OnlyFans agency or webcam studio Who holds the account, and what each one takes

An OnlyFans agency usually works on an account in your own name and keeps a share of what you earn. A webcam studio usually gives you a room, equipment and shifts, and often opens the cam site account, receives the site’s payouts and pays you itself. Before you compare percentages, ask who holds the account, whether the share is counted before or after the site’s own cut, and what happens when you leave.

In short

• On OnlyFans, the account is verified to you: the site asks for your ID before you can post.
• In a studio, the studio often creates the account and controls it. Ask whose name it is in.
• The site takes its cut first. Ask whether the studio or agency counts its share before or after that cut.
• Ask who receives the payouts, how often you are paid, in which currency, and how you can see what the account earned.
• Ask whether your account, followers and model name stay yours when you leave. Get every answer in writing.

What does an OnlyFans agency do?

An OnlyFans agency manages a creator’s account and keeps a share of the earnings, a fixed fee or both. It may answer messages, plan posts, promote the account or run all of it.

The account itself is yours. Before a creator can post, OnlyFans asks for a government ID, a selfie and a selfie holding that ID, according to Wikipedia. OnlyFans keeps 20% of what fans pay, and creators receive 80%.

Agencies are paid in one of two ways. Either the platform pays you and the agency invoices you for its share, or the platform pays the agency and the agency pays you your part. The first keeps your money in your hands.

What an agency keeps, and what that figure is taken from, varies widely. Our guide to agency commission covers it.

What does a webcam studio do?

A webcam studio is a business where models broadcast live on cam sites such as Chaturbate, Stripchat, LiveJasmin or BongaCams, from a room the studio provides.

Studios can supply video equipment, an internet connection, a computer, lighting and furniture, according to Wikipedia. Some rent the space to models. Others take a share of earnings instead. Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 55 studio-based models in Colombia for a report published in December 2024, describes studios that provide a computer, a camera and WiFi in exchange for their cut.

Studios are common in the Philippines, Eastern Europe and Colombia, where models typically work for a studio that provides the equipment and controls their work, according to Wikipedia’s article on LiveJasmin.

Not every webcam agency runs a studio. Some manage models who stream from home: setup, promotion, scheduling and sometimes chat support.

Who holds the account?

This is the biggest difference, and the first thing to ask.

On OnlyFans, the account is tied to your ID. An agency may hold your logins while you work together, but the account was opened in your name.

In a studio, the account is often opened by the studio. Cam sites such as Stripchat and Chaturbate have studio accounts, under which a studio registers its models. Human Rights Watch quotes Stripchat’s FAQ for studios: studios “can monitor their model accounts’ activities and have total control over them”.

In the Human Rights Watch interviews:

• studios usually created the models’ accounts;
• 49 of 50 said they had never seen or signed the cam site’s terms of service;
• 42 of 50 said the studio did not let them take their account when they left, and some were told they could buy or rent it back.

Human Rights Watch also describes “recycled” accounts: a studio keeps an account after a model leaves and puts a new model on it.

On a cam site, your audience lives on the account. Ask whose name it is in before you ask about the split.

The cam sites’ own rules differ. Human Rights Watch reports that Chaturbate said its rules let broadcasters “disassociate from a studio”, while Chaturbate’s terms say followers, images and data may not be transferred without the studio’s consent. Stripchat has a process to “detach” a model from a studio. BongaCams said models can delete their accounts. LiveJasmin declined to respond on the record.

These rules are as Human Rights Watch reported them in December 2024. Sites change their rules, so ask the studio and the site how you would leave, and what happens to your account and followers, before you start.

Is the share counted before or after the site’s cut?

Every site keeps its own share first. What reaches the model or the studio is what is left.

The site’s share varies. OnlyFans keeps 20%. On cam sites, the model’s portion of a tip ranges from 30% to 70% depending on the site, according to Wikipedia. Its article on LiveJasmin puts that site’s payout to models between 30% and 80%, depending on the model’s income. Human Rights Watch cites studies from 2014 and 2017 in which cam sites retained between 50% and 65% of what models generated.

Then the studio takes its share. The models Human Rights Watch interviewed said their studios kept between 35% and 70% of what the platforms paid out each pay period. Some models, the report says, receive as little as 10% of the total their performance generated. 36 of 50 did not know what share the platform paid out.

The same percentage costs you more when it is counted before the site’s cut. This is an illustration with round numbers, not market data:

• Fans spend $1,000. The site pays out $500.
• A 40% share of the payout: the studio takes $200, you get $300.
• A 40% share of the $1,000 fans spent: the studio takes $400, you get $100.

Ask for the share as a percentage of what the site pays out, and ask for a statement that shows that figure.

How are you paid?

With an OnlyFans agency, you are paid by OnlyFans or by the agency. Ask which.

With a studio, the site usually pays the studio, and the studio pays you. In Colombia, Human Rights Watch found that sites pay in US dollars and studios pay models in pesos, every 15 days, at an exchange rate the studio sets. Some studios gave a written breakdown of deductions every pay period. Others did not.

Ask how often you are paid, in which currency, at what exchange rate, and how you can see what the account earned before anything was deducted. Our guide to studio contracts goes through each term.

What happens when you leave?

With an OnlyFans agency, the account stays in your name. Agree when the agency hands back your logins and stops posting or messaging as you, and change your passwords afterwards.

With a studio, the answer depends on whose account it is. Ask, before you start: can you take the account, its followers and your model name with you? If not, you start again from zero when you leave.

Whether a studio arrangement counts as employment or as a commercial contract depends on where you work. Check the rules where you live.

Which one fits you?

Neither is better in itself. A studio gives you a room, equipment and a connection if you can’t broadcast at home. An agency fits if you already have your own account and want help running it. Some agencies do both.

What matters is the terms: whose account it is, what the share is counted on, how you are paid and how you leave. Compare those before you compare promises.

How does this work on Crewvale?

Crewvale is a free marketplace where creators and cam models compare OnlyFans and webcam agencies on their published terms. Webcam agencies include studios where models broadcast and agencies whose models stream from home.

Every agency publishes six terms before you talk: its share, how you are paid, contract length, notice, who owns the accounts and what happens when you leave. Each term is shown twice, as a value and as a sentence:

• Account ownership: Theirs. The agency controls the accounts while you work together.
• How you’re paid: Via agency. Platforms pay the agency, which then pays you your part.

An agency describes what its share covers in a free-text note, so read it and ask if anything is unclear.

Crewvale is not an agency and doesn’t handle payments. The Crewvale team reviews each agency’s six terms by hand before it is published. Agencies that also submit a company registration document that passes the check carry the Verified badge, renewed every year. Every agency commits to checking your ID and age itself before you work together. Crewvale doesn’t check ID or age. Your profile is private: agencies see an anonymous summary until you accept an introduction, and no conversation opens before that. It’s free for creators and models, and no agency can pay to rank higher. You can hide your profile from agencies in your own country and block any agency.

Compare webcam agencies, or read our checklist before you sign anything.

Sources

Human Rights Watch, “I Learned How to Say No: Labor Abuses and Sexual Exploitation in Colombian Webcam Studios”, 9 December 2024, in English and Spanish, including the cam sites’ rules and statements it quotes. Wikipedia, “OnlyFans”; “LiveJasmin”, last edited 15 October 2026; and “Webcam model”. All read on 18 October 2026.

Last reviewed: 18 October 2026.