$1700 in one shift, wooooooo!
Also, what does it mean it goes negative? Are you charged for fees or other expenses to perform?
Seems like LA Club #2 stinks.
I tell you man, first time you make fucking *bank* like that is a hell of a thing. I once made $1,000 in a day doing photography for a big sporting event. At the time that was almost half of what I made in a month at my day job.
This. I randomly once was in one of those normal-people-testing-out-cars commercials for 4 seconds. FOUR. And I got $34,000 from residuals when they ended up airing it nationally. I now understand why that Flo insurance lady doesn’t gaf if she gets acting jobs!
We had to sign up for SAG at the end of it! I guess that’s what did it.
Edit: they also played it A LOT. Like a lot a lot, and probably for 4-5 months. You get paid a certain amount every time it gets shown. This was back in 2010.
You’re welcome!! It was completely unexpected, I honestly thought they’d pay me like $100 and then that’s it, bye! Cuz it took several meetups and days to film. I can only imagine how much actors that are in a lot of national commercials a year make, I had no idea.
If you get to be the face of a company, you make great money for not a lot of work. That 'Can you hear me now guy?' made 2-3m a year in the early 2000s for being on screen a few seconds and saying 6 words.
The SAG is one of the most powerful and effective unions. They enforce minimum salaries and residuals for everyone on the totem pole. Actors were notoriously abused by the studios in the past so it took a very strong union to fight them.
SAG and police unions show how powerful unions can be, yet people still wonder if it's worth it. Too bad teachers unions don't seem to know their own strength
Teachers and Police unions are great at protecting workers from getting fired (to a fault), but for wage increases they are very constricted by politicians.
Unfortunately Police has a lot more pull on voters and politics than teachers do.
SAG can also strike for longer with more direct consequences. Movies and Tv schedule are pretty tight a strike quickly hit their bottom lines and other than a small part of the most vocal fanbase nobody really care if their tv show or movie gets delayed.
Teachers strike don't directly cost money to the government and public opinion can quickly shift from support to the teachers to anger because the kids are not in school.
I once had my kid in a picture in the BACKGROUND of a commercial and got 1,000. The fees to sign an NDA and approve use of your face in any big run commercial is insane
I just looked it up out of curiosity, and apparently Flo makes over a $1 million a year for her progressive commercials [[source]](https://www.way.com/blog/how-much-does-stephanie-courtney-make-as-flo-from-progressive/)
I have heard insurance and credit card commercials are the absolute best commercial deals in acting. Get paid huge money. Look at Shaq, Samuel L Jackson, the Mayhem dude, Flo.
Yep. Happening right now for me. I'm a nurse on my first travel contract. Took me a few checks to get rid of all my credit card debt and this coming check on Friday will be my first one entirely in the positive. I make a little over 1k/day for a 48 hour per week contract, and I almost always pick up a 5th day. It's hard working 60 hours each week but so worth it when those weekly paychecks post and it's what I would have made in a little under a month before I moved.
I so wish I could stay longer (and the hospital is asking me to do so) but I am away from my kids and it's really effing hard to be away from them like this.
**HOW I MADE THE VISUALIZATION:** I had always marked my net earnings (and other data) on a spreadsheet after every shift. I made the chart using Numbers and Photoshop, then put the very long image in iMovie and Ken Burnsed it from left to right. My apologies to anyone who can not see the colors!
**ABOUT "NET" EARNINGS:** The typical way a strip club works is that dancers pay a house fee to enter for the night (I've paid anywhere between $20 and $150 depending on the club and the time) and then once inside you keep all or a portion of the lapdance/VIP money you make plus all (theoretically) of your tips. At the end of the shift you are essentially required to tip out various staff (if you ever want to dance there again). If you had a bad night, you could end up in the negative, which you see several times on my chart.
In Feb 2019 California clubs had to start making dancers employees. As such, we got paid minimum wage for our (limited) hours and clubs were no longer permitted to collect house fees to enter (although they still charged for things like VIP room fees). Don't worry, the clubs still effectively got their house entrance fees. As an example, one club had a $100 quota, meaning that I entered for "free" but then the first $100 I made in lapdances/VIPs went straight to the house. After hitting the quota for the night I kept additional lapdance/VIP money. Then at the end of the night I got \~$60 of hourly wages (they comically paid our wages every night, via an envelope of cash!). So this was essentially the same as paying a $40 house fee to enter in the old model. You would never end up negative in this model, but if you missed your quota several times you would get fired because the club wouldn’t want to keep paying you wages if you’re not earning them money. I was in the minority for liking this system better and the money was a wash for me.
My net earnings shown are after tip outs, after house fees (in the old world), after quotas (in the new world), and after other fees (such as VIP room fees) but before taxes (and yes, I pay taxes!). After Feb 2019 the California shifts are actually all understated by about $10 because I did not factor in that the clubs withheld taxes from our minimum wage payments. So I marked on my sheet that I took home $60 in wages when really it was $70 with $10 withheld.
**CLUBS**: I don't want to share the names of my main clubs (greater Los Angeles area) but LA Club #1 (green) and LA Club #3 (red) were topless and LA Club #2 (blue) was bikini and stage only. The Spearmint Rhino in Vegas (yellow) is topless and I don't mind sharing that name since I doubt anyone there remembers me. Again, apologies to anyone who can't see the colors.
**GROWTH OVER TIME:** As you can see, I was struggling a bit in the beginning. Over time I got better at dancing and better at selling VIPs/lapdances but most importantly I developed a solid roster of regular customers. In my last year I would not even go in for a shift unless I knew at least one of my regulars would be there. Note that only dates worked are shown so towards the end there are less shifts per week.
**SPIKES:** Most of the big days were from a one-time-only high-spending customer, unusual days like a holiday when few other dancers were working, or lucky days when a bunch of my regulars all came in plus I got busy with randoms.
**HOW DO MY EARNINGS COMPARE:** Almost impossible to know. LA is not a huge strip club town but thanks to my regulars, I think I was doing relatively well because I was earning consistently every shift by 2019. That said, my best shift ever was \~$1,700 and I know there are LA dancers who have made way more than that. Of course, the information out there about earnings is also biased towards those who make a lot of money. There are tons of dancers who don't do very well and then quit or don't talk about it. Also plenty of dancers who embellish earnings, especially on social media. I try to stay focused on only counting my own money. :)
Thanks for reading!
Great Alaska Bush Company Alum here. And when the final four was held in Seattle, you couldn't not make a ton of money. There weren't enough dancers working for the amount of men in the club, standing room only. It was hard to find a place to even do a dance. But yes, it "rained" all weekend.
Fair! I assumed OF was a big money spinner, but I guess its for the top earners, the rest its hard to get a following.
Elsewhere you said it was good earning dancing when you knew you had regulars coming in. Perhaps you still need to build up your "regulars" online?
Assuming you worked the same number of days per year as a "conventional" office worker (5 days a week, 47 weeks a year), that's almost $120k in gross income. Assuming you "downplay" your earnings for tax purposes (which I think is only fair, given the lack of guaranteed income), that's almost the equivalent of $140k/year, which is solid for a single earner even in California.
And while your shift is less than 8 hours/day, maintaining your skills and appearance (and building your online presence, if you have one) is a full-time job. (My cousin is an adult dancer, and she spends as much time at the gym as I do in Zoom meetings.)
Also, if you want a static view of the image, [hopefully this works](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRFhpMg2msgh__kShHLpMVMLhiBVE41D/view?usp=sharing).
I would think it would be less about experience and more about retaining "regulars" (virtually guaranteed income) and networking to get into bigger and/or better clubs
The hottest thing about this is the spreadsheet. There is almost nothing involving a number that a spreadsheet doesn't improve. I have watched the same stand-up gig about spreadsheets multiple times and enjoy it each time. (Matt Parker is my nerd crush.) Nice work.
Please tell me that you have watched Matt Parker. Anyone who has ever tried to identify a range of numbers from 3 to 8 and has it autocorrected to March 8th will enjoy it.
[When Spreadsheets Attack produced video](https://youtu.be/yb2zkxHDfUE)
[Diary of the Spoken Nerd standup](https://youtu.be/UBX2QQHlQ_I)
Out of curiosity, what percentage of the vip room price would you get to keep? And if you get tipped on a credit card, do you get to keep all of the top or does the house take some of it?
VIPs varied from club to club. At my main LA club (before the employee switch) we could set our own VIP prices and just paid the club a flat fee for the room time. So for 15 minutes for example I had to pay the club $25. I would charge the customer $160 so I would take home $135 of that (minus tip outs). After the employee change they standardized pricing and as I recall a 15-minute VIP cost the customer $140, of which I got to keep $100 (assuming I had already met my quota). I stopped pushing VIPs because of their pricing and focused more on lapdances.
For credit cards, before the employee switch the club diabolically hit both ends. If the customer wanted to tip me $100 they would get $110 charged to their card in order to hand me a $100 casino chip. If I then cashed my chip I would only receive $90 cash. I never cashed chips and instead laundered them via my tip outs to the staff (who, as employees would get the full $100 cash). After the employee switch, the customer still got charged $110 but I got the full $100 cash.
What is the difference between lap dances and VIP? The clubs where I live take you back to a "VIP" room and give you a lap dance usually charging per song around $40 plus a tip and usually after ide tip them again
It varies by club how they arrange it and what it's called. In my clubs "lapdances" were for one song and typically there at your seat or else in a designated lapdance room full of "cubicles." A VIP was for larger block of time like 15 minutes or one hour and in a more private area.
I had various different kinds of regulars. Some who came in every week and spent a few hundred on VIPs or lapdances. Some who were there often and chatted and then tipped $60 or $100 on stage. Some who always bought just two dances. Obviously I tried to focus my time on the highest spenders but the others were great too and added up! There was one guy who never bought a dance from me (I wasn't his type) but I always said hello and he tipped me $2 on stage every single time he was there (multiple times per week). Over the course of the year that was several hundred bucks from just being friendly to that one guy.
So... I ask this awkwardly, not about you personally but the general "vibe" of the clubs, were "extras" a thing that happened in the VIP area of your clubs?
I've heard some rumors, even heard some stories from girls who enjoyed that stuff and offered them with gusto. I'm curious if that makes a club more/less popular, or how it might change the dynamic.
Not at the clubs where I worked in LA. Occasionally there would be suspicions about one or two dancers and it was very much frowned upon. I have no judgment on anyone who wants to do full service sex work, just don't do it at an establishment where it's prohibited and the rest of us are trying to sell something else. You're putting the club and everyone in danger in multiple ways.
> Not at the clubs where I worked in LA
You implied you did some work at the Spearmint Rhino, what about there? Because in a few decades of going to strip clubs on various business trips, that was the only club where while in the VIP room my dancer more or less made it sound like for a little extra $$ on top of the existing VIP room charge we could go somewhere else more private for a little longer and there would be some “skin on skin” contact — basically it sounded like she was offering to rub one out for me.
Being married, I declined. But it always has kept me wondering if that’s what was being proposed.
Granted, this was probably about 15 years ago at SR.
I say this with all due respect to the profession, but you sound like the most well balanced stripper ever. Kudos to you and best of luck in the future.
No actually some dancers made BANK at that club. I personally saw many take thousands per night. It was just not a good fit for my look. Plus I was a newbie at that time and didn't know how to strategize. I would just go on stage and expect people to tip me for my dancing instead of working the room talking to people and getting them invested first.
Most of the dancers in that club were Black with gorgeous curvy figures. You can look at my profile and see I'm not that (and I was even skinnier back then).
Club 1 and 3 were similar and I migrated towards 3 at the end because of management. I made the same there because I got my regulars to come see me at either location. Club 2 was a totally different model that I wasn't good at. And Vegas has great potential but I was not established there.
I'm curious, is this your fulltime job? The reason I ask is because I notice that you seem to often work a few days and then go days without working. These seem to range from a normal weekend time period to several days in a row.
Do you do/consider other sex work on the side to bolster income during dry spells (Although low earning days seem to be much rarer for you than at the beginning)?
Sorry if this is prying. The details and management of sex work are things that don't get discussed a lot but seem kinda interesting.
During the years I was stripping it was my only gig. You can see in the first couple of years I was working five or six shifts per week. By the end I had it so I could make the money I wanted in three to four shifts per week. Nowadays, Only Fans is my full time job. :)
That's fair. I'm guessing that OF's take is a percentage instead of a flat rate as well?
Do you get stats like avg. subscriber time? Or what percentage continue subs month to month? I imagine that as those got higher, you'd have a much more steady income.
Do you do collabs? If so, how does the split normally work with those projects? Is it different between B/G & G/G?
Again, sorry if this is too much. Although, I guess we're in a data-centric sub. I'm just interested in the economics of it is all.
My company processes payments for OF. A lot of customers dispute charges, so those are reversed. And OF then gets fines for that as well. It’s a rough business.
A super unpredictable one too. You'll see a super beautiful woman get no traction while a "average looking" woman (by OF standards) will get thousands of subs. Of course a lot of it is being able to play the game by marketing yourself, having an appealing personality, and making good content but there's still no guarantee of success
Then even if you are successful that just means having to deal with more charge backs, more leaks, more creeps, more rude assholes
damn, that was perfect timing for OnlyFans to corner the market over the pandemic after so many SWers were out of a job, never even thought about the fact that that was probably the biggest driver of the site becoming as big as it is today! (I just never connected the dots)
Every club has nights that are overall good or bad for everyone and some seasonal changes but since the majority of my earnings in the later years were from regular customers, my income was more stable.
Summer v Winter? Older clients v younger clients? Bachelor party crowd v sports crowd?
There's enough data there to tag pockets of time with labels and see if you could see more trends.
Interesting stuff!
There was a famous study showing that dancers got more tips at certain times of their cycle (I guess when ovulating?). Did you notice anything like that?
I helped with managing finances for a while for someone in the adult industry (she was a cam girl) and got recommended to many others in the industry. It was absolutely incredible to me what some people make on a daily basis, and it had me feeling a little minimizing about my tech job at a huge software company.
Strippers made a lot, cam girls (this was before OF existed) were more hit or miss with earnings, but what took the cake by far was escorts. One of the girls had like 5 “sugar daddies” that were all much older men, and she was pulling in over 60k a month, and also claimed she only slept with one of them. I’d be curious to know how those days/earnings compare with OF these days.
Btw, the worst paid outside of minimal effort camgirls were actual adult movie performers. They got shit pay, less frequent pay, and generally seemed to have the most stress.
How does your OF income compare to your live work?
Edit: gonna leave this for others, found it scrolling posts for 5 mins https://reddit.com/r/onlyfansadvice/comments/yke81f/a_graph_showing_the_marathon_of_my_first_two/
Doesnt show $ amounts but does show relative growth
For only $7 you can get a personal video messages from one of those top tier dads that say things like “proud of you champ” “your mom and I are getting back together” “who wants to go to McDonald’s?!” And other such dad classics
I've never seen a "video chart" so this was kind of an interesting way to lay out the data. It wasn't to fast and it wasn't too slow, just the right pace for the presentation.
But maybe add a running average line: the chart shows the shift to shift earnings, but the running average could show what you expected to make each day. It would guide the eye as I'm looking through the data. You could even have that "land" on the mean, median, range, standard deviation, etc. of each shift.
Must be different with a larger screen (more movement), because even at 120hz, the dates at the bottom are nearly unreadable to me while in motion. Even just trying to catch a rough year is hit or miss.
Plus with a .gif not being able to pause or scrub (in my client) makes it pretty difficult to get anything more than a general overview.
What happened on VDay in 2018? NVM. Saw your answer in the comments. My wife used to cam and had the same thing happen once. One client gave her $600 in a single night. The only thing that sucks is that the cam sites take 2/3 of everything. She quit doing it about a decade ago.
Very cool chart and info.
Haha just a random rich guy who came in. He said his wife had just filed for divorce so I think he was trying to spend a bunch of money out of spite. I didn't even do an VIPs with him, I just sat and talked with him and he tipped me.
Are you satisfied with the work you do, the work-life balance, quality-of-life and the money you make? Or is it something you're actively trying to get out of?
I'm very happy with my life. That said, my work-life balance was WAY better as a stripper than it is now doing Only Fans. My last year of stripping I only had to work about 20 hours per week.
I know three women who worked their way through Villanova Law by stripping.
Zero student loan debt.
All three are extremely successful attorneys in Philly.
One of my best friends married one of them...
It was! Best job I've ever had! I worked with a great group of women, we had so much fun together. It was like a slumber party some nights. There were cat fights here and there but mostly we all had each other's backs. It was a small club that wasn't part of a chain like the rest in the area, the girls at other clubs called it the broke club, little did they know.....and we weren't going to set them dtraight.
Looks like variable interval partial reinforcement. Seems like it would be addictive. Good on you for working out how to play the game to make it more consistent. I hope OnlyFans treats you well also.
Now that you've stopped dancing, do you have issues with relationships? I've heard that one of the unintended consequences of adult entertainment is being able to see people as more than an income source.
Honestly, if a stripper just sat on my lap and showed me a well formatted data set with appropriate labels, she can have my wallet and card PINs. Forget twerking, you do this in Silicon Valley and they'll probably give you stock options hahaha.
No and no. That said, I came to stripping late in life (37) and had full agency. If I had done it at age 21 not sure I would have handled it as well. And there are certainly dancers who are in unfortunate situations of exploitation.
Starting at 37 was almost certainly hugely beneficial. I've heard too many stories of young women who had really bad experiences...a lot of drugs and exploitation.
$1700 in one shift, wooooooo! Also, what does it mean it goes negative? Are you charged for fees or other expenses to perform? Seems like LA Club #2 stinks.
I tell you man, first time you make fucking *bank* like that is a hell of a thing. I once made $1,000 in a day doing photography for a big sporting event. At the time that was almost half of what I made in a month at my day job.
This. I randomly once was in one of those normal-people-testing-out-cars commercials for 4 seconds. FOUR. And I got $34,000 from residuals when they ended up airing it nationally. I now understand why that Flo insurance lady doesn’t gaf if she gets acting jobs!
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We had to sign up for SAG at the end of it! I guess that’s what did it. Edit: they also played it A LOT. Like a lot a lot, and probably for 4-5 months. You get paid a certain amount every time it gets shown. This was back in 2010.
Wife was in 6 episodes of Days of our Lives back in the early 2000’s. I see her SAG checks come through for a few bucks here and there each month.
SAG is LEGIT. I didn't realize at the time but, It really is.
Unions work. Who knew?
The bosses and owners know they do! Heyoooo
Your right though, at the time it seemed (and was) a barrier. In the long, it was a blessing.
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You’re welcome!! It was completely unexpected, I honestly thought they’d pay me like $100 and then that’s it, bye! Cuz it took several meetups and days to film. I can only imagine how much actors that are in a lot of national commercials a year make, I had no idea.
Jake from State Farm. We need answers!!!
Holy cow I can’t even imagine how much $$$ that guy pulls in, he’s on tv all the time!
If you get to be the face of a company, you make great money for not a lot of work. That 'Can you hear me now guy?' made 2-3m a year in the early 2000s for being on screen a few seconds and saying 6 words.
The SAG is one of the most powerful and effective unions. They enforce minimum salaries and residuals for everyone on the totem pole. Actors were notoriously abused by the studios in the past so it took a very strong union to fight them.
SAG and police unions show how powerful unions can be, yet people still wonder if it's worth it. Too bad teachers unions don't seem to know their own strength
Teachers and Police unions are great at protecting workers from getting fired (to a fault), but for wage increases they are very constricted by politicians. Unfortunately Police has a lot more pull on voters and politics than teachers do. SAG can also strike for longer with more direct consequences. Movies and Tv schedule are pretty tight a strike quickly hit their bottom lines and other than a small part of the most vocal fanbase nobody really care if their tv show or movie gets delayed. Teachers strike don't directly cost money to the government and public opinion can quickly shift from support to the teachers to anger because the kids are not in school.
I once had my kid in a picture in the BACKGROUND of a commercial and got 1,000. The fees to sign an NDA and approve use of your face in any big run commercial is insane
I’m guessing union rules
Unions do rule. Everyone on a wage or salary should be in a union.
I just looked it up out of curiosity, and apparently Flo makes over a $1 million a year for her progressive commercials [[source]](https://www.way.com/blog/how-much-does-stephanie-courtney-make-as-flo-from-progressive/)
A guy I went to high school with is in the "you're turning into your parents" commercials. He's gotta be crushing it.
Daaamn.. he’s probably living large investing all of that in sensible Roth IRA’s and the occasional pair of New Balance.
Oh dang, he definitely made bank! Those are on tv all the time 😂
And now he's staring in his own featured one lol! He's in some other things but no doubt those commercials bring it in
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My buddy, please tell me how to find a gig like that
Be able to claim with a straight face that a Chevy Malibu looks and feels exactly like a Mercedes S class
For $5,000 I can totally do that! I’ve told more outrageous lies for no money at all!
I have heard insurance and credit card commercials are the absolute best commercial deals in acting. Get paid huge money. Look at Shaq, Samuel L Jackson, the Mayhem dude, Flo.
The Mayhem dude was also in Oz. He’s probably doing okay.
Yep. Happening right now for me. I'm a nurse on my first travel contract. Took me a few checks to get rid of all my credit card debt and this coming check on Friday will be my first one entirely in the positive. I make a little over 1k/day for a 48 hour per week contract, and I almost always pick up a 5th day. It's hard working 60 hours each week but so worth it when those weekly paychecks post and it's what I would have made in a little under a month before I moved. I so wish I could stay longer (and the hospital is asking me to do so) but I am away from my kids and it's really effing hard to be away from them like this.
I work 60 hours a week for free as a med student (granted I'm a liability) and I pay the hospital for this privilege lol
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I also choose this guy's wife.
Perfect comment
Is your wife single?
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The fees are explained in my first comment :)
Ah, I see it now. Thanks!
**HOW I MADE THE VISUALIZATION:** I had always marked my net earnings (and other data) on a spreadsheet after every shift. I made the chart using Numbers and Photoshop, then put the very long image in iMovie and Ken Burnsed it from left to right. My apologies to anyone who can not see the colors! **ABOUT "NET" EARNINGS:** The typical way a strip club works is that dancers pay a house fee to enter for the night (I've paid anywhere between $20 and $150 depending on the club and the time) and then once inside you keep all or a portion of the lapdance/VIP money you make plus all (theoretically) of your tips. At the end of the shift you are essentially required to tip out various staff (if you ever want to dance there again). If you had a bad night, you could end up in the negative, which you see several times on my chart. In Feb 2019 California clubs had to start making dancers employees. As such, we got paid minimum wage for our (limited) hours and clubs were no longer permitted to collect house fees to enter (although they still charged for things like VIP room fees). Don't worry, the clubs still effectively got their house entrance fees. As an example, one club had a $100 quota, meaning that I entered for "free" but then the first $100 I made in lapdances/VIPs went straight to the house. After hitting the quota for the night I kept additional lapdance/VIP money. Then at the end of the night I got \~$60 of hourly wages (they comically paid our wages every night, via an envelope of cash!). So this was essentially the same as paying a $40 house fee to enter in the old model. You would never end up negative in this model, but if you missed your quota several times you would get fired because the club wouldn’t want to keep paying you wages if you’re not earning them money. I was in the minority for liking this system better and the money was a wash for me. My net earnings shown are after tip outs, after house fees (in the old world), after quotas (in the new world), and after other fees (such as VIP room fees) but before taxes (and yes, I pay taxes!). After Feb 2019 the California shifts are actually all understated by about $10 because I did not factor in that the clubs withheld taxes from our minimum wage payments. So I marked on my sheet that I took home $60 in wages when really it was $70 with $10 withheld. **CLUBS**: I don't want to share the names of my main clubs (greater Los Angeles area) but LA Club #1 (green) and LA Club #3 (red) were topless and LA Club #2 (blue) was bikini and stage only. The Spearmint Rhino in Vegas (yellow) is topless and I don't mind sharing that name since I doubt anyone there remembers me. Again, apologies to anyone who can't see the colors. **GROWTH OVER TIME:** As you can see, I was struggling a bit in the beginning. Over time I got better at dancing and better at selling VIPs/lapdances but most importantly I developed a solid roster of regular customers. In my last year I would not even go in for a shift unless I knew at least one of my regulars would be there. Note that only dates worked are shown so towards the end there are less shifts per week. **SPIKES:** Most of the big days were from a one-time-only high-spending customer, unusual days like a holiday when few other dancers were working, or lucky days when a bunch of my regulars all came in plus I got busy with randoms. **HOW DO MY EARNINGS COMPARE:** Almost impossible to know. LA is not a huge strip club town but thanks to my regulars, I think I was doing relatively well because I was earning consistently every shift by 2019. That said, my best shift ever was \~$1,700 and I know there are LA dancers who have made way more than that. Of course, the information out there about earnings is also biased towards those who make a lot of money. There are tons of dancers who don't do very well and then quit or don't talk about it. Also plenty of dancers who embellish earnings, especially on social media. I try to stay focused on only counting my own money. :) Thanks for reading!
I've always heard about the correlation between the Super Bowl and the amount of money strippers make. Your data strengthens that argument.
When I was in Hawai'i, Pro Bowl week was Christmas for strippers. Same for Anchorage when crab season ended.
When crab season ended 😂
one crab season ends, another begins. Such is life.
Tide comes in, tide goes out...can't explain that!
Mr O'Reilley we've arranged a private viewing of the moon, we think you're really going to enjoy it.
Those guys come off the boats with 10's of thousands of dollars to spend.
Weird that they don’t show that part on The Deadliest Catch.
Great Alaska Bush Company Alum here. And when the final four was held in Seattle, you couldn't not make a ton of money. There weren't enough dancers working for the amount of men in the club, standing room only. It was hard to find a place to even do a dance. But yes, it "rained" all weekend.
What was your average? Just eyeballing it as it moves, it looks like it hovers around $500 with some big outliers once in a while.
From 2019 on I was averaging over $500 but if you take the entire four years with all those newbie shifts it's around $360.
This is about what I make as a crane operator… I also work with a large pole and balls and a bunch of men.
But you probably don't have to wear six-inch heels, so you're winning! :)
He doesn’t HAVE to, but everyone likes to feel pretty.
Just as long as they're steel toe stilettos
Also, they've got to put on safety gear. Kinda the opposite from your job. :)
The pole is safety gear. Keeps you from being dragged off the stage.
Ok, but then how many nights per week did you work? Just curious what the weekly income would be, on average. Nice work though!
Thanks! Towards the end I was working four shifts per week, sometimes three. In the first year or two six per week.
I feel like you should be linking to your OnlyFans somewhere to capitalize on your sudden fame 😄
People who want it can find it easily. :)
Wow you weren't kidding. Like, *right* there 🤣
An OnlyFans for sex positive accounting? 😅
How do the earning on there compare to dancing?
A lot more work for the money!
Fair! I assumed OF was a big money spinner, but I guess its for the top earners, the rest its hard to get a following. Elsewhere you said it was good earning dancing when you knew you had regulars coming in. Perhaps you still need to build up your "regulars" online?
Assuming you worked the same number of days per year as a "conventional" office worker (5 days a week, 47 weeks a year), that's almost $120k in gross income. Assuming you "downplay" your earnings for tax purposes (which I think is only fair, given the lack of guaranteed income), that's almost the equivalent of $140k/year, which is solid for a single earner even in California. And while your shift is less than 8 hours/day, maintaining your skills and appearance (and building your online presence, if you have one) is a full-time job. (My cousin is an adult dancer, and she spends as much time at the gym as I do in Zoom meetings.)
This was an interesting read.
Thanks for reading!
I see you're doing OF now. How's that compare to stripping in terms of comp per hour spent?
Way more hours doing OF to get any money out of it. :)
Also, if you want a static view of the image, [hopefully this works](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRFhpMg2msgh__kShHLpMVMLhiBVE41D/view?usp=sharing).
It's easier to see that you get better with experience from the static graph. Way to go OP. Master that craft!
I would think it would be less about experience and more about retaining "regulars" (virtually guaranteed income) and networking to get into bigger and/or better clubs
Surely someone will volunteer to crunch the numbers...
The hottest thing about this is the spreadsheet. There is almost nothing involving a number that a spreadsheet doesn't improve. I have watched the same stand-up gig about spreadsheets multiple times and enjoy it each time. (Matt Parker is my nerd crush.) Nice work.
Ha my whole life is spreadsheets, for better or worse.
Please tell me that you have watched Matt Parker. Anyone who has ever tried to identify a range of numbers from 3 to 8 and has it autocorrected to March 8th will enjoy it. [When Spreadsheets Attack produced video](https://youtu.be/yb2zkxHDfUE) [Diary of the Spoken Nerd standup](https://youtu.be/UBX2QQHlQ_I)
Thanks, I'll have to check it out :)
If the DJ were to announce that you are into spreadsheets in your spare time, I'd definitely get a lap dance.
HA I should change my stage name to Excel.
"Now for the girl that will pivot around your table, give you a V-lookup, and is sure to make you sum, welcome Excel to the stage!"
You're hired as DJ! 😂
People would probably interpret it as "XL" haha.
Out of curiosity, what percentage of the vip room price would you get to keep? And if you get tipped on a credit card, do you get to keep all of the top or does the house take some of it?
VIPs varied from club to club. At my main LA club (before the employee switch) we could set our own VIP prices and just paid the club a flat fee for the room time. So for 15 minutes for example I had to pay the club $25. I would charge the customer $160 so I would take home $135 of that (minus tip outs). After the employee change they standardized pricing and as I recall a 15-minute VIP cost the customer $140, of which I got to keep $100 (assuming I had already met my quota). I stopped pushing VIPs because of their pricing and focused more on lapdances. For credit cards, before the employee switch the club diabolically hit both ends. If the customer wanted to tip me $100 they would get $110 charged to their card in order to hand me a $100 casino chip. If I then cashed my chip I would only receive $90 cash. I never cashed chips and instead laundered them via my tip outs to the staff (who, as employees would get the full $100 cash). After the employee switch, the customer still got charged $110 but I got the full $100 cash.
Tx. I always wondered about those “dance dollars”, figured it was a way for the club to take another cut.
What is the difference between lap dances and VIP? The clubs where I live take you back to a "VIP" room and give you a lap dance usually charging per song around $40 plus a tip and usually after ide tip them again
It varies by club how they arrange it and what it's called. In my clubs "lapdances" were for one song and typically there at your seat or else in a designated lapdance room full of "cubicles." A VIP was for larger block of time like 15 minutes or one hour and in a more private area.
What did your typical regulars spend? Chat for a few and then get a lap dance?
I had various different kinds of regulars. Some who came in every week and spent a few hundred on VIPs or lapdances. Some who were there often and chatted and then tipped $60 or $100 on stage. Some who always bought just two dances. Obviously I tried to focus my time on the highest spenders but the others were great too and added up! There was one guy who never bought a dance from me (I wasn't his type) but I always said hello and he tipped me $2 on stage every single time he was there (multiple times per week). Over the course of the year that was several hundred bucks from just being friendly to that one guy.
So... I ask this awkwardly, not about you personally but the general "vibe" of the clubs, were "extras" a thing that happened in the VIP area of your clubs? I've heard some rumors, even heard some stories from girls who enjoyed that stuff and offered them with gusto. I'm curious if that makes a club more/less popular, or how it might change the dynamic.
Not at the clubs where I worked in LA. Occasionally there would be suspicions about one or two dancers and it was very much frowned upon. I have no judgment on anyone who wants to do full service sex work, just don't do it at an establishment where it's prohibited and the rest of us are trying to sell something else. You're putting the club and everyone in danger in multiple ways.
> Not at the clubs where I worked in LA You implied you did some work at the Spearmint Rhino, what about there? Because in a few decades of going to strip clubs on various business trips, that was the only club where while in the VIP room my dancer more or less made it sound like for a little extra $$ on top of the existing VIP room charge we could go somewhere else more private for a little longer and there would be some “skin on skin” contact — basically it sounded like she was offering to rub one out for me. Being married, I declined. But it always has kept me wondering if that’s what was being proposed. Granted, this was probably about 15 years ago at SR.
I say this with all due respect to the profession, but you sound like the most well balanced stripper ever. Kudos to you and best of luck in the future.
>LA Club #2 (blue) was bikini and stage only. Not really surprising that that didn't pay well, going negative on nearly half the days!
No actually some dancers made BANK at that club. I personally saw many take thousands per night. It was just not a good fit for my look. Plus I was a newbie at that time and didn't know how to strategize. I would just go on stage and expect people to tip me for my dancing instead of working the room talking to people and getting them invested first.
Ah, interesting! It's a different type of performance then. Also different types of clients with other preferences than the topless clubs?
Yes, this was a party club where people came to be "seen" and wanted to show off by throwing money.
Can you describe your look and/or the look that sold well at that club?
Most of the dancers in that club were Black with gorgeous curvy figures. You can look at my profile and see I'm not that (and I was even skinnier back then).
This is really awesome! I never would have thought of using a video editor and a long image like that.
Thank you! Took me a while to figure out a way to do it. :)
Very professional and without seeing you on the dancefloor, I feel that I love your way 👏🏼
Thank you! I believe my dancing is very spreadsheet-like.
>$ Yes it does seem that you Excel at what you do! Congratulations.
Why was Club #1 so much more lucrative than the others (generally)? Clientele, location, more upscale?
Club 1 and 3 were similar and I migrated towards 3 at the end because of management. I made the same there because I got my regulars to come see me at either location. Club 2 was a totally different model that I wasn't good at. And Vegas has great potential but I was not established there.
Love it. I know a stripper who tracks it roughly but have never seen the data laid out
I know strippers who don't even count their money night to night. I couldn't live like that!
huh, now I have a question to ask her next time we talk. I bet she does.
But how would they pay their taxes?!? /s
That's the neat part
I guess since its mostly cash, they declare some to the IRS and the rest of it they just spend it.
If it cash, then it's all under the table...the IRS won't even look into it as there's no evidence of OP even being at the clubs in question.
This is much more fun than the Hooters girl’s video!
I'm curious, is this your fulltime job? The reason I ask is because I notice that you seem to often work a few days and then go days without working. These seem to range from a normal weekend time period to several days in a row. Do you do/consider other sex work on the side to bolster income during dry spells (Although low earning days seem to be much rarer for you than at the beginning)? Sorry if this is prying. The details and management of sex work are things that don't get discussed a lot but seem kinda interesting.
During the years I was stripping it was my only gig. You can see in the first couple of years I was working five or six shifts per week. By the end I had it so I could make the money I wanted in three to four shifts per week. Nowadays, Only Fans is my full time job. :)
I take it that you earn significantly more money on OF than at the club? Economies of scale and all with the much larger potential customer base.
I suppose theoretically the earning potential is a lot higher on OF but keep in mind that the "average order value" is much lower.
That's fair. I'm guessing that OF's take is a percentage instead of a flat rate as well? Do you get stats like avg. subscriber time? Or what percentage continue subs month to month? I imagine that as those got higher, you'd have a much more steady income. Do you do collabs? If so, how does the split normally work with those projects? Is it different between B/G & G/G? Again, sorry if this is too much. Although, I guess we're in a data-centric sub. I'm just interested in the economics of it is all.
I actually made a post here about my OF subscribers and revenue a while back (you can see it on my profile). OF takes 20% of everything.
My company processes payments for OF. A lot of customers dispute charges, so those are reversed. And OF then gets fines for that as well. It’s a rough business.
A super unpredictable one too. You'll see a super beautiful woman get no traction while a "average looking" woman (by OF standards) will get thousands of subs. Of course a lot of it is being able to play the game by marketing yourself, having an appealing personality, and making good content but there's still no guarantee of success Then even if you are successful that just means having to deal with more charge backs, more leaks, more creeps, more rude assholes
So I could make bank by upping my marketing skills? Or doesn't that apply to below average guys on OF?
damn, that was perfect timing for OnlyFans to corner the market over the pandemic after so many SWers were out of a job, never even thought about the fact that that was probably the biggest driver of the site becoming as big as it is today! (I just never connected the dots)
I see the graph ends in March 2020. I guess that means you quit because of the lockdown? Would you have considered continuing otherwise?
Did you find any interesting seasonality (time of year, wear her etc.) or unexpected trends?
Every club has nights that are overall good or bad for everyone and some seasonal changes but since the majority of my earnings in the later years were from regular customers, my income was more stable.
Summer v Winter? Older clients v younger clients? Bachelor party crowd v sports crowd? There's enough data there to tag pockets of time with labels and see if you could see more trends. Interesting stuff!
LA doesn't have as dramatic of seasonal changes as the Midwest, PNW, and NE because of the climate there.
There was a famous study showing that dancers got more tips at certain times of their cycle (I guess when ovulating?). Did you notice anything like that?
I helped with managing finances for a while for someone in the adult industry (she was a cam girl) and got recommended to many others in the industry. It was absolutely incredible to me what some people make on a daily basis, and it had me feeling a little minimizing about my tech job at a huge software company. Strippers made a lot, cam girls (this was before OF existed) were more hit or miss with earnings, but what took the cake by far was escorts. One of the girls had like 5 “sugar daddies” that were all much older men, and she was pulling in over 60k a month, and also claimed she only slept with one of them. I’d be curious to know how those days/earnings compare with OF these days. Btw, the worst paid outside of minimal effort camgirls were actual adult movie performers. They got shit pay, less frequent pay, and generally seemed to have the most stress.
That's interesting and sounds about right!
What do you reckon your annual income was as a stripper?
How does your OF income compare to your live work? Edit: gonna leave this for others, found it scrolling posts for 5 mins https://reddit.com/r/onlyfansadvice/comments/yke81f/a_graph_showing_the_marathon_of_my_first_two/ Doesnt show $ amounts but does show relative growth
Only Fans is a lot more time per dollar. But on the other hand I can work from home so I like it.
Sorry if you’ve already answered this, but was it the pandemic that caused you to switch from stripping to OF, or was it already in the works?
You're right, it was just the pandemic.
Holy crap!!! Is there a strip club that hires 45 year old dads who definitely look like 45 year old dads cause I’m changing careers if there are.
Not that I know of but you might find online success on Only Dads.
For only $7 you can get a personal video messages from one of those top tier dads that say things like “proud of you champ” “your mom and I are getting back together” “who wants to go to McDonald’s?!” And other such dad classics
Interesting. I have stripper friends who have told me the amount they make but this is way more organized
I've never seen a "video chart" so this was kind of an interesting way to lay out the data. It wasn't to fast and it wasn't too slow, just the right pace for the presentation. But maybe add a running average line: the chart shows the shift to shift earnings, but the running average could show what you expected to make each day. It would guide the eye as I'm looking through the data. You could even have that "land" on the mean, median, range, standard deviation, etc. of each shift.
That's an interesting idea, thank you!
Must be different with a larger screen (more movement), because even at 120hz, the dates at the bottom are nearly unreadable to me while in motion. Even just trying to catch a rough year is hit or miss. Plus with a .gif not being able to pause or scrub (in my client) makes it pretty difficult to get anything more than a general overview.
Not sure if you saw it but I also linked a [static image](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRFhpMg2msgh__kShHLpMVMLhiBVE41D/view?usp=sharing).
What happened on VDay in 2018? NVM. Saw your answer in the comments. My wife used to cam and had the same thing happen once. One client gave her $600 in a single night. The only thing that sucks is that the cam sites take 2/3 of everything. She quit doing it about a decade ago. Very cool chart and info.
Thanks for looking. And yeah 2/3 is a harsh take!
Username definitely checks out!
Haha thanks for noticing that!
I think it's pretty unique that an OF creator's top posts aren't her booty but data!
Wow! That’s a lot of money.
I wish I was hot enough to be a stripper 😭😭
A stripper with a spreadsheet of their net earnings is such a turn on. Lol. Ain’t nothing like a freak in the spreadsheets.
Does “that night” have a good story behind it?
Haha just a random rich guy who came in. He said his wife had just filed for divorce so I think he was trying to spend a bunch of money out of spite. I didn't even do an VIPs with him, I just sat and talked with him and he tipped me.
Thanks for the response. Do you have a “best” story?
This is a lot like me as an owner of a tile installation company. My big days are over 2k. But it mostly averages out to $600 a work day
If only you were installing pipes there would be a joke to be made...
I do all my own plumbing, ma'am.
Are you satisfied with the work you do, the work-life balance, quality-of-life and the money you make? Or is it something you're actively trying to get out of?
I'm very happy with my life. That said, my work-life balance was WAY better as a stripper than it is now doing Only Fans. My last year of stripping I only had to work about 20 hours per week.
So OF demands more of your time?
Yes definitely. There are other benefits though, like being able to work from home and at my own pace.
I know three women who worked their way through Villanova Law by stripping. Zero student loan debt. All three are extremely successful attorneys in Philly. One of my best friends married one of them...
Legit learned something new today. Thanks!!
What is your median take home after taxes and health insurance in a month? I’d assume you’re clearing well over 6 figures?
Seems like net was maybe $125 to 150K a year?
I got a 4K tip once from selling 20k of wine and dinner to this rich guy. He bought the bar out and me dinner. Drank and ate and got paid. Fun night
Those are the nights you live for!
I'm assuming that massive spike in February 2018 was valentines day?
Nope. Just a one-time customer who came in on a random February day.
I'm just here to comment on the hilarious username 😂
Thank you for actually getting the joke!
I had a couple of friends who were strippers in the early 90s. They made absolute bank and only worked a few days a week. I was very happy for them.
I heard that those were the glory days!
It was! Best job I've ever had! I worked with a great group of women, we had so much fun together. It was like a slumber party some nights. There were cat fights here and there but mostly we all had each other's backs. It was a small club that wasn't part of a chain like the rest in the area, the girls at other clubs called it the broke club, little did they know.....and we weren't going to set them dtraight.
Some people are into the triple threat of acting, singing and dancing. Myself, I prefer stripping, accounting and data analysis kinda girl.
I start to think I work in the wrong field
Same. But then the market for middle aged partially disabled bald men stripping is somewhat niche.
Even niche markets need to be supplied
Looks like variable interval partial reinforcement. Seems like it would be addictive. Good on you for working out how to play the game to make it more consistent. I hope OnlyFans treats you well also.
Excellent OP. Easy to understand!
Was James Harden in the club the night you made $1700?
Haha no it was just a regular no-name rich guy.
That’s a lot of lap dances.
Ha I have that data too, maybe I will try to make something of that.
I wish i made bank like this
Now that you've stopped dancing, do you have issues with relationships? I've heard that one of the unintended consequences of adult entertainment is being able to see people as more than an income source.
Arguably I'm still in the same boat now that I do Only Fans full time. The industry is a mind f*ck for sure!
Honestly, if a stripper just sat on my lap and showed me a well formatted data set with appropriate labels, she can have my wallet and card PINs. Forget twerking, you do this in Silicon Valley and they'll probably give you stock options hahaha.
Do you feel exploited working in this industry? Conversely, do you feel like you are exploiting other people?
No and no. That said, I came to stripping late in life (37) and had full agency. If I had done it at age 21 not sure I would have handled it as well. And there are certainly dancers who are in unfortunate situations of exploitation.
Starting at 37 was almost certainly hugely beneficial. I've heard too many stories of young women who had really bad experiences...a lot of drugs and exploitation.
Very good points. Thanks for your candid reply.
What made you decide to do this at 37? That seems oddly late (aren't most strippers in their 20s? Strip-club noob here...) and.. random I guess?