A rough guide to how much of your earnings to put aside, built around US self-employment rules. Outside the US the shape holds but the rates differ — an estimate to plan with, not tax advice.
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Creator income is a business, and businesses deduct costs before tax. Commonly accepted categories: equipment (camera, lighting, phone share), props and outfits used for content, a proportional part of rent and utilities for a dedicated filming space, software and subscriptions used for the business, and platform or payment fees. Rules differ sharply by country — treat this as a checklist for the conversation with an accountant, not as advice.
A tip does not arrive whole. OnlyFans takes 20% of everything, so a $20 tip in messages leaves $16 in your balance. Tax applies to that $16, not to the $20 the fan typed, which is the part most people get wrong when they try to do this in their head.
If you are in Florida, Texas, Washington, Nevada, Alaska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Tennessee or New Hampshire, the state line on that $16 is zero. That is why the state dropdown above starts there.
What comes off after that has no fixed percentage, and anyone quoting you one is guessing. Federal income tax depends on your bracket and self-employment tax runs on your net earnings for the whole year, so the same $16 is taxed differently depending on what the rest of your year looks like. That is the reason the calculator asks for the year rather than the tip.
Those inputs are the calculator's defaults, so you can check this against the cards above: taxable profit lands at $45,000 minus the deduction for half of self-employment tax. Self-employment tax runs on net earnings from self-employment; federal income tax applies after the standard deduction; the state line depends entirely on the dropdown. The effective rate that results usually surprises people in both directions — lower than the scary bracket number, higher than "I'll deal with it in April".