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Era 5 · Creator platforms and payment de-risking

2016–2026alive, private, pretax profit of $715 million for the year to…

OnlyFans

Fenix International

OnlyFans is a British platform where fans pay creators directly for subscriptions and paid messages, and the platform keeps about 20%. The site launched in 2016; in 2020 payments grew more than sevenfold; in August 2021 the company announced a ban on explicit content, citing requirements from banks (Mastercard said it had played no part in the decision), and suspended the ban six days later, before it took effect. By 2025, $7.8 billion a year passes through the platform.

Founders Tim Stokely (founder, CEO until 2021-12-21) · Leonid Radvinsky (controlling shareholder since 2018-10-03)
Domains onlyfans.com
creator-platformpaymentscard-networkssubscriptionregulation

In brief

OnlyFans is a British platform where fans pay a creator directly for subscriptions and paid messages, and the platform keeps about 20% for itself. The site launched in 2016, and in the financial year to 2020-11-30 gross fan payments grew from £238 million to £1,703 million, while the number of creators went from 348,000 to 1.6 million. By 2025 the platform was putting $7.8 billion a year through its books, on revenue of $1.55 billion and pretax profit of $715 million, with no external debt. Its main vulnerability lies with banks and card networks rather than competitors: in August 2021 the company announced a ban on explicit content, saying it was acting at the request of banks, and suspended it six days later, before it took effect; Mastercard, for its part, said it had played no part in the decision.

How it started (the founders)

The legal entity Fenix International Limited was registered in London on 2016-09-01. The site was launched by Tim Stokely. Secondary sources put the launch in November 2016, but the archive shows a working page with sign-up and Twitter login as early as 2016-10-18: November is more likely the official start after a beta, and the exact date of the public launch is uncertain estimate. The starting capital was a family loan of £10,000 estimate. In the Companies House register, a controlling stake in the 50–75% band is recorded first, from 2016-09-01, against one individual, and from 2016-11-19 to 2018-10-03 against another; the register does not show whether either is related to Stokely.

From 2018-10-03 the register shows an owner with a stake of 75% or more, the entrepreneur Leonid Radvinsky; a secondary source describes this as a purchase of 75%, with Stokely kept on as a minority shareholder estimate. In August 2021 Stokely was still acting as CEO and publicly named the banks as the reason for the ban; he left the CEO post on 2021-12-21, the head of communications Ami Gan became the new chief executive, and he stayed on as an adviser.

A snapshot of the site shows what the product looked like in 2017: a subscription, content closed to non-payers, and paid private messages that charge money automatically once the fan has agreed; the site works with Twitter, where a creator could bring an audience from. This is already the entire future payment framework: recurring billing plus one-off payments.

Year-by-year timeline

Lesser-known but significant facts

  1. Non-subscription payments overtook subscriptions. In FY2022 non-subscription revenue was $567.7 million against $522.1 million from subscriptions; in FY2021 it had been $442.8 million against $489.0 million. The report does not break down what this line consists of; judging by the 2017 product, the main one-off payment is paid messages estimate. Since 2022 the "subscription platform" has been getting more than half of its money from something other than subscriptions.
  2. The company acts as an agent and recognizes revenue net. Revenue is only the commission, and payouts to creators are not included in it; payment service providers collect the money before access is opened. That is why the balance sheet has a separate line for amounts receivable from payment service providers, $113.4 million at the end of FY2022 (money the providers had not yet passed on), and why the balance sheet depends on the health of those providers.
  3. A very small team. The group's average monthly headcount in FY2023 was 42 people (including the director; 52 in FY2022) on revenue of $1.31 billion, roughly $31 million per person; contractors are not included in the count.
  4. The advertised 80/20 shows up in the accounts as 19–20%. Revenue as a share of gross payments: 19.4% in 2021, 19.5% in 2022, 19.9% in 2025. In FY2023, 19.8%. In FY2019 the share was 18.5%, and in FY2020, 16.6% (£283.5 million / £1,703.4 million): the report only explains that revenue is an agency commission, and the reason for the lower share is not disclosed estimate.

Legend vs. the record

The first growth lever

What the record shows is scale rather than a particular tactic: in the financial year to 2020-11-30 the number of creators grew 4.6 times, the number of fans 6.1 times, gross payments 7.1 times (£238.4 million → £1,703.4 million), and pretax profit 9.4 times (£5.6 million → £53.1 million). In the previous year payment volume had grown by 348%, which means the growth was already under way before the pandemic, and 2020 accelerated it.

The mechanics confirmed by the 2017 product: the creator brings in an audience from other social networks (the FAQ mentions compatibility with Twitter), the platform does not pay for traffic, and its income is a share of every payment. Which channel produced the main inflow of creators in 2020 is not disclosed in the report estimate.

The paired story

Parallels today (projects from the catalog)

What a builder can take from this in 2026

  1. Dependence on a processor is part of the business model, not a technical detail. At OnlyFans, payment service providers collect the money before access is opened, and the report has a separate line for what those providers owe. Set up a second provider before the first one sends you a letter.
  2. Do not announce restrictions before the bank has confirmed them. OnlyFans announced and suspended its ban within six days, and four months later the CEO changed; the press suggests a link between these events, but there is no document estimate. Growth did not stop, though: creators went from 2.16 million to 3.18 million the following year.
  3. Do the math on the agent model. The platform takes about 20% and recognizes revenue net; pretax profit stays in the range of 46–50% of revenue in 2021–2025. The content and the audience are brought in by the creators themselves: the platform does not buy content, it takes a share of each payment estimate.
  4. One-off payments alongside a subscription are a separate source of money. In 2022 they overtook subscriptions. Think through paid messages, tips, and add-on purchases in your product.
  5. Compliance is a product feature. The 2022 and 2025 reports list age 18+, third-party verification of creators' identities, transparency of moderation, and compliance with the UK Online Safety Act and the EU DSA. Mastercard's 2021 requirements for adult merchants apply to everyone, not just to one company.

Discrepancies and what we could not verify

Sources (primary first)

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The same thing, about today

The same breakdowns, but of projects launching right now: what the product is, where the first users came from, how they charge. The card is free, the full dossier is $5 (the dossier itself is written in Russian).

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