Fansly vs OnlyFans: A guide for authors on choosing a platform

To promote yourself on an online exclusive content platform, you need to understand how everything works there. I want to find a platform that is easy to master and not burn out in the first month. Usually, the choice comes down to OnlyFans and Fansly, the two largest platforms for authors, where revenue depends on subscribers. The article compared them according to eight criteria to make it easier for you to decide.

1. The popularity of the platform among the audience

The recognition of the service is directly related to how easy it will be for you to gather subscribers around you. We always warn the authors: if the service is not yet well-known, it is difficult to move forward. And here both platforms have an advantage — they have proven themselves in the market.

OnlyFans is the most recognizable platform. Thanks to this, you can easily transfer subscribers from social networks to it. It appeared on the market in November 2016 and almost immediately aroused the interest of the authors. There are currently 4 million content authors and more than 300 million users on OnlyFans. The average attendance for December 2025 is 400 million visits. 

Fansly is not such a large platform. The audience is about 130 million users, and the authors are about 2 million. It was created in September 2017, and became popular among authors in 2021. The average attendance for December 2025 is 49 million visits. 

What to choose:

• If you want to develop on a large-scale recognizable platform, choose OnlyFans.

• If you’re closer to a niche audience and you’re not ready to compete for subscribers, Fansly might be a better fit.

2. The opportunity to earn

It is important for creators to understand how much money they will earn on the platform. We recommend looking at the tools offered by the service. The more tools there are, the easier it is to adjust prices to subscribers and the higher the chance of reaching the desired amount. Both platforms offer different ways to monetize. Let’s look at them in more detail.

OnlyFans uses a classic system: users purchase a subscription and gain access to the model’s private content. They can also make custom requests: for example, to shoot a video of the model eating breakfast or take photos in new lingerie. Most often, such content is paid for at a higher rate than the subscription.

You can subscribe to this author for free. Fans will be able to view the main content.

A lot also depends on how you work with subscribers and content. For example, the author knows that her main audience is men aged 35-40 who are looking for love through correspondence. To get them interested in your content, we recommend adding some flirting to your correspondence along with cute photos and videos. This option can be made available to subscribers for a fee.

Now let’s take a closer look at what OnlyFans has to offer in terms of earning money.

• Subscription. This is a source of regular income. It gives fans access to the main content of the profile and helps the author build an audience. Usually, a page has one subscription price, most often in the range of $4.99–$49.99 per month. The author decides what is included in it and how often they will publish content.

• PPV (Pay-Per-View). Closed posts or messages that subscribers can only open after paying. For example, a model posts an announcement of a photo shoot or a short teaser in their feed. If someone wants to see the full version, they have to pay an average of $5–30, depending on the exclusivity and content. PPV is often sold in private messages or newsletters.

• Tips. This is a voluntary bonus — like in a cafe for good service, only here they thank the author for their content and attention. Tips often work as an element of attachment to the author: the closer the contact, the higher the bonus from the subscriber. The average tip amount is $5.

The model can initiate tip collection on her page herself

• Paid messages. They allow you to earn money from individual attention — the most valuable form of communication for your audience. The author sets the prices for different formats of correspondence themselves. For example, a short flirt can be free, while more personal communication can be paid: a voice message for $5–10, a personal photo for $10–20, a short video for $20 and above. This approach helps monetize correspondence without scaring away the audience with aggressive sales.

Fansly also offers subscriptions, private and custom content. At the same time, the platform allows you to earn flexibly through different subscription tiers. The price range for access to paid content here is wider than on OnlyFans — from $4.99 to $499.99 per month.

Here are the main features of Fansly:

• Multi-level subscription. The levels differ in content privacy and cost. For example, you can offer three options. Basic with access to the daily feed and live shots for $5, advanced — basic content and closed PPV series for $25, and VIP level with regular private streams and personal correspondence for $100. This way, subscribers immediately understand what they are paying for, and the author gets the opportunity to work with different audiences.

The author offers VIP subscriptions for different periods: the longer the term, the higher the cost

• Combined accounts. On Fansly, you can combine free and paid content on one page. This is convenient if you want to attract new subscribers with free posts and then interest them in exclusive content through paid tiers or PPV. This approach helps retain your audience by gradually engaging them.

• PPV. As with OnlyFans, authors can earn money through private posts that subscribers unlock for a fee. At the same time, Fansly offers more flexibility in choosing which posts to make private: photos, videos, or entire series. For example, a selection of 5 photos can cost $10, and a 5-7 minute video can cost $15, while the first photos can be slightly blurred to show what to expect after payment.

To motivate subscribers to open the video, the author writes ambiguous text

• Tips. On Fansly, as on OnlyFans, subscribers can leave bonuses for the author. However, the amount of tips is usually smaller — $1.

What to choose:

• If you are looking for a platform with a clear scheme and additional income in the form of PPV, tips, and paid messages, choose OnlyFans.

• If you need a platform with tiered subscriptions for different audiences, Fansly is a better fit.

3. Interaction with the audience

For some authors, it is important to communicate with subscribers as closely as possible. For others, a more relaxed format is preferable, where content simply lives in the feed and engages the audience. Let’s see how this works on both platforms.

OnlyFans is focused on private contact between the author and the subscriber. The main tools here are private messages, paid chats, PPV mailings, polls, and individual requests. The platform does not encourage public interaction between authors or subscribers — all attention is focused on personal dialogue.

Usually, after subscribing, the creator sends a welcome message to the new fan, and a conversation begins

Fansly focuses on the feed and visual engagement of the audience. Authors’ content is more likely to appear in general recommendations, which encourages subscribers to actively engage with posts, like them, and return to the profile. You can also communicate with your audience through private messages or streams, where other subscribers will be in the comments.

An example of a closed stream. You can send a message and watch the broadcast only after payment.

What to choose:

• If you feel more comfortable communicating in private messages and selling through individual contact, OnlyFans will be more convenient.

• If you prefer the feed format and want the content to be engaging on its own, Fansly is worth considering.

4. The convenience of the platform

The most important thing is that managing your profile, posts, and settings is intuitive and time-consuming. Let’s look at how things are going with OnlyFans and Fansly.

A distinctive feature of OnlyFans is its minimalistic design and user—friendly settings panel. Everything is done here so that the author can quickly launch the page, download content and communicate with subscribers. This makes the platform convenient for beginners and those who want to focus on content and audience building.

This is what the main page on OnlyFans looks like. All the basic settings are on the left side panel

Now about Fansly. Externally, the platform is similar to OnlyFans, but there are differences. There are a lot of profile settings here: you can change button colors, set subscription levels, categorize content, add tags and filters. It can be difficult to figure out these settings the first time.

This is what the Fansly home page looks like. The settings panel is on the right, inside there are additional settings for subscriptions and content

What to choose:

• If simplicity is important to you, you don’t want to waste time on the design and quickly launch the page, choose OnlyFans.

• If you want to dig into the settings and structure the content for subscribers, take a closer look at Fansly.

5. Payment terms

It’s not just how much you can earn that matters, but also how quickly you’ll receive your payments. Here’s how it works on OnlyFans and Fansly.

OnlyFans works with cards, bank transfers, and electronic payment systems. The platform retains a 20% commission on all income. Payments on OnlyFans are processed fairly quickly — usually within 7 business days. You can also set up automatic withdrawals. But then the balance must be at least $20.

Here are the ways to withdraw money from the platform:

• Bank transfers (ACH/SEPA/SWIFT). The most common option is for the money to go directly to a bank account. In the US and Europe, this can be an ACH or SEPA transfer. International SWIFT transfers work almost everywhere, but can take longer and be more expensive.

• E-wallets (Paxum, Skrill, Wise, Payoneer). Often chosen when direct bank transfers are inconvenient or unavailable. The money arrives faster, but there may be fees for withdrawing to a card.

You can also top up your account in your personal account via card or e-wallet

Fansly also works with different systems, but there are slightly more of them. However, there is a caveat: the platform is more focused on international authors.

Here are the ways you can withdraw money from the platform:

• Bank transfers (ACH/SEPA/SWIFT). As with OnlyFans, money can be transferred directly to your account with minimal intermediate steps.

• Paxum and Cosmopayment. Popular e-wallets allow you to quickly transfer funds to your local currency or directly to your card.

• Cryptocurrency. Money is transferred directly to your crypto wallet, which speeds up the process of receiving funds.

• Regional e-wallets. Fansly supports systems such as PIX, MercadoPago, Gcash, Grabpay, and others — this is especially convenient for creators from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

You can choose your own payment system for different countries

What to choose:

• If standard money transfer options are sufficient for you, and simplicity and speed of payments are important, OnlyFans is the right choice.

• If you are looking for a platform with a wide range of withdrawal options, OnlyFans is more convenient to work with.

6. Content performance metrics

The number of fans is not enough to evaluate your success on the platform. We recommend looking at analytics tools. They give you an understanding of how fast your audience is growing, what content is working, and what is not generating revenue.

OnlyFans has detailed statistics on subscribers, revenue, views, and engagement. You can also see which posts and messages generate the most revenue.

Here are the metrics we recommend paying attention to:

• Subscribers (Fans). Current number of fans, growth, and unsubscribes. This metric shows how well you are retaining your audience and which posts encourage people to subscribe or unsubscribe from your profile.

• Revenue and sources. Breakdown by subscriptions, tips, and paid messages (PPV). For example, you can see that a video series brings in more PPV revenue than a photo collection.

• Engagement. Likes, comments, poll responses. Here, everything is similar to social networks: look at the metrics and understand what content generates the most activity.

• LTV (Lifetime Value). The average amount that one subscriber brings in over time. We recommend checking this metric regularly to understand which fans you should work with less or, conversely, motivate more actively. For example, if a subscriber bought one video for $10 and doesn’t buy anything else, their LTV = $10. But when a fan regularly leaves tips and buys PPV content, their LTV can be $50–$100.

• Traffic sources. This is an important metric to track in order to know which channels work best for attracting new subscribers. This will help you optimize your promotion strategy. For example, if it’s Instagram, you can strengthen your content on the platform and post stories a couple of times a day.

Fansly also has detailed analytics, with an emphasis on audience behavior and revenue optimization. We can say that the platform offers several opportunities:

• Detailed analysis of days of the week. The platform shows when subscribers are more active in leaving tips or purchasing PPV content. For example, if it’s Thursday and Friday, you can plan posts and special offers for those days.

• Audience behavior patterns. Fansly shows what types of content hold attention and stimulate purchases most often — videos, photos, custom requests. This helps you test new formats and quickly adapt your strategy.

• Recommendations for subscriber growth. These are built-in algorithms that suggest which posts resonate with fans. It’s worth using to attract the right audience faster.

What to choose:

• If you need detailed analytics to help you optimize your content, OnlyFans is a better fit.

• If you are looking for simplicity and focus on subscriber engagement, Fansly will be more convenient.

7. Content privacy

It is important for authors to understand who sees the content, how data is protected, and whether they should worry about photos leaving the platform. Let’s be clear: no platform offers 100% protection against copying. But both platforms offer reliable mechanisms.

OnlyFans emphasizes security standards. All materials are protected by data encryption, account login can be enhanced with two-factor authentication (2FA), and there are mechanisms for filing complaints (DMCA). This means that if someone posts your photos on another platform or social network without your permission, you can contact them via DMCA and request that the content be removed. In addition, OnlyFans has restrictions on downloading photos and videos.

The platform’s rules page lists the categories that OnlyFans processes and does not distribute

Fansly focuses on protection against copying and piracy. Here, you can automatically watermark images and videos, block direct downloads, and use technologies that make it difficult to record or save content. These tools do not make content completely invulnerable, but they create an additional barrier for those who want to distribute your content illegally.

In the privacy settings, you can set the degree of content blurring

What to choose:

• If you are concerned about account privacy and personal data storage, OnlyFans is the right choice.

• If you want to protect yourself from content copying, choose Fansly.

8. Taxes and legal aspects

Earnings on subscription platforms are income that must be declared. The appropriate form depends on your goals and the amount of income.

On OnlyFans, the platform withholds a 20% commission from all income, and the author pays taxes independently in their country. Therefore, we recommend that you immediately consider how you will pay taxes. For example, in Russia, authors can pay personal income tax as individuals, register as self-employed, or register as sole proprietors with an income of 2–2.5 million rubles per year. In the US, it is similar: income is subject to federal tax on individuals, and sometimes state tax, and many use Form 1099 for reporting.

Fansly also withholds a 20% commission, and the author pays taxes independently. All income can be conveniently tracked through your personal account — you can see income from subscriptions, PPV, tips, and paid messages. This helps you control your profits and prepare your tax returns on time.

What to choose:

In general, both platforms have the same tax payment system. The choice of platform has almost no effect on your obligations to the state — how you report your income and keep records is much more important.