Agency or solo, and what an agency really earns

Two models, a single difference

“Agency” and “solo” are often set against each other as two strategies. In reality, a single variable separates them: who owns the audience.

In the agency model, the audience belongs to the creator. You bring work and methods, she brings the face, the name and the account. Your pay is a percentage. Your risk is low in capital and high in dependence: if she leaves, you lose everything you built on that account.

In the independent model, the audience belongs to you, or rather to the accounts you fund. You pay for the accounts, the content, the tools and the conversation. Your pay is everything left after the tolls of the previous chapter. Your risk is high in capital and low in dependence.

Everything else, team size, number of creators, tools, follows from that choice.

What an agency earns, according to what is published

Be clear about the state of the sources: no independent study sizes this market. The figures in circulation, about the size of the industry or the average revenue of an agency, all come from blogs of agencies selling their services. They are not cited here.

What is documented by journalism, on the other hand, is solid and comes down to three points.

The share taken. The BBC investigation of June 15, 2026, based on sixty British creators and on infiltrating a large private operators’ group, writes that managers take “commonly 50%” of pre-tax earnings, with contracts seen “up to 70%”. One creator there recounts initially agreeing to “between 35% and 40%”, then being asked for £10,000 to renegotiate that percentage downward.

Revenue per creator. The VICE investigation of October 2023 describes an account manager who “currently manages four creators who earn up to £16,000 per month”, and who says she personally earns 15 to 25 percent off each creator. It quotes an agency claiming fifty creators for roughly £2.5 million in combined monthly net revenue. These are statements reported by the press, not audited accounts.

The scale of the scene. The only indicator of scale with a press source is the private group described by the BBC, which gathers 24,000 members. It says nothing about the number of actual agencies, but it gives an idea of the density of the scene.

Retain the structure more than the amounts: an agency’s pay is a percentage of a revenue it only partly controls, taken after the platform’s commission, and out of which it still has to pay for the conversation.

The dependence risk, measured differently

There is an official fact that decides a lot in this trade, and it sits in the OnlyFans terms of service: if a third party helps a creator manage her account, “this does not affect your legal responsibility. Our relationship is with you, and not with any third-party”.

Translated into practice, that means three things. You have no recourse with the platform. The account is not yours and never will be. And in a dispute with the creator, your only enforceable document is the private contract you signed with her.

That is the structural reason so many agencies try to take control of accounts: they make up for an absence of rights with technical control. It is also the reason these practices have become a press subject.

Three clauses that should make you refuse a contract

The BBC investigation documents specific contracts. Three clauses stand out, and they work as a test.

Account access and changing the email address. The report describes a creator who signed a contract giving the manager “access to her account and the ability to change the email address on it, as well as 50% of her pre-tax earnings”, after OnlyFans had taken its cut. A manager does not need to be able to change the account’s email address to do the work. That clause has only one use.

The penalty for renegotiating. Demanding a payment to agree to lower a percentage is not a business practice, it is a lock.

No term and no exit. A contract with no end date, no notice period, no clause returning access is not a service contract.

These three points cut both ways: they are the clauses a creator should refuse, and they are the clauses a serious manager does not propose. Module 6 covers the legal frame and the contract clause by clause, but the principle is here: a contract that would not survive being published in a newspaper should not be signed.

How to choose, concretely

Three questions are enough.

How much can you lose? The independent model requires funding accounts, content and tools for several months with no certainty. If the capital you can lose entirely is small, start in an agency, or start as a conversation provider.

How many hours a week? Managing a creator directly, with acquisition and conversation, is a full-time job as long as nothing is automated. Under ten hours a week, the only realistic model is a specialized role inside an existing operation.

What tolerance for dependence? In an agency, a single person can end your business with one message. Solo, a platform can do it, which is not better, but is prepared for differently: several accounts, several channels, and the subject of module 7.

There is no good general answer. There is an answer consistent with your three numbers, and that is what the exercise asks you to write before going further.