You probably think OnlyFans just appeared out of thin air right when the world locked down in 2020. It feels that way, doesn't it? One day we're all on Instagram, and the next, every third person in your feed is talking about their "link in bio."
But the truth is, the site was already four years old by the time "quarantine" became a household word.
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The actual date OnlyFans launched
OnlyFans officially started in November 2016.
It wasn't some massive Silicon Valley launch with billions in VC funding. Honestly, it was a family affair. A British entrepreneur named Tim Stokely founded it in London with a £10,000 loan from his father, Guy Stokely.
Tim wasn't new to this world. He'd already tried his hand at other sites like GlamGirls and Customs4U. He basically saw that people were already following creators on Twitter and Instagram but had no easy way to pay them directly for "extra" content. So, he built a paywall.
In those early days, it was a scrappy operation. Tim’s brother, Thomas, was the COO, and their dad handled the books as CFO. They were running the whole thing out of a small office in Essex, long before they were moving billions of dollars across the globe.
Why 2018 changed everything
For the first two years, OnlyFans was a niche platform. It was growing, sure, but it wasn't a cultural juggernaut.
That changed in 2018.
A businessman named Leonid Radvinsky, who owned the webcam site MyFreeCams, bought a 75% stake in the parent company, Fenix International. Radvinsky knew the adult industry inside and out. Under his wing, the platform’s DNA shifted. While it was always open to all creators—fitness coaches, chefs, musicians—it became the go-to sanctuary for adult performers.
Why? Because mainstream sites like Patreon were cracking down on "NSFW" content. Then came FOSTA-SESTA in the U.S., which made life incredibly difficult for sex workers online. OnlyFans, being UK-based and having a much more hands-off approach to content, became the logical lifeboat.
The 2020 explosion
Then came the pandemic.
It was the perfect storm. You had millions of people stuck at home with nothing to do, and millions of others losing their jobs in service industries or nightlife. Suddenly, "digital intimacy" wasn't just a luxury; it was a primary income source for many and a primary source of entertainment for others.
In just one month—between March and April 2020—the site saw a 75% increase in new creators.
And then Beyoncé happened.
When she dropped the "Savage" remix with Megan Thee Stallion and rapped the line "Hips tick-tock when I dance / On that Demon Time, she might start an OnlyFans," the site's traffic spiked by 15% almost instantly. By the end of 2020, they had 85 million users.
Compare that to 2017, when they barely had 100,000. It's wild.
It’s not just about the "paywall" anymore
By the time we hit 2024 and 2025, the numbers became genuinely hard to wrap your head around.
- Total Payouts: As of late 2025, OnlyFans has paid out over $25 billion to creators since it started.
- The 80/20 Split: They've stuck to their original guns—creators keep 80%, the site takes 20%.
- The Wealth Gap: This is the part people miss. While top stars like Cardi B or Bella Thorne make millions, the median creator makes closer to $150 to $180 a month.
It’s a massive economy, but like any economy, the top 1% controls about a third of the wealth.
What’s happening now in 2026?
OnlyFans is currently trying to "clean up" its image without losing its core audience. They’ve launched OFTV, an app that’s strictly SFW (Safe For Work) and features fitness, cooking, and comedy. It’s an attempt to get onto the Apple and Google app stores, which have historically blocked the platform due to its adult content.
They're also leaning heavily into AI tools. We're seeing more creators use AI for analytics, scheduling, and even automated fan interactions to handle the sheer volume of messages.
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Tim Stokely is long gone, having stepped down as CEO in 2021 and eventually selling the rest of his shares. The company is now valued at roughly $8 billion, and there are constant rumors of it being sold to Los Angeles-based investor groups.
Key milestones to remember
If you're tracking the timeline, these are the beats that actually matter:
- Nov 2016: The doors open in London.
- Oct 2018: Radvinsky takes over, bringing adult industry expertise.
- Spring 2020: Global lockdowns cause a 75% surge in users.
- Aug 2021: A massive "near-death" experience where they announced they’d ban adult content due to banking pressure, only to reverse it days later after creator backlash.
- 2023-2024: Revenue hits $1.3 billion annually, proving it's not just a pandemic fad.
OnlyFans didn't just "happen." It was a slow-burn business that capitalized on a massive gap in how we pay for digital content.
If you're thinking about starting an account or just curious about how the money flows, the most important thing to realize is that it's no longer a "get rich quick" scheme. It's a crowded, competitive market that requires as much business savvy as it does content creation.
The best first step for any prospective creator is to research the "internal discovery" problem—OnlyFans doesn't really have a "for you" page, so you have to bring your own audience from X (Twitter) or Reddit if you want to see any of those billions.