LOS ANGELES — Adult-sector market research outfit SWR Data, led by industry veterans Mike Stabile and MelRose Michaels, has released its "State of the Creator" report, based on a survey of over 425 adult creators conducted this past summer.
The report offers data on the creator community based on age, gender, sexuality and location, along with a deep-dive examination of current industry demographics, revenue patterns, business strategies, tech hurdles, platform adoption and other behaviors.
More than 80% of those surveyed by SWR worked in the U.S., Canada or the U.K. Among respondents, the number working in kink and fetish has grown 70% since 2022. Clips4Sale, iWantClips, LoyalFans and NiteFlirt were among platforms with the highest percentage of kink and fetish creators.
Meanwhile, the number of webcam broadcasters appears to be down about 15% since 2022. Today, 88% of cam performers also monetize on fan sites, while just 55% of creators cam.
"The industry has changed a lot since 2022 — a time when a lot of people had just entered the industry and the main platform was OnlyFans, which is famously fetish-averse," explains Stabile.
"People who are new to the industry tend to start out a bit more vanilla and may not be as aware of the money that can be made in fetish sectors like chastity play or 'gooning,'" he adds. "In addition, we've seen growth in sites that are more accepting of kink and fetish, from standard-bearers like Clips4Sale to newer platforms like LoyalFans. The stigma around fetish has lessened, and the number of platforms where you can sell it has increased."
As for the decline in camming, Stabile suspects that it may be about expanding options.
"Camming isn't for everyone," he points out. "It takes work and dedication, and it may be that a lot of people who might have started out in cams are now going to fan sites. Younger, newer creators are less likely to be working in cams than older, veteran creators. Also, a lot of creators are livestreaming on fan platforms but may not think of themselves as 'camming.' I think, especially in the U.S. market, that's a challenge for cam companies."
Camming is not the only area where industry tenure proved a factor. The newcomers in the survey were much more likely to be building their businesses on Telegram, Discord and YouTube, which have shown consistent growth, rather than on X.
However, while most major social platforms are seeing drops in creators, X still remains the most popular social media platform among creators, topping Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch and YouTube. Alternate platforms cited by creators included FetLife, BlueSky, Grindr and Facebook.
The data also reveal that industry success can come at any age. Nearly 75% of creators surveyed were between 25 and 44 years old, with only 7.1% between 18 and 24. In fact, a majority of adult creators (53%) are now over 35 years old — up from 33% in 2022.
Male creators in the survey tended to skew older; 30% of cis male creators were over 45, compared to just 18% of cis females, who still outpace all other genders 3-to-1. Half of all male creators, however, also have another job outside the industry.
Trans performers tended to favor ManyVids as their platform of choice, with 71% saying it's their go-to platform for selling videos.
Among the creators, one in five said they identified as a person of color. Men comprise an outsized percentage of those creators; one in three male creators was a person of color. Men comprised 22% of the creators of color but comprised only 12% of white creators.
Creators of color in the group also tended to earn significantly less income, with just 17.7% saying they made over $5,000 per month, compared to 31.2% of non-POC creators. NiteFlirt was by far the most-used platform among creators of color, among whom 44% said they had used it to monetize content. LoyalFans, by comparison, was next on the list at 23%.
Stabile says that SWR is now starting to release more data in hopes of giving creators and those working with them "a truer sense of the industry."
Other demographic information gathered in the report: Of those surveyed, more than half the men working in the industry identified as straight, whereas just under a third of women did. However, while 29.5% of the men identified as exclusively gay, just 2.5% of the women did. Meanwhile, trans creators and creators of color were significantly more likely to identify as pansexual or bisexual. One respondent simply characterized their sexuality as “Gucci.”
SWR Data's previous State of the Creator report, in 2022, did not ask about sexuality, so Stabile is unable to confirm whether those statistics may be shifting.
"However, girl-girl content is often part of the work," he notes. "This may mean that more women are more open to the fluid nature of sexuality. There's much less stigma around it than there is for men."
Michaels offers further insight into the report and its findings.
"Four years into the creator revolution, we’re seeing the community grow and diversify," she says. "Creators have more options than ever and are making decisions based on what is most valuable for their time. When we first ran this study two years ago, many creators were relatively new to the business and the consumer market wasn’t as saturated. Going into 2025, I expect we’ll see creators making even more strategic and informed decisions about where to work and what to create."
In terms of geography, the study defines Los Angeles, Las Vegas, South Florida and Bucharest, among other places, as “adult industry hubs,” though it notes that the number of creators living in such hubs dropped 35% over the past two years, while the rise in numbers of creators based in rural and small-town settings has been significant, up 23% over that same time period.
Meanwhile, the data suggests that, while those who shot with a partner typically made more money, performers are becoming more comfortable shooting solo: 64.2% said they only shoot alone, up 15% in just two years. Just 16.2% said they shoot with a regular partner — that figure is down 25%. Among solo creators, 2% earned $25,000 or more per month, while 10.5% earned more than $10,000.
Most adult creators in the survey worked across multiple areas of the industry. For instance, 88% of cam performers surveyed also monetized through fan sites, while 78% of cammers sold clips, 63% sexted and 42% offered phone sex.
The above information covers Part 1 of the report. Part 2, which focuses on trends in platform and technology use, has just been released. A summary is available here. When published, the full 2024 State of the Creator report will be available to anyone who joins the SWR Mailing List.
For more information, contact info@SWRData.com.