Founded by the British investor and tech entrepreneur Timothy Stokely in 2016 and owned by the Ukrainian-American businessman Leonid Radvinsky, the online content platform OnlyFans experienced viral success during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The platform that enables creators to restrict access to their content with a paywall that can be removed with either a monthly subscription or a one-time tip quickly became a popular spot for finding adult content and remains popular as such, despite at one point attempting to ban and remove lewd pictures and videos.
Furthermore, while the most recognizable face of OnlyFans – the entrepreneur extraordinaire Belle Delphine – is still missing in action, there is no shortage of success stories on the website, and, having examined its top 3 earners, Finbold decided to take a look at what some of its most popular models are doing with their booty.
Picks for you
Cardi B
The famous musician Cardi B opened her OnlyFans account in 2022 with the goal of giving fans a peek into her life and access to some behind-the-scenes footage. Despite not being an active poster, she is one of the platform’s top earners, with 81 million subscribers and just under $10 million in monthly income.
Given her reputation for liking to spend money on expensive cars, jewelry, whigs, and nails, Cardi B considers herself fairly frugal, per a string of spending-focused interviews and X posts from early 2023.
The musician claims to keep a tight budget while carefully balancing spending on life necessities and keeping more modest traveling practices – insisting she generally takes first class with regular airlines, in stark contrast to the use of private jets of another artist that recently grabbed the attention of various online communities.
Rebecca Goodwin
While Cardi B’s spending habits – given her net worth estimated at approximately $80 million – appear somewhat mundane, Rebecca Goodwin’s are all but.
The Derbyshire-based OnlyFans model, estimated to make £100,000 ($126,000) each month from her racy content, has started her own affordable housing project in early 2023.
The scheme, more than two years in the making, started with the purchase of a large, three-story, four-bedroom townhouse and continued with the acquisition of additional properties.
Goodwin explained that the properties will be run with the help of maintenance teams and will be rented to low-income families for roughly between £400 and £650 ($500-800) – significantly less than the estimated U.K. average of £1,200 ($1,500).
The model also stated that the other goal of her OnlyFans career was to secure an inheritance for her children.
Blac Chyna
Blac Chyna, known in real life as Angela Renée White, one of OnlyFans’ all-time top-earning models, has recently been forced to spend her money in a less optimistic way – on legal proceedings.
The courtroom expenses were primarily stemming from a custody battle with her ex-boyfriend, the rapper Tyga, and, according to reports from 2023, collapsed her savings to a mere $11,000.
Reports from October also offered a more detailed breakdown of the model’s expenses, which, at the time, totaled approximately $80,000 each month without legal fees. Of this, the biggest individual expenses were the mortgage payment of $22,000 – $17,000 of which was interest – and $24,000 for financing credit card debt and loans.
The documents that came to light amidst the legal fight also hinted that she was consistently living above her means and had an average income of $30,000 per month – a significant drop from previous highs given that her average monthly income amounts to $20 million – largely due to making $250 million in 2021.
White quit OnlyFans in December 2023 and pivoted to Passes, a subscription-based platform where no nudity is allowed.
Conclusion
While OnlyFans is not quite at its pinnacle of popularity in 2024, it remains an interesting platform that could turn into an even more enticing investment should it conduct an initial public offering (IPO).
Additionally, given it provides an interesting and novel way of generating income, it can also, in a surprising twist, offer some insights into uncommon ways of investing money, as well as some of the good practices and mistakes one can make upon quickly acquiring wealth through clever entrepreneurship, trading, or blind luck.
