Real commissions: how much of every dollar your content bills actually reaches you

The short answer

The commission a platform advertises is never what you actually lose. Between what a subscriber pays and what ends up spendable in your local currency there are four chained deductions: the platform's cut, the payment processor, the currency conversion and, afterwards, taxes. In Latin America the gap between the nominal commission and the effective rate is usually ten to twenty points. Calculating the effective rate — not the nominal one — is what separates an informed decision from a hunch.

Why the nominal commission misleads

When a platform says "you keep 80%", that number describes exactly one of the four stages your money passes through. It is true and it is incomplete, like quoting the price of a flight without the baggage.

The real chain, in order, is this:

1. The platform's commission. The percentage on the homepage. It is the only deduction nearly everyone has in mind.
2. The payment processor. Many platforms already fold this into their commission, but not all. When they do not, it takes another 3% to 5%, and sometimes a flat per-transaction fee that punishes small amounts badly.
3. The currency conversion. Your subscriber pays in dollars or euros. You get paid in local currency. Someone decides the exchange rate for that conversion, and it is rarely the one you read in the paper.
4. Taxes. Whatever applies given how you are registered. It is the easiest deduction to postpone and the most expensive one to improvise.

Each stage applies to what the previous one left, not to the total. That is why the percentages do not add up — they compound. 20% followed by 4% is not 24%, it is 23.2%. The difference looks minor in one transaction and stops looking minor when you project it across twelve months.

The three pricing models you will meet

More useful than memorising percentages — which change, and which you should verify on the official site the day you decide — is understanding the three models that exist, because each one favours a different kind of creator.

A percentage of every sale

This is the OnlyFans and Fansly model, and that of most subscription platforms. They take a fixed slice of every unit of currency that comes in, processing included. It suits someone just starting out: if you bill little in a given month, you pay little. There is no fixed cost to absorb.

The downside shows up as you scale. Past a certain volume you are paying for infrastructure you no longer need in the same proportion, and a commission that was reasonable in month three becomes expensive in month twenty.

A monthly subscription plus a reduced commission

The model used by several membership platforms of the Patreon type. You pay a flat fee and, in exchange, the per-sale commission drops. It suits someone with stable, predictable income, because the flat fee dilutes against high volume.

It is the worst possible model to start with: in a slow month you pay the fee anyway, and that fixed cost eats an enormous share of the little that came in.

Zero commission with the cost somewhere else

Some platforms charge nothing on the content but do charge on processing, or charge for features that are indispensable in practice. There is no free platform; there is the platform where the cost sits somewhere you are not looking.

The cost nobody calculates: the exchange rate

For a Latin American creator, currency conversion is usually the largest of the four deductions, and it is the only one that appears in no comparison table.

The mechanism is always the same: the platform or the intermediary converts your dollars into local currency at a rate they choose, which includes a margin over the reference quote. That margin is not declared as a commission because technically it is not one. It is a price.

Two creators with identical billing on the same platform can end up with double-digit differences in local currency depending on how they took the money out. That decision — how and through where you get paid — weighs as much as the choice of platform, and we cover it in depth in the guide to payouts and withdrawals from Argentina.

How to calculate your effective rate

It is a two-minute calculation and it changes decisions.

Take a real, closed month. Not a projection: a month that already happened, with numbers you can verify.

1. Write down what your subscribers paid in total, in the currency they paid in. Call it gross.
2. Write down what actually landed as spendable money in your local account after every deduction and after the withdrawal. Call it net.
3. Convert the gross into local currency using the rate you could have obtained yourself that day.
4. Effective rate = 1 − (net ÷ converted gross).

The result tends to surprise. A nominal 20% commission that on paper leaves 80% often ends up leaving between 60% and 68% once it has crossed all four stages.

Repeat the calculation every three months. Commissions change little; exchange rates and withdrawal rules change a lot.

When paying a higher commission is the right call

Here is the point most comparisons skip: the lowest commission does not automatically win.

A platform that takes 20% but brings you subscribers through its own search can leave you with more money than one that takes 5% and to which you must deliver every last visitor yourself. In the first, part of that commission is advertising you did not pay for. In the second, the commission you saved goes out through the time and money you spend acquiring traffic.

The right question is not "how much do they take?" but "what does a subscriber cost me here versus there?". If a platform charges fifteen points more but spares you the acquisition work, those fifteen points are the price of a real service.

The balance tips once you have an audience of your own. At that point the high commission becomes a toll on something you no longer use, and it pays to move traffic to where the margin is better. That is the logic of diversifying your income, which is best started before you need it.

Four expensive mistakes

Comparing commissions without comparing withdrawals. Two platforms with identical commissions can have withdrawal costs several points apart. The withdrawal is part of the price.

Ignoring minimum payouts. A high minimum is not merely an annoyance: it is immobilised money. If you bill little and the minimum is high, your money sits for months in an account you do not control.

Choosing based on what worked for someone else. Another creator's result depends on her audience, her country and her volume. Her effective rate does not transfer to your case.

Leaving your time out of the calculation. A platform with a lower commission that demands twice the administrative work is not cheaper. It is cheaper in money and more expensive in hours, and hours are billable too.

Frequently asked questions

How much does OnlyFans keep from what a creator bills?

OnlyFans withholds a fixed percentage of every transaction, with payment processing already included. That percentage is public and sits in its terms of service. What it does not include — and this is why the effective rate matters — are the currency conversion and withdrawal costs to a Latin American account, which run separately.

What is the effective rate and how does it differ from the commission?

The commission is what the platform withholds. The effective rate is everything you lose between what your subscriber paid and what you can spend in your own currency: commission, processing, conversion and withdrawal. The effective rate is always higher than the commission, and it is the only number worth comparing platforms with.

Is the platform with the lowest commission always the best choice?

No. If the low-commission platform does not bring you subscribers on its own, the saving leaks out through traffic acquisition. Low commission wins when you already have your own audience; high commission wins when you are starting and need the platform to put you in front of people who do not know you yet.

How often should I review my numbers?

Every three months. Nominal commissions move slowly, but withdrawal conditions, exchange rates and payment rules towards Latin America change often — and those are precisely the variables that weigh most on the effective rate.

Do taxes count towards the effective rate?

Calculate both versions: the pre-tax effective rate, to compare platforms against each other, and the post-tax rate, to know what you can actually count on. Mixing them means comparing platforms with different tax treatment as if they were the same.

Closing thought

The commission a platform advertises is the headline; the effective rate is the full story. Run the numbers on a real month, repeat every quarter, and use that figure — not the one on the brochure — to decide where your content lives.

And if you are still choosing where to start, the comparative guide to platforms for selling exclusive content in Latin America walks through the five main options with the same criteria.

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