On September 5, 2024, OnlyFans’ UK-based parent company, Fenix International Limited, filed a mandatory financial disclosure that reverberated across the media landscape. The report showcased the platform's meteoric rise and billions in payouts to creators, which drew widespread coverage and many a viral post on X (formerly Twitter). Despite the platform's success, critical discussions about the lack of protections for the performers driving its growth remain overlooked. As the adult entertainment industry expands, issues of fair pay, long-term security, and the absence of industry safeguards become increasingly glaring.

In 2023, OnlyFans paid creators $5.3 billion—exceeding the total combined salaries of all NBA players for that season. Yet, these enormous payouts obscure the harsh financial realities for many adult performers. While these figures underscore the platform's financial success, they also highlight the profound disparities faced by adult performers when compared to their counterparts in sports and Hollywood. Despite an 80% revenue share paid to creators by OnlyFans, the broader adult industry remains fraught with structural vulnerabilities undermining performers' long-term security.

A Lack of Union Protections Undermines Fair Pay

One of the most critical differences between adult performers and their mainstream counterparts is the absence of strong union representation. For instance, NBA players are safeguarded by the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), which negotiates comprehensive benefits, including salaries, health plans, and pensions. Likewise, SAG-AFTRA advocates for Hollywood actors, ensuring fair wages, secure working conditions, healthcare, and residual payments that provide long-term financial stability. By contrast, the adult industry lacks such protections, leaving performers without these vital safeguards

While the Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) is the most prominent union serving the adult industry, it is voluntary. Today, APAG needs more substantial funding and participation, leaving performers without the comprehensive support systems available to their counterparts in other entertainment sectors. This disparity became tragically clear in 2024, as several high-profile performers faced death or long-term incapacitation. Adequate support structures, like those offered to athletes and mainstream entertainers, might have prevented these outcomes.

SAG-AFTRA, for example, guarantees that actors are paid a minimum wage, known as "scale," ensuring that no actor—regardless of fame or role—is compensated below a union-negotiated rate. This system protects actors from exploitation and provides long-term financial security through residual payments, allowing them to receive a share of profits whenever their work is re-aired, streamed, or otherwise monetized.

Adult performers, however, have no such safety net. The typical base rate for a boy/girl scene is around $1,000, with slight increases depending on the acts performed. There is no standardized pay scale across the industry or residuals or royalties shared with performers after a scene is filmed. Even if a scene generates millions of views or is distributed across multiple platforms, performers receive only their initial payment, with no claim to the future profits the content continues to create for studios.

Without the security of residuals or long-term earnings, adult performers must continually create new content just to sustain their income. OnlyFans offers performers an additional income stream. But it comes at a cost: the demand for constant content production and near-constant fan engagement. Unlike mainstream actresses, who can rely on residual payments from past work, adult performers are frequently caught in an exhausting cycle, producing new content relentlessly just to sustain their income.

The Threat of Deplatforming

These vulnerabilities became evident in August 2021, when OnlyFans announced a ban on sexually explicit content due to pressure from financial institutions. Although the decision was swiftly reversed after a public backlash, it exposed how precarious adult creators’ livelihoods are. Without union representation, contractual guarantees, or recourse, performers faced the sudden potential loss of their income due to a corporate decision beyond their control.

Unlike mainstream professionals, who have unions to advocate for them in times of crisis, adult creators are entirely at the mercy of platform policies. The constant threat of de-platforming—where platforms can restrict or remove creators' content—hovers over the industry. Unlike traditional workers, adult performers have no severance, transition assistance, or safety net when these changes occur. The 2021 near-ban served as a harsh reminder of how fragile their financial security truly is.

Stigma and Career-Limiting Repercussions

The challenges extend beyond economics and platform control. Adult performers face profound societal stigma that can limit future opportunities. While athletes and mainstream actresses often leverage their fame for lucrative post-career opportunities—such as brand deals, endorsements, or business ventures—adult performers frequently find themselves shut out of such opportunities, their careers constrained by the enduring stigma of their past work.

For Hollywood actors, retirement might lead to endorsements or high-profile business ventures. Athletes often transition into coaching, commentary, or sponsorship deals with global brands. Adult performers, however, are often pigeonholed by their work in the industry, which can prevent them from pursuing other careers—many struggle to break free from the limitations imposed by societal judgment.

This is compounded by the permanence of adult content on the internet. Once a scene is filmed and distributed, it remains online indefinitely. Model releases signed by performers give studios control over the content for life, allowing them to monetize it long after production. Performers have no mechanism to remove or reclaim their content, leaving it available to resurface at any time. For many adult performers, escaping the stigma of their past work becomes a lifelong challenge.

The Decline of Hollywood and Its Ripple Effects

These challenges coincide with a period of profound upheaval in mainstream entertainment. In recent years, Hollywood has experienced a marked reduction in the number of greenlit projects as studios increasingly favor franchise blockbusters and guaranteed commercial hits. This shift has stifled creative risk-taking and diminished opportunities for both veteran and emerging talent, from actors to directors and writers. Many within the industry now find themselves struggling to secure consistent work.

The entertainment landscape as a whole is undergoing seismic change. Warner Bros. Discovery, a bellwether for the industry, recently reported a $9.1 billion impairment driven by declining TV network values, attributed to falling ad sales and uncertainty surrounding sports rights renewals. Despite growth in streaming, even a giant like Warner Bros. Discovery faces hurdles in monetizing content as it once did. This pivot from traditional networks to direct-to-consumer platforms underscores the challenges facing even the most established players. For adult performers who work in a similarly content-driven economy, these shifts resonate deeply—though without the safety nets, residuals, or long-term financial protections afforded to mainstream actors or professional athletes.

This decline has sent ripples through Los Angeles, a city whose economy is inextricably linked to the entertainment industry. The slowdown in production has impacted workers across all levels, from behind-the-scenes crews to the many local businesses that depend on the industry's steady flow of projects. Meanwhile, the adult entertainment industry continues to generate billions in revenue, but those profits rarely reach the performers who create the content that drives the sector’s success.

This dichotomy paints a stark picture: while mainstream actors grapple with shrinking job prospects, adult performers are churning out vast amounts of content. Yet, in both sectors, it is the laborers—the actors and performers—who bear the brunt of corporate strategies that prioritize profits over creativity, quality, and fair compensation. As corporate interests tighten their grip on both industries, performers find themselves increasingly exploited, their contributions undervalued, and their financial futures uncertain.

A Call for Structural Change and a Fairer Payment Model

The adult industry must consider reforms that provide performers with greater financial security and equity. A potential solution already exists within the industry itself: Adult Time, run by Gamma Entertainment Inc., offers a partner program that allows rights holders to syndicate their content and receive a pro-rata share of the platform's net revenue based on viewership. Essentially, the more a piece of content is viewed, the larger the rights holder’s share of the revenue pool.

The Adult Time blog highlights this model is a "win-win-win" for the platform, content creators, and viewers. However, performers remain absent from this "win" despite being the core contributors to the content. If this model works successfully for rights holders, it begs the question: why not extend the same benefit to performers?

Performers could receive a residual-like income stream based on the viewership of the scenes they appear in. This mirrors how Spotify and Apple Music compensate artists based on the number of streams their music generates. A performer fund could ensure that performers receive a fair share of the revenue generated by their content.

If adult studios argue that this model is impractical, they undermine their own position. If they can track views and pay content rights holders based on a pro-rata model, they can certainly do the same for the performers who bring the content to life.

To address these systemic challenges, the adult industry can draw lessons from other content-driven sectors that have adopted more equitable models. For instance, the music industry, once reliant on physical sales, transitioned to a streaming-based revenue model that offers residual payments based on performance. Similarly, platforms like Spotify and Apple Music pay artists according to the number of streams their work generates. By implementing a similar system, adult entertainment platforms could ensure performers receive a share of the ongoing revenue their scenes generate.

Additionally, adopting contracts that include health benefits, pensions, or dedicated retirement funds—akin to agreements seen in the sports world—could provide much-needed long-term security for performers whose careers often last just a few years.

Why Not Invest in Performers?

In an industry where talent can cycle in and out quickly, seasoned performers like Riley Reid and Abella Danger may command top-tier rates and drive significant signups and viewership. Yet, studios—including industry giants—remain reluctant to invest adequately in the very performers who fuel their success. These studios routinely offer lucrative contracts to social media influencers, recognizing the value of established fan bases. However, they fail to extend broader institutional support to the performers who form the heart of their content.

Living in cities like Los Angeles and Miami, two key hubs for adult performers, present significant financial challenges. According to recent reports, a single individual in California must earn $110,781 annually to live comfortably in Los Angeles, which translates to approximately $9,232 per month for essentials such as housing, utilities, food, transportation, and healthcare. In Miami, while costs are slightly lower, the city's growth post-pandemic has driven up rents and living expenses, putting further strain on performers.

In the adult industry, performers typically earn between $1,000 and $2,000 per scene, though male performers often earn considerably less, with rates ranging from $400 to $1,000 per scene. Even the most in-demand performers are often limited to shooting around 100 scenes per year. When accounting for California’s self-employment taxes—which can reach up to 30%—as well as agency fees of 10-15%, a performer must shoot at least six to ten scenes per month simply to meet basic living costs. This doesn’t factor in critical financial planning needs such as contributions to retirement savings plans like a Roth IRA. The situation is particularly concerning given that most performers’ careers span just 2 to 4 years, with only a select few reaching the 10-year mark. Without structured planning, many face the grim prospect of financial instability upon reaching retirement age.

Transportation costs present additional burdens for performers. Unlike other professions where workers can live near their place of employment, performers often travel long distances to reach dispersed shoot locations across sprawling cities like Los Angeles or Miami. In Los Angeles, a typical Uber ride costs at minimum $20 one way, with round trips to and from shoots easily reaching $100. For those driving, gas costs can reduce that to a quarter, but transportation alone remains a considerable expense, further eating into performers’ already limited earnings.

These financial pressures are compounded by the significant out-of-pocket costs performers face to maintain their careers. Routine expenses such as hair extensions, nail treatments, and health-related testing—each of which can cost up to $244 every two weeks if including Mgen—quickly accumulate. In addition, many performers employ personal trainers, adhere to strict diets, and engage in rigorous physical activity to meet the demands of physically taxing shoots, especially in high-end productions like virtual reality (VR) and gonzo scenes. These shoots often require exceptional stamina, with scenes lasting over an hour, placing considerable strain on both male and female performers.

On top of physical demands, performers must continually finance professional photo shoots, high-quality video production, and constant social media promotion to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Despite their central role in driving the industry's multi-billion-dollar revenues, performers are left to shoulder these often-overlooked costs with minimal institutional support.

The paradox is evident: performers are expected to bring their large fanbases and deliver physically demanding, high-quality performances that generate immense revenue. While many adult performers face financial precarity, it's important to note that some have successfully leveraged platforms like OnlyFans to build direct relationships with their fanbases, allowing them greater control over their income. By producing and distributing their own content, performers have found new avenues for monetization beyond the traditional studio model. Yet, the very individuals who are the most essential to the industry's success are often denied the financial investments and protections necessary to support their long-term well being and career growth.

The Urgent Need for Industry Reform

The popularity of platforms like OnlyFans and the explosive growth of the adult entertainment industry should not obscure the urgent need for reform. Adult creators face unique challenges, including social stigma, precarious financial structures, and a lack of basic protections that are standard in other industries. As the industry continues to grow, it must evolve to ensure that the performers vital to its success are not left behind.

A new payment model—one that offers residuals, fair pay, and long-term financial security—would go a long way toward addressing the deep-rooted inequities that have long existed.

Without structural change, the glamour of the adult industry will continue to mask the precarious reality faced by those at its core. Adult performers deserve the same protections and respect as their counterparts in mainstream entertainment. Their contributions to a multi-billion-dollar industry should match the financial and professional security they have long been denied.