Owner of OnlyFans paid $631m as subscription numbers rise

Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, paid himself $631m (£480m) over a period of almost two years as traffic on online platform continued to increase.

Fenix International, which owns the site used by sex workers, musicians and celebrities, said its pre-tax profits were $658m in the year to November 2023, according recently filed accounts.

Almost one million new content creators and more than 50 million new “fans” signed up to the platform during the year, an increase of 29%, the company said.

The latest results come as OnlyFans is being investigated over whether it is doing enough to prevent children accessing pornography through its site.

Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American owner of pornography sites, bought the business from its founders, Guy and Tim Stokely, in 2018.

The father and son team founded the site in Essex two years earlier.

While it is well known for sexual content, creators also focus on a number of subjects, including fitness, music and comedy. In 2023 it launched a pornography-free TV streaming service.

In its latest results, the company said its content creators made $6.6bn in 2023, with OnlyFans taking a 20% fee from each creator’s earnings.

Mr Radvinsky’s payday included $472m of dividends up to November 2023, and a further $159m in following months.

It comes on top of the $338m he paid himself in 2022, bringing the total to more than $1bn in the past three years. Forbes Magazine now estimates his net worth at $3.8bn.

The platform’s extraordinary profit is generated with a staff of just 41 people, and one director, its accounts say.

Keily Blair, chief executive of OnlyFans, said 2023 had been a “strong year” for the company.

“We have done this by continuing to provide opportunities for our diverse creator community to monetise their content and grow their global fan base,” she said.

The site is registered in the UK, with a head office in London, but Mr Radvinsky lives in Florida.

Regulator Ofcom said in May that is suspected it was is not doing enough to stop those under the age of 18 accessing pornographic material.

At the time, OnlyFans said it had experienced what it called “a coding configuration issue”, which had had affected some “age thresholds” on the site.

However, it said those thresholds were always set above 20.