew that pivot would change my life forever? I started off more Playboy style: Very clean and basic but sensual and sexy. Legs closed. Then I have gotten more sexually comfortable with myself and exploring new things, so my levels have increased to toy play, but I keep things solo. I have 550,000 subscribers, and I make about $175,000 to $225,000 a month. A bit over $2 million a year. Content creation is no joke, and it kind of sucks that it’s hard for normal people to understand that, but you go from 9-to-5 to 24/7. We never sleep. We never stop, and we are always hunting for the next creative idea, which can also be draining.
I think that people never understand the business side of it [and think] you can just do this for fun or quick money. That’s not how it works, and you will not succeed, and this will be all over the internet forever. You dive in headfirst, or don’t dive at all. It can be life-changing in both ways, good and bad.” — Jessica Barton
Jade Vow: “I jumped straight in at the deep end and started filming content with my partner.”
“I don’t shy away from showing as much personality as possible, and I pride myself on my content feeling relatable and authentic,” said Jade Vow, who creates content with her boyfriend.
“In 2018, I jumped straight in at the deep end and started filming content with my partner Josh. The majority of my content is filmed in a super amateur style, leaving in all of the awkward and funny moments. I don’t shy away from showing as much personality as possible, and I pride myself on my content feeling relatable and authentic.
Over the years, I’ve managed to curate a strong brand and build a loyal following, so now I have a steady income and a relatively chilled workflow, but it took a lot of hard work and consistency to get here. On OnlyFans alone, I tend to make anywhere between $10,000 to $40,000 per month. It varies a lot. There are also other platforms where I make a few thousand a month as well — it all adds up. I’ve worked 9-to-5s where I’d come home and collapse out of exhaustion at the end of the day, so I know how hard it can be. But there are times where I actually miss that. And it can also be quite challenging knowing that your entire income could change overnight and be completely out of your control if an account gets deleted or if a rule changes. It was only a few years ago that OnlyFans themselves said they were banning adult content on their platform altogether. Scary times. Luckily, they quickly backtracked on that, but these are the kinds of life-changing decisions that are out of our control.
“[Before], if someone asked what you did for a living and you said ‘OnlyFans’ or ‘amateur porn,’ people were shocked, curious and entertained. Nowadays, if you tell someone what you do, it’s more like, ‘Ah yeah, so does my aunt.’ - Jade Vow
I’m not keen on the ‘Euphoria’ plot line. Firstly — and this is a little selfish — but I like sex work feeling taboo. Before lockdown, when so many new people joined and it became more well-known, if someone asked what you did for a living and you said ‘OnlyFans’ or ‘amateur porn,’ people were shocked, curious and entertained. Nowadays, if you tell someone what you do, it’s more like, ‘Ah yeah, so does my aunt.’ It’s not a dirty little secret anymore — it’s mainstream — and as someone who got into the industry because they have a true love for the naughty things in life, that takes away a bit of the appeal.
Secondly, popular non-sex-worker-run shows tend to paint OnlyFans in a bad, or at least inaccurate, light. Wearing a diaper and dressing up as a baby, as Cassie does, is massively against the rules, for example. There are already so many negative opinions surrounding sex work — we don’t need shows like ‘Euphoria’ creating new harmful stereotypes and damaging opinions of the industry even more.” — Jade Vow
Majesty Nasty: “Sex work has taught me how to fully live in my truth.”
“My fans honestly love my personality and humor. I have fans who ask me to do story times, and then I have fans who just want me to just exist,” said Majesty Nasty.
“I got into OnlyFans when I was about to be engaged but I didn’t know my partner had already exposed our home videos to the world. I decided not to be sad but just embrace it. When I decided to join, COVID had just hit and I was tired of working three jobs. I was working at a club bartending, working as a home aid and I was serving at a restaurant. In 2022 I finally decided to quit all my jobs and do OF full time. I make $200,000 to $400,000 per year, depending on the economy and my energy that year. When I first started, I was only shooting solos and randomly dropping tapes that me and my ex had together. Once I decided to make it full-time, I started to explore more into women. I decided to finally live in my truth about the love I have for women. My content now is [broader] than it was when I first started. After actually locking in with it, I felt more open and free. Sex work has taught me how to fully live in my truth. My fans honestly love my personality and humor. I have fans who ask me to do story times, and then I have fans who just want me to just exist. My favorite request I have ever gotten has to be the time I had to do a karaoke video. The fan knew I liked to sing, so he just wanted to see me happy. Sex work has helped me be able to finally feel liberated about my body. As someone who has dealt with sexual assault, it has helped me gain my feeling of power.
But I hate the way TV depicts sex workers, because they make it seem like we’re just girls who were fucked up and decided, ‘let me do porn.’ With ‘Euphoria,’ I feel like some points in the show were valid, but it doesn’t depict the industry as a whole. I am a Black woman in this industry, so I get treated a different way than others. On the show, Cassie was praised by the internet and people love her, but I don’t get that love fully. I get mainly hate, with a few dashes of love. I’m labeled as a whore, whereas if you’re white, it’s labeled as liberating.” — Majesty Nasty
Holly Johnston: “I was excommunicated from the Mormon church” because of OnlyFans.
“I started OnlyFans in the summer of 2021 after my husband passed away. I was trying to support three kids on a middle-income salary while working in HR hiring nurses, and I was drowning in medical bills my husband had acquired before he passed. I also wanted to be present for my kids and be there when they got home from school. One day I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I saw a news segment about another OnlyFans model. The media highlighted how much money she was making, and she was around my age. I thought, ‘That could be me.’ At the time, I didn’t even know what OnlyFans was, but I immediately started researching, building social media accounts, creating a business plan, and launched a few months later.
My first month was good, and within a few months, things were going so well that I quit my job. With content, I started slow. At first, it was more Playboy-style content and tease videos, but over time, it evolved into full adult content. That transition was more about business strategy than comfort. During my first year, I was making over $50,000 a month, and by the next year, I had reached seven figures. This was not luck. It was hard work. And I was excommunicated from the Mormon church, which I grew up in, after I was outed as an OnlyFans creator. But you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go back to working for someone else. Today I have over 4 million followers across multiple social media platforms, and it took about two years to build that audience. That growth came from consistency and work ethic. I posted four times a day across platforms, constantly created content, engaged with followers, studied algorithms and built relationships online. Most people think the money comes from OnlyFans itself, but the reality is that the majority of the work happens outside the platform through marketing, social media strategy, content creation, editing, messaging and behind-the-scenes admin work. I regularly work 80-hour weeks.” — Holly Johnston
Kit Barrus: “If it was so easy, the average girl on OnlyFans wouldn’t be making like $200 a month.”
“I make anywhere between $250,000 and $360,000 a month, depending on the month, and I have made that for the last six months or so,” said Kit Barrus.
“In early 2022, I was unable to really pay my bills at the time working as a personal trainer and going to school, so I made an OnlyFans to make ends meet. I have now left the traditional job market to do OnlyFans exclusively, although I did choose to finish my degrees. I started off immediately making vanilla content. It was really just me masturbating and interacting with my audience and with the camera. I was really good at talking, so I did a lot of JOIs [jerk off instructions] and just really worked on interfacing and creating this rapport with my audience, so it was a lot of talking, a lot of storytelling, that kind of thing. My content has evolved, it now includes other people, although I’ve maintained that theme of storytelling and trying to really talk and establish some intimacy with the audience, but nowadays I offer girl-girl, boy-girl, fantasy, funny stuff, role playing, like all kinds of different things. I make anywhere between $250,000 and $360,000 a month, depending on the month, and I have made that for the last six months or so. Doing this is definitely easier for me than a standard job, but it’s... I wouldn’t say that it would be easier for most people. I have really bad ADHD, so this kind of job allows me to hyperfixate, but then back off a little bit. It’s constantly changing, constantly evolving, and that fits in with my brain and how my brain works.
But I think that, like, for most normal people, they’d find it very stressful and they would find it very difficult to establish any kind of rhythm or consistency. If it was so easy, more people would be doing it and the average girl on OnlyFans wouldn’t be making like $200 a month. If it were so easy, everybody on OnlyFans would be making thousands and thousands of dollars, but that’s just not the case. I’ve met girls who are grinding, grinding, grinding and not necessarily making very much money.” — Kit Barrus
