The Pros and Cons of turning on paid messages on sites like OnlyFans

What is Paid Messaging on OnlyFans and similar sites?

Most platforms allow fans and followers to message creators. Generally, as long as someone is following you, they can normally send you a message on the platform to ask a question, tell you they love your content, or negotiate for some custom content.

OnlyFans, AdmireMe, Fansly, and other sites, however, have an option to require fans to pay to be able to send creators a message. And a question we see being sent to our support team again and again is, “Should I turn on paid messaging?”

Turning on paid messages prevents just anyone who follows you from being able to send you a message, which can be quite attractive, especially for creators with a large fanbase, not to mention being an extra way to make money on top of selling your adult content.

But there’s more to think about before you decide to charge people to message you, so let’s look at the pros and cons so you can make an informed decision.

So, when should you set up paid messaging?

1. If you have a free account that you do not want to have to deal with any messages from (this may have negative consequences, however, see below).
2. If you have a large fanbase and are receiving more messages than you can realistically deal with, then turning on paid messaging will help cut down messages from people who are less likely to buy anyway.
3. You are going to have reduced availability for a short time, such as while travelling or over the holiday season, and you want to ensure that only your top fans message you at this time. (This is a short-term measure to reduce the number of messages you need to reply to)

Reasons not to turn on paid messaging

1. None of your fans will be happy you are making them pay to say hi. NONE. OF. THEM!
2. If your fans can’t message you easily, then you will be giving a very strong “I don’t want to hear from you” vibe.
3. If a fan wants to reach out and ask about buying some custom content from you (which can be very profitable), you are blocking this negotiation from even starting.
4. Not just fans, but other creators may want to message you. Collaborations between creators can be a huge boost to sales, and if a creator can’t reach out to you, then you will be cutting yourself off from this possibility. (We often reach out to creators to discuss promoting them here on our site, giving their content a boost in other ways or even collab in other ways such as a featured interview which can drive amazing traffic to their selling platforms, but several times, we haven’t been able to offer this because of paid messaging.)
5. If you are running a paid subscription, then you will be charging your fans twice, which will be seen by many as greedy and money-grabbing.
6. Your fans will expect quick, personalised, and detailed responses when you charge them to message you.
7. Unlike a free message, you really can’t just ignore a paid message.

At the end of the day, whether or not you decide to turn on paid messages or not, will come down to you, your fanbase, and how much time you are willing to dedicate to building your community. You can absolutely make additional profit from turning on paid messages, and potentially save yourself the work of reading and replying to messages you don’t want to deal with, but this will come at the cost of missing the opportunities that allowing your fans to contact you easily will bring (such as sites like ours from discussing ways to boost your earnings).