How much do OnlyFans creators make? What the company filings really show

How much do OnlyFans creators make?

On paper, about $100 a month per creator account: OnlyFans paid out $6.2 billion in its 2025 financial year across 5.063 million creator accounts. That is our own calculation from the official accounts, not a figure OnlyFans publishes.

The math is simple. $6.2 billion in payouts divided by 5.063 million accounts comes to roughly $1,225 per account per year, or just over $100 a month 1. At the European Central Bank reference rate of October 12, 2026 (€1 = $1.1181), that is about €1,100 a year or a little over €90 a month 12.

Other sources land in a similar range. A 2025 ZDFinfo documentary (German public television) cites estimates of about $180 a month for an average account 3. The software vendor desirely gives figures between roughly $130 and $180, without disclosing its method 4.

The denominator matters. Because inactive accounts are counted too, they drag the average down. At the same time, a small number of very successful accounts pull it up. Together, that makes the average a poor answer to the question of what you would earn.

Where do reliable numbers on OnlyFans earnings come from?

The only truly solid source is the annual report of the company behind OnlyFans. OnlyFans is owned by Fenix International Ltd, based in London. Its accounts are filed with Companies House, the UK company register, where anyone can read them for free. The accounts for the 2025 financial year, which ended on November 30, 2025, were filed on September 20, 2026 1.

Almost every other number you see online comes from agencies, course sellers or tool vendors. Many of them are selling something, and some mix figures from different years. That is why we rely on the accounts first. Where we use other sources, we say where they come from and how far you can trust them.

What do the 2025 OnlyFans accounts show?

In short: the platform is growing, and a lot of money moves through it. The key figures for the 2025 financial year 1:

Two things matter for you. First, the split is 80/20. Of every dollar a fan pays, 80 cents go to the creator and OnlyFans keeps 20 cents 12. Second, the account numbers include every account that has not been deleted. That is not only active creators but also accounts where nothing has happened for months. Often-quoted figures such as "2.5 million active creators" do not appear anywhere in the accounts.

For context on the very top: in August 2026 OnlyFans announced that 5,076 creators had earned at least $1 million on the platform since it launched in 2016, and that creator payouts over its first ten years totaled $30 billion 14. That is a company statement reported by the trade press, not a figure from the audited accounts, and it covers ten years, not one.

Why is the average so misleading?

Because the money on OnlyFans is extremely unevenly distributed, and with distributions like that the average says little about the normal case. The median would be far more useful: the value in the middle, where half earn less and half earn more.

A made-up example with ten accounts shows the difference:

Together that is $10,000, so the average is $1,000 a month. The median, though, is $100, the value between accounts 5 and 6. Eight out of ten accounts earn less than the average. A single account makes up three quarters of the total.

The sources on OnlyFans describe exactly this pattern. Nobody outside the platform knows the real median, though, because OnlyFans does not publish it. Frequently repeated claims such as "the median is about $150" or "70% earn under $200 a month" cannot be traced back to a verifiable source 45. We consider them plausible but unproven.

What does "top 1%" on OnlyFans mean?

The top percentage is a ranking OnlyFans shows each creator inside her own account. It tells you how you compare with other accounts. OnlyFans does not disclose exactly how it is calculated. According to creators' reports, it depends almost entirely on revenue and is updated continuously 6.

Three things worth knowing:

1. It is not public. Only you see your ranking. "Top 0.5%" screenshots in ads cannot be checked and are easy to fake.
2. It is relative, not absolute. "Top 1%" only means: better than 99% of the accounts you are compared with. If the ranking includes the many barely active accounts, as seems likely, even modest revenue can earn a good placement.
3. The estimates contradict each other. Monthly figures for the top 1% range from at least $5,000 to around $10,000 and more 46. One source says the top 1% receive about a third of all earnings 4. A paid press release from a traffic vendor claims instead that the top 0.1% get 76% 7. Both cannot be true at once, and neither discloses a clean method.

For scale: 1% of 5.06 million accounts is about 50,000 accounts. Even inside that group the differences are huge. "Top 1%" means neither "millionaire" nor "financially secure".

How much do OnlyFans creators make in Germany, Austria or Switzerland?

There are no reliable figures for Germany, Austria or Switzerland. OnlyFans does not publish earnings by country, and its accounts only report "UK and Europe" as one block, so the German-speaking countries are hidden inside it. That block did grow fastest in the 2025 financial year, by 22% 1. Any per-country earnings figure you read in the press or on statistics sites is an estimate, not a number from the accounts.

What does exist are individual portraits in reputable media. They show a wide range rather than a typical value:

• A creator from Lucerne told Swiss public broadcaster SRF that she earns about as much as she used to as a watchmaker. Roughly half of her working time goes into messages and editing 8.
• A tattoo artist from the Odenwald region told the German regional broadcaster hessenschau that OnlyFans is her main income. She also described receiving threatening messages 9.
• A former creator told Insider that at times she earned up to $20,000 a month and still experienced that period as the unhappiest of her life 10.

How much can a beginner make on OnlyFans?

There is no honest single number. Most new accounts start near zero, because OnlyFans itself sends you very few fans: almost all traffic has to come from outside the platform. Whether $1,000 a month is realistic for you depends on your reach, your time and how you talk to fans, not on an average.

What we can share are three anonymized cases from our own work (names changed), exactly as published on our website. Nora: started at $200 a month, $32,090 in turnover in her third month. Clara: started at $780 a month, $15,800 in her second month. Jana: started at $0, $8,430 in her first 3 weeks on a brand-new account. In Nora's revenue split, $29,523 came from messages, $2,567 from tips and $0 from subscriptions. These are individual cases, anonymized, and individual results vary. They are not a forecast for you.

Is there a guarantee of how much you will earn?

No. Nobody can promise you a specific income, and that includes agencies. How much you earn depends on many factors that are hard to predict: how much reach you can build outside OnlyFans, how much time you invest, which boundaries you set, how you communicate with fans and how the platform's rules change.

If someone promises you concrete numbers for "month 3", that is a red flag. How to spot a serious offer is covered in our article on OnlyFans agency red flags.

How much is left after fees, taxes and costs?

Much less than the payout. All of the figures above are amounts before you pay tax, health insurance or social security contributions, and your costs. If you work with an agency, its commission comes off as well. What you have to register and pay depends on where you live, so check it with your tax office or a tax adviser in your country.

An example from Germany: with €1,500 in fan revenue per month, €1,200 is paid out to you. After health insurance and costs, about €800 is left in our worked example 11. The deductions are different in Austria and Switzerland.

Where does the money on OnlyFans actually come from?

Mostly not from subscriptions any more. According to the accounts, only 27% of platform revenue came from subscriptions, and 73% from messages, pay-per-view content and tips 1. Pay-per-view (PPV) means content a fan unlocks individually, usually in a message. For you this means that more subscribers alone do not mean higher earnings. We explain what is behind this in Is the subscription dead? PPV and messages.

Frequently asked questions

Our take

A huge amount of money flows through OnlyFans, but it lands with a few. If you are thinking about starting, do not plan around the average, and certainly not around the exceptions. Plan for a wide range, for months of building, and for deductions. Our honest self-check before you start helps you work out whether it fits you.

maevia works with English-speaking creators who live in Germany, Austria or Switzerland and write native-level English. If you want to find out whether working with us makes sense for you, apply now. No pressure.