Selling content on fan subscription platforms

The claim

“You’re already putting the effort into creating — make sure your platform gives you different ways to monetise it. @Fanvue makes that much easier. Creators, if you’re curious about trying it yourself, get in touch and I’ll help you get started with my link ♥️♥️”

@MiaHawthorne00, 30 September 2026, 12,682 views¹

We hold only 5 tweets on this scheme¹. All five invite other creators to try Fanvue through the poster, and none states an income, a price or a fee in the text we stored¹. This page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

On Fanvue and OnlyFans, fans pay a monthly fee to see one creator’s posts, and can also tip or pay for single items sent in private messages. Both platforms allow adult content¹⁸. The tweets do not mention it, and we did not look at what these accounts publish.

The sums

Both platforms keep 20% of what fans pay²²⁷. Fanvue says prices of $9.99 to $15 a month perform best on average⁷. From subscriptions alone, after the 20% fee and before tax, a creator needs this many paying subscribers (our sums):

Subscribers leave. Fanvue says roughly 4 in 10 subscriptions last beyond the first 30 days, and about 1 in 4 last 90 days or longer⁷.

The subscription is also the small part: for creators in their first two months, Fanvue says it is around 10% of earnings, and around 60% comes from paid private messages⁷. So the table overstates the subscribers needed, but the money is made in one-to-one conversation, which takes hours every day.

What happens to most people who try

OnlyFans’ audited accounts show it paid $6.2bn to creators in the year to 30 November 2025, across 5,063,000 creator accounts³⁰. That is about $102 a month per account (our sum)³⁰. Dormant accounts are counted, so active creators average more, by an unknown amount³⁰. It is also a mean: a few very large earners pull it up, so the typical account gets less.

The only spread of earnings we found with a described method is from 2020. A writer scraped around one thousand OnlyFans accounts, a small sample not said to be random, and estimated income from subscription prices and fan counts³¹. On that estimate the median (middle) account made $180 a month, and the top 10% made 73% of all the money³¹. It counts subscriptions only, which were about half of OnlyFans revenue in 2021 and 2022, so the real median in 2020 was probably nearer double the $180 than equal to it (our estimate)³¹³²⁴⁶.

Fanvue publishes totals and no spread¹⁹.

The upside

Fans do pay, and some creators earn a great deal. Both checked cases are on OnlyFans and began in early 2020, at the start of the pandemic³⁴³⁵.

• A UK healthcare worker with about 2,400 subscribers took home $38,690, then $359,063, then $411,720, after the fee and before tax, between April 2020 and October 2022. Business Insider checked her documents³⁴.
• A creator made $143,000 in 2021, her second year; in early 2022 she had about 3,000 subscribers and a combined 40,000 Instagram followers on three profiles. Business Insider checked her documents³⁵. OnlyFans ranked that in the top 0.46% of creators then³⁵. We do not know whether the rank counts dormant accounts, and today’s rank is not published: OnlyFans had over 2 million creators then and lists 5.06 million accounts now³⁰³⁵.
• Fanvue’s homepage says some creators make “hundreds of thousands each month”¹⁹. The company gives no names or proof, and we found no checked income for any Fanvue creator.

A realistic good result (our estimate): with no existing following, tens to a few hundred dollars a month in the first six months³⁰⁴². With tens of thousands of followers on a network that allows the link, and daily work, low thousands of dollars a month within 6 to 12 months is plausible³⁵.

What it takes to compete

• An audience, usually brought from elsewhere. Fanvue says “Getting your first fans can be tough”, and tells creators to bring traffic from outside⁹¹⁰.
• Daily selling in private messages. The healthcare worker sends a paid item to many fans twice a day³⁴.
• Little money. Joining is free; chat software starts at $15 to $40 a month¹⁵⁵⁰.
• Accepting the lasting costs. Content under one’s own face is hard to withdraw, and interview studies report stigma, copied content and extortion threats as routine⁵².

How to tell early:

• Before starting: do you already have followers who regularly like or reply, on a network that allows the link?
• In the first month: do paying fans arrive without a discount? About 7 in 10 who join on a time-limited discount leave within the first month⁸.

Who else makes money from it

The platform keeps its 20% on every sale²²⁷.

The referrer. Fanvue’s public terms pay 5% of a referred creator’s revenue after fees, for 12 months for creators who registered on or after 9 April 2026, capped at $50,000 per referred creator, out of Fanvue’s own share, so the link costs the new creator nothing³⁴. We do not know whether the account quoted above has a referral arrangement, or on what terms. A referral link is a reason to recommend the platform, not evidence about earnings.

Agencies. Reuters reported that most agencies work on commission, taking 20% to 80% of a creator’s total earnings⁴⁶.