Onlyfans has made headlines across the world, and transformed both the online adult industry, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of creators across the globe. Whilst celebrities such as Blac Chyna, Cardi B and Amouranth have created accounts on Onlyfans and given the subscription platform a huge amount of publicity (whilst making millions of dollars for themselves in the process!), the real heart of Onlyfans are the lesser known, but still very profitable creators, who have thousands of fans, and make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars each and every month by sharing their content with loyal subscribers.
Onlyfans has changed the lives of these creators, earning them more money than they ever thought possible. But how can you become one of them, and what are the things you need to know to start an Onlyfans and be successful?
What is Onlyfans?
Onlyfans was originally set up in 2016 by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely. By May 2023, the site had over 3 million creators, and a huge 220 million registered users.
In many ways, Onlyfans is not unlike a social media platform like Instagram. Creators post content on the platform, but instead of followers, they are looking to gain fans. They can then monetise these fans in various ways, such as charging a subscription to access their content, or one off fees for PPV content etc. Creators can also communicate with their fans via comments or DMs.
Is Onlyfans only for adult content?
There are definitely creators on Onlyfans that do not produce adult content. There are fitness trainers, chefs and more who use the platform to monetise their mainstream talents. As a platform Onlyfans have begun projects with various celebrities within music, comedy and more, to try to broaden the appeal and market of Onlyfans. However, in 2023, the vast majority of Onlyfans creators do produce adult oriented content and explicit content in a variety of different niches and areas.
How To Start An Onlyfans – Your Guide To Success:
The most important thing to remember when starting your Onlyfans journey is that Onlyfans is a business! To make money with Onlyfans you need to look at it like any other business venture. You need to work hard and be smart to make yourself stand out from the millions of other creators on the Onlyfans platform, otherwise you will get lost in the crowd and find it hard to make any money at all.
Don’t forget that at STAR we have helped Onlyfans creators go from zero to multiple tens of thousands of dollars a month in revenue. We have the skills and experience to help, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!
So – lets go through the 5 steps you need to take to become a successful Onlyfans creator, as we guide you in how to start an Onlyfans:
1) Set Up Your Onlyfans Strategy
With every new business venture, the preparation is all-important, and with Onlyfans is no different. You should be prepared to do your research and make some key decisions before you even create your Onlyfans account. The key questions you will need to answer are:
Are you comfortable showing your face on Onlyfans?
There is no getting around it. Creators who show their face on Onlyfans will usually earn more than those who hide their faces. However does that mean that you cannot make money on Onlyfans with your face hidden? No! There are definitely successful creators who make huge monthly revenue on the platform while hiding their faces. However, you need to make the decision on whether to be anonymous or not at the beginning, as it will make a big difference to your ongoing strategy.
What level of explicit content do you wish to provide?
NSFW content is by far the most popular type of content on Onlyfans, and adult content creators definitely stand a far better chance of earning highly when they are willing to publish NSFW content. However, the definition of explicit content covers a wide variety of types of content, from teasing and simple nudity to pornographic content. The most important thing is for you to choose the content level that you are comfortable with.
Do you want to target any specific niche or area with your Onlyfans content?
The most important thing on Onlyfans is to be yourself. Fans subscribe to creators who are genuine and being true to who they really are. So get inspired! Look around at other creators on Onlyfans and find some that you like. There are always popular niches too, so see if you can find one, whether Gamer Girl, Girl Next Door, Hotwife or whatever else suits you, and aim your content at that niche.
What amount of time do you have to devote to Onlyfans?
Like any business, the most successful Onlyfans creators are the ones who either work the hardest, or the smartest! The ones who work the hardest can spend pretty much all of their time creating content, promoting themselves on their social media channels, and DMing their fans to encourage them to buy their PPV content. Not all new creators have the time or expertise to do this however, so many will work with an agency like STAR, which can save them a lot of time!
Have you considered working with an Onlyfans agency?
Running a successful Onlyfans account requires a wide range of skills. Content planning and production, social media marketing and monetising your fans, all take time and skills, which may take time for you to learn. An agency like STAR can help you will all of these areas, and can have a massive impact on your Onlyfans income level.
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2) Set Up Your Onlyfans Account
Joining Onlyfans is simple and it does not take long to do, so you can kick off your Onlyfans career!
Setting Up Your Onlyfans Profile
Similar to most other social media platforms, you will need to use an email address for verification when setting up your Onlyfans account. This is a very simple process. All Onlyfans users, whether creators or fans, have to be over 18 years old.
Set Up Your Username and Display Name
When you first set up your Onlyfans account, the system will assign a random username for you. You can change this manually when you first set it up BUT BE CAREFUL! You can only change your username once, and once set, it will also act as the URL or domain name of your account. So take your time and ensure that your username is something you are happy with, and you will not want to change it in future.
With the display name, you do not need to be as careful, as you can change this multiple times and whenever you want. The best thing would be to set it to something you like initially, and then you can change it again when you are a bit more experienced. Try to get your niche into your display name as this will help fans to remember you.
Upload your profile image and banner image
It pays to spend some time on this step, as these images are the shop window into your account, and should lure the potential fans to click on your page. This means you should make the images super high quality and niche specific, and don’t make them too explicit, as you want your fans to have to pay to see nudity! Don’t forget that the banner is landscape (rather than the portrait which is far more common on Onlyfans and social media platforms) so you will have to create an image especially for this.
Write your Onlyfans Bio
Your bio is where you get the chance to show your personality and give details on what you offer so you can attract subscribers. Try to be as clear and brief as possible, whilst letting potential fans know exactly what they will get when they subscribe.
Add your payment information and complete the tax form
More administration tasks, which can be a bit boring, but you need to do this, as it is how you get paid, and you have to ensure that you are dealing with taxes correctly! Simply add the bank account that you wish to get paid into, complete the tax forms, and you are ready to go!
Verify Your Onlyfans Account
The verification process on Onlyfans is quite simple, but some people can find the process difficult due to the requirement to prove your age via your ID. Once you have gone through the verification process, you will hear back within 24-48 hours. If you did fail the verification process, then you will be informed of exactly why you were rejected, and will be able to try again.
3) Set Up Your Onlyfans Page
Once all of the account creation is completed, then it is time to set up your page! There are some key elements that are important to spend time on and get right, that we have covered below:
Choose either a paid or free page
Here you have a choice to make. A paid page is one where subscribers need to pay a monthly fee to access your content. With a free page, users can subscribe and get your content free, and you will monetise them with your pay-per-view content, and via getting tips.
To start off it probably makes sense to set up a paid page, so you can learn how everything works and get some initial subscribers. You can always change the subscription price in future, and even open both a free AND a paid page.
Hide the follower count
Social proof is all around us, on every platform. People are more likely to subscribe and spend money on something if they see other people doing so too. When you are starting out, you won’t have any subscribers, so you have the option to hide your follower count initially. You can always un-hide it once you have a load of subs!
Create your welcome message
When fans subscribe to your channel they will get a welcome message that you can personalise. Make sure you spend time to write something that makes them feel part of your community, and that they will get all of the content they want from you.
Restrict Countries
With Onlyfans, it is possible to restrict your profile from being seen by users from certain countries. This can be a good solution for creators who want to block the country they live in so that people they know cannot access it. However, bear in mind that this will also reduce the amount of potential paying subscribers you can get, especially if you block a country like the USA, as a large percentage of users on the platform come from there.
4) Create Content for your Onlyfans Page & Promotion
Your content is your both the product you are selling AND the way you advertise your product. Therefore you need to create the best content you can, and ensure that you have a consistent and steady stream of high quality content. The types of content you will need to produce comes in 3 main types, and you need to take care that you understand the different requirements of each:
Onlyfans Page Content
The content you create for your page is your main area of content, which is designed to give your subscribers value, keep them subscribed for as long as possible, and create a community around your personality and content. The content level here is in the middle. It should be hotter than your social media promotional content, but not as hot as your pay-per-view, which is the hardest content you will produce.
Social Media Promotion Content
Social media is the place where you can build up an audience that you can later convert to Onlyfans subscribers. The main thing to remember is that social media platforms are very different than Onlyfans. The content level has to be much softer, with no nudity and and emphasis on teasing and sexy but cleaner content. Make sure you do not get your accounts banned or restricted by posting content that is too hot! Images and videos both work well, but teaser videos will often get better social media engagment.
Pay Per View Content
Pay-per-view content is you hottest and most explicit content, and will generally be promoted to your subscribers via your DMs. This method is by far the biggest revenue earner for for the top Onlyfans creators. Over time you will find out exactly what works best for your audience so you can maximise your earnings.
How much content do I need?
The amount of content that you need can depend on many things, and will largely come down to what is working! If you more get more subscribers and make money every time you make more content, then why would you not make more!
However, there is always a sweet spot of how much content you need, and how many posts per day/week you should do to keep your fans interested.
If you find that posting twice per day works best, then that would be 2 x 7 days in a week = 14 pieces of content per week. However don’t forget social media promotional content and pay per view content! The best plan is always to plan your content and get it made in one go on one day, then schedule all of your posts and promotions for the week.
If your account is new and you only have a few posts, then you will probably need to increase your output initially so you have more content. Subscribers are more likely to join an Onlyfans page with a lot of great content!
5) Promote Your Onlyfans Account
So now you have your Onlyfans page created, and your content is flowing nicely, it is time to get promoting your Onlyfans account!
In the last step we discussed creating the social media promotional content. Now it is time to get it working to drive potential fans to your Onlyfans page using your social media accounts. We have covered the creation of your social media content in the previous section, so now it is time to start posting! Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat are all great places to get followers, but don’t forget Reddit too, as it can be a very powerful promotional platform.
Build Your Social Media Followers First
The best strategy is to get posting, and build up your follower count on these platforms. Don’t try to convert users by posting your Onlyfans link from day 1. Take the time to build a profile on each platform, and via your regular posting, you can build up a relationship with your followers. Once you have this, then they will be far more receptive when you promote your Onlyfans account down the line, and you will easily find new fans.
Instagram is a very visual platform, and as such images and videos work great. Bear in mind that content cannot be too hot, so be careful you don’t got too far and get your account restricted or banned.
Although Twitter/X is a lot smaller than other social media platforms, it is actually the platform that drives the most traffic to Onlyfans. This is because it is the only platform that allows creators to have more explicit content. Therefore a well-run Twitter account where you post teaser videos and images with great content can be very powerful for promotion.
Reddit is often overlooked as a way to promote your content, but it can be incredibly effective. If you can find the correct subreddits for your niche, and post in the right way, it is one of the best ways to drive traffic into your Onlyfans.
Other Promo Channels
Don’t forget Google when it comes to promotion! If you promote yourself on social media, then potential fans who would like to find you on Onlyfans, will usually head to Google, and type ‘your username Onlyfans’. Therefore, try to make your username as unique as possible so your Onlyfans page appears at the top of the Google search.
There are also many new Onlyfans search engines launching, so ensuring your name is unique can help here too. It is also possible to buy advertising on these sites, so it can be worth exploring that too.
6) Further monetise your fans
Direct Messages (DMs)
You can use your DMs to directly chat and send private messages and exclusive content to your subscribers. This is your chance to upsell your most lucrative PPV content.
Pay-Per-View Content (PPV)
As we have mentioned already pay per view messages are the biggest source of revenue for the best performing Onlyfans pages. Your strategy for these will depend on many things, but once you have worked out 1) what content works best and 2) how best to promote to your subscribers, then your journey to $10k+ per month has begun!
Good Luck!
We hope that our comprehensive guide to how to start an Onlyfans has been helpful! Don’t forget that STAR are here to help you to be successful in your Onlyfans journey, and can assist in all of the areas outlined here. Just get in touch if you need some help!
How To Start An Onlyfans – FAQ
How much does it cost to start an Onlyfans page?
It is completely free to start your own Onlyfans page. You may have seen news about Onlyfans earning a huge amount of money. However, they earn this by taking a 20% share of the total earnings of each creator. So, for example, if you earn $1000 from subscriptions, tips and PPV payments from your fans, you will get $800, whilst Onlyfans makes $200.
Onlyfans pays over $5 billion each year to creators, so you can see that there is a lot of money for both Onlyfans and creators like you!
The other thing it can cost you is time! It can take a lot of time to produce high quality content and promote your Onlyfans channel. However, working with an Onlyfans agency like STAR can definitely help you to save most of that time.
How to start an Onlyfans as a guy?
It is no secret that the majority of Onlyfans creators are female, and most Onlyfans users are male. However, that does not mean that male creators cannot make a lot of money on Onlyfans! However, it is true that most of the Onlyfans users subscribing to male creators are gay men. As a male creator, the steps to success are very much the same, but to really make it, you may need to focus even more closer on the niche you wish to fit into, and ensure you can stand out.