Who owns OnlyFans is asked more often than when it was founded, and both are asked by people trying to work out whether the platform is a serious company. It is: a private British company with public accounts, a named owner, a professional chief executive and a decade of history. What follows is that history without the mythology.
The founding.
Tim Stokely founded OnlyFans in November 2016 in London, with start up capital reported as a 10,000 pound loan from his father, Guy Stokely, who became the company's finance head; his brother Thomas Stokely became chief operating officer. Stokely had previously run adult websites, and the platform's stated purpose from the beginning was to let performers monetize their content and interactions directly through subscriptions. In its first months the platform did not allow explicit content and courted musicians and influencers; by 2017 it had lifted that restriction, and adult creators became the majority of its business, which they remain.
The business model has not changed since: creators post content behind a monthly subscription and sell more of it in paid messages and tips, fans pay in US dollars, and the company keeps 20 percent of every payment and passes 80 percent to the creator. Nearly a decade on, the platform hosts millions of creator accounts, most of them adult, alongside a smaller and heavily promoted layer of fitness, cooking, music and sport; the what is OnlyFans page describes how it works for a fan and a creator today.
Who owns OnlyFans.
The platform is operated by Fenix International Limited, registered in England and Wales under company number 10354575 with its registered office in London, as its terms of service state. In 2018 Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian born American businessman who owned the camming site MyFreeCams, acquired 75 percent of Fenix International and became a director; the company has been majority his since. Radvinsky received about 500 million dollars in dividends across 2021 and 2022, according to the accounts as reported, and much more in later years. Radvinsky died in March 2026, according to press reports, and the ownership of his stake is a matter of his estate. In May 2026 the company sold a 16 percent stake to the investor Architect Capital for 535 million dollars, valuing the business at about 3.15 billion dollars; a year earlier Reuters had reported negotiations to sell the whole company to a group led by the Forest Road Company at around 8 billion dollars, which did not complete. US fan payments run through a US subsidiary, Fenix Internet LLC, which the terms name.
OnlyFans is not owned by a bank, a payment company or a larger adult media group, and it is not publicly traded. Claims that a particular corporation owns it are usually confusion with its payment processors or with the sale talks above.
Who runs it.
Tim Stokely was chief executive until December 2021, when he stepped down and Amrapali Gan, previously the company's chief marketing and communications officer, replaced him. In July 2023 Keily Blair, a lawyer who had joined as chief strategy and operations officer, became chief executive and holds the role today. The change from founder to lawyer is not incidental: the company's central problems since 2021 have been regulatory and banking, not product, and its leadership reflects that.
How big it is, from the filings.
| Measure | Figure, as reported | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Company revenue | About 1.6 billion dollars, up 10 percent | Year to November 2025 |
| Pre tax profit | About 715 million dollars | Year to November 2025 |
| Paid to creators | About 6.2 billion dollars | Year to November 2025 |
| Paid to creators, cumulative | 25 billion dollars by October 2025; 30 billion by August 2026 per the Financial Times | Since 2016 |
| Creator accounts | About 4.1 million | Year to November 2023 |
| Fan accounts | About 305 million | Year to November 2023 |
| UK corporation tax paid | About 150 million dollars | 2023 |
Company revenue is the platform's 20 percent of fan payments; the payouts line is the creators' 80 percent. The earnings guide turns those totals into what they mean per creator, which is far less than the headline suggests.
Four turns that still matter.
- 1
2017: explicit content allowed
The decision that made the platform what it is. Everything about verification, payment handling and the rules follows from hosting adult content at scale.
- 2
2020: the pandemic and the celebrities
Traffic rose sharply and the company reported around 200,000 new users and thousands of new creators registering daily. Celebrities including Cardi B joined, and Bella Thorne's launch that August produced record earnings, a wave of chargebacks, and new limits on prices and payout timing that creators still live with.
- 3
August 2021: the ban that was reversed
Under pressure from its banks, the company announced it would prohibit sexually explicit content from October 1, then reversed the decision six days later. The episode drove creators to Fansly and other alternatives and is the origin of the platform's careful relationship with payment partners; the legality guide covers it.
- 4
2023 onward: the lawyer at the top
Regulatory scrutiny in the United States and the United Kingdom, age verification law, sanctions affecting Russian and Belarusian creators, and lawsuits over agency run inboxes shaped a company run by a lawyer and focused on compliance. For creators that means stricter verification and enforcement, and a platform unlikely to be sold to anyone who would loosen them.
Timeline.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| November 2016 | Founded in London by Tim Stokely |
| 2017 | Explicit content permitted |
| 2018 | Leonid Radvinsky acquires 75 percent of Fenix International |
| 2020 | Pandemic growth; celebrities join; Bella Thorne's launch and the chargebacks |
| August 2021 | Explicit content ban announced on the 19th, reversed on the 25th |
| December 2021 | Stokely steps down; Amrapali Gan becomes chief executive |
| April 2022 | Creator accounts linked to Russia and Belarus paused after sanctions |
| July 2023 | Keily Blair becomes chief executive |
| December 2024 | China blocks the website |
| 2025 | Sale talks reported at around 8 billion dollars; 25 billion dollars paid to creators since launch |
| March 2026 | Leonid Radvinsky dies, per press reports |
| May 2026 | 16 percent stake sold to Architect Capital at a 3.15 billion dollar valuation |
How it grew: sex workers, the pandemic and social media.
The founding date says little about why the site became known. Wikipedia records that Tim Stokely had previously founded the websites GlamGirls and Customs4U before OnlyFans, and that amateur and professional sex workers drove the platform's early growth, a process accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession it caused. Between March and April 2020, the user and creator base grew by 75 percent, according to the same article.
Wikipedia also describes OnlyFans as a British subscription based video on demand service and social media network, part of the creator economy, with subscribers paying creators monthly, in one time tips or by pay per view, and the company taking 20 percent. That description matches the platform's own terms on the fee. It also explains why the company's history is told through users rather than products: the platform changed little, while who used it, and how many of them, changed every year.
The dates the timeline leaves out.
The timeline above follows ownership and leadership. The table below adds the events that shaped how the site works for creators and subscribers, each as recorded in the OnlyFans article on Wikipedia and the reports it cites. They are the moments people usually mean when they ask when OnlyFans started to matter, rather than when it was founded.
| When | What happened, as reported |
|---|---|
| January 2020 | A trend began of creators giving free access to sexual content in exchange for proof of charity donations, during the Australian bushfires |
| February 2020 | BuzzFeed News reported that hacked OnlyFans content had spread on social media; OnlyFans denied any breach had occurred |
| March to April 2020 | The user and creator base grew by 75 percent |
| April 2020 | A mention in the remix of the Megan Thee Stallion song "Savage" was followed by rapid growth |
| July 2020 | The company began charging value added tax after discussions with HM Revenue and Customs |
| March 2021 | A creative fund for emerging UK musicians was launched |
| May 2021 | BBC News reported the site was failing to prevent underage users from selling and appearing in explicit videos |
| August 10, 2021 | A bipartisan coalition in the US Congress pressed the Department of Justice to investigate the company |
| August 19 to 25, 2021 | The explicit content ban was announced and reversed |
| 2021 | OFTV, an app and streaming site for safe for work content, soft launched |
| 2022 | Ofcom, the UK regulator, praised the site for its use of third party verification tools |
Child safety, verification and the 2021 crisis.
The August 2021 ban did not come from nowhere. Wikipedia records a 2020 BBC Three documentary, the May 2021 BBC News report on underage users, and on August 10, 2021 a bipartisan coalition in the US Congress, signed by over 100 members, pressing for a Department of Justice investigation into child exploitation. Nine days later the company announced it would not allow sexually explicit content from October 1. Stokely later told the Financial Times the reason was withdrawn support from banks, naming BNY Mellon and JPMorgan Chase, rather than card companies.
The verification creators go through today asks a great deal. According to Wikipedia, prospective creators must provide more than nine pieces of identifying information and documents before they can post, including full name, date of birth, bank account information, address, email address, a government ID, a standalone selfie, a selfie holding the ID, and social media handles. The steps are explained in OnlyFans verification, and the alternative creators turned to in 2021 is compared in Fansly vs OnlyFans.
How to check a claim about OnlyFans history.
Articles about the company repeat each other, and figures drift as they are copied. Before you rely on a date, a number or a name, run it through the checks below. They are the same checks behind every row on this page.
- Company facts: the register. Company number, registered office, directors and annual accounts are on Companies House, under Fenix International Limited.
- Platform rules: the terms. The fee, the operating company and the US payment subsidiary are named in the platform's own terms of service.
- Events: the dated report. Use the report a claim came from, with its date, not a later summary. Wikipedia is useful because it cites them.
- Earnings: the filings, not lists. Totals paid to creators come from the accounts. Individual earnings on lists of top creators are estimates; see highest paid OnlyFans creators for how to read them.
- Leaks and hacks: the company's response. Reports of leaked content are frequent; the February 2020 case shows the company denying a breach. The guide to OnlyFans leaks explains what creators can do.
Company registration details are from the OnlyFans Terms of Service. Dates, people, ownership and financial figures are as recorded in the OnlyFans article on Wikipedia and the Companies House filings and news reports it cites, read September 25, 2026. Every figure is marked as reported; none is Leadiax's own. The founder's earlier websites, the 2020 growth, the added dates, the 2021 child safety reports and congressional coalition, the banks named by Stokely, the verification requirements and the 2022 Ofcom comment were read from the article's source text on October 2, 2026.
Sources.
- OnlyFans Terms of Service, company detailsonlyfans.com/terms
- Companies House, Fenix International Limited, company 10354575, filing historyfind-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
- Wikipedia, OnlyFans: history, key figures, financesen.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyFans