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

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.

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.

The business model cuts out the traditional pornography 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.

The company only really took off after 2018, when they sold the site to Radvinsky, who had past experience of running pornography sites. The Stokelys remained as executives but cut their ties with the company at the end of last year.

The site, which already requires users to verify they are over 18, could also benefit from UK government proposals to enforce age verification checks on wildly popular free porn sites such as PornHub.

The banks eventually relented and the adult material survived but this helped prompt a change in leadership, which led to the appointment of former marketing boss Amrapali Gan as chief executive.