The 20% fee, and what it applies to
OnlyFans takes a flat 20% of gross earnings, and it applies to everything: subscriptions, tips, pay-per-view messages, and custom content. There is no tier where it drops. Fansly charges the same 20% — the full comparison covers what actually differs — which is why every tool here works for both platforms unchanged.
So a $10 subscription pays you $8, and a $25 PPV unlock pays you $20. The payout calculator runs this for your own totals, including what currency conversion tends to shave off on arrival.
What to charge for a subscription
Pricing is the decision creators revisit least and lose the most to. Doubling your price does not halve your subscribers, and halving it does not double them, so total revenue peaks at a point you have to find rather than guess. Cheap pages also tend to attract fans who spend less on tips and PPV, so the damage compounds beyond the subscription line.
Model it on the subscription price calculator before you change anything, and move one step at a time so you can read the result.
What to charge for PPV
Most PPV sells between $5 and $25, but the number that matters is unlock rate, not price. Ten to thirty percent on a warm list is healthy. Well below that and the problem is almost never the price tag: it is that the message arrived with no conversation in front of it.
The PPV calculator shows how much a few points of unlock rate move the monthly total, which is usually more than a price change does.
Free page or paid page
A free page monetizes through PPV and tips instead of subscriptions. It converts a much wider audience but earns nothing passively, so it lives or dies on messaging volume. A paid page earns a floor every month with less inbox pressure. They are different businesses, and the right answer depends on how much time you can spend in the DMs.
Tax
In most countries this is self-employment income and nothing is withheld for you. Setting aside roughly a quarter to a third of net earnings is the usual rule of thumb, but the real figure depends on your country and total income. The tax calculator gives you a planning number; confirm it with an accountant before you rely on it.
How much do OnlyFans creators make?
The honest shape of it: a large share of pages earn under $100 a month, a solid middle earns a few hundred to a few thousand, and the headline numbers you see in interviews sit in a small top slice. The difference between the middle and the bottom is rarely follower count — it is whether the page treats messages as the product. Run your own numbers in the earnings calculator rather than borrowing someone else's screenshot.
Making money without showing your face
Faceless pages work — whole niches (feet, fitness form content, voice, cosplay with masks) run on them. What changes is the marketing: without a face, your niche and your consistency do the recognition work, and the DM relationship carries even more of the revenue. Pricing is unchanged; if anything, strong faceless niches price above general pages, as the price list shows.
The part no calculator can model
Every figure on this site assumes fans who wanted to spend actually got a reply. In practice that is where most of the difference between two similar pages comes from. Subscription revenue arrives on its own; tips and PPV only exist inside a conversation, and conversations do not scale by trying harder.
That is the problem Velvetly was built for. It learns your voice from your own past messages and drafts replies that sound like you, across OnlyFans and Fansly, with you approving every send. It will not add subscribers. It stops the half of your estimate that depends on replying from quietly disappearing. There is a free plan and it does not ask for a card.
More on where the leaks are: why your real income lands under the estimate.