OnlyFans: blue cast lures eyeballs, deters ads

OnlyFans is a profitable, billion-dollar digital platform. It is also best known for pornography. For most venture capitalists and advertisers, the second point outweighs the first. But the exit of founder Tim Stokely could lead OnlyFans to try shaking off its reputation of being “not safe for work” in a bid to raise advertising revenue.

New boss Amrapali Gan is the company’s former marketing chief. This is unusual. Most companies replace founders with chief operating officers who know the company inside out or chief financial officers able to keep a tight grip on costs. Gan is also one of the few executives who is not a member of the founder’s family.

If her remit includes building relationships with external brands, it will be a struggle. OnlyFans built its name on risqué content. Founded in 2016, it is used by online creators, many in adult entertainment, to sell videos and photos to fans. Majority owner Leo Radvinsky has a background in porn.

User growth is high. US news website Axios reported that a pitch deck compiled in the first quarter of 2021 showed OnlyFans had 7m paying monthly users. In the 2020 fiscal year, revenues rose more than 500 per cent on the previous year to £281m.

If it wants to lift revenue further, the obvious next step is advertising. But many companies are prohibited from supporting pornography. Google and Apple, for example, do not include the app in their stores.

OnlyFans has already tried to produce a cleaned-up version of its content. This summer it launched OFTV, a free app with cookery and fitness videos. Interest appears muted. OFTV has yet to show up on any rankings for top social media app downloads.

When Tumblr banned adult content in late 2018, traffic fell. Automattic bought the social media platform for less than $3m a year later, a fraction of its $1.1bn price tag in 2013. The odds of OnlyFans removing the content it is best known for and attracting both users and advertisers look slim.