OnlyFans profits boom as users spent $4.8bn on platform last year

theguardian.com:

OnlyFans has paid out more than $500m (£433m) to its reclusive owner in the last two years, as the British-based subscriber platform synonymous with pornography reported record profits.

Leonid Radvinsky, the site’s Ukrainian-American 40-year-old owner, is the sole shareholder in a business that has seen its profits boom, as users spent $4.8bn on the site last year.

The financial results mean OnlyFans is one of the most financially successful British tech start-ups in recent years, succeeding where other more mainstream companies have failed. The company’s latest accounts show pre-tax profits rose by 615% to $432m in the twelve months to September 2021.

The site acts as a marketplace for adult performers, who upload their own material and keep 80% of the revenue. The remaining 20% goes to OnlyFans and covers the cost of running the business, handling credit card processing, and providing a very healthy income for Radvinsky. He has been paying himself as much as $45m a month in dividend payments.

Despite OnlyFans’ best efforts to claim that its platform allows celebrities and musicians to monetise their social media following – and investment in its OFTV service – the site’s main attraction remains pornography. OnlyFans has 2.1m registered ‘creators’ who can sell content and 188m registered ‘fans’ who can buy videos or pay to message their favourite performers.

The business model cuts out the traditional porn studios and allows creators to keep the vast majority of the revenue from viewers. However, this also requires them to take responsibility for their own marketing and requires a constant stream of new material for subscribers.

OnlyFans was founded by an Essex family in 2016, with Tim Stokely as chief executive and his