OnlyFans has become synonymous with porn. So much so that, a few years ago, when the platform announced it was banning explicit content, it received such backlash that it reversed course.

But not all OnlyFans models have sex on camera — and some don’t even get naked. Sophie Annaston is one of these creators, and she’s built a six-figure-a-year business on the platform. (Annaston shared a screenshot of a month’s OnlyFans earnings with Mashable to verify.)

“There’s nothing nude on my feed,” Annaston told Mashable. “I share try-ons,” or videos of her trying on different clothes. “I’ll share toy hauls — but my panties always stay on.”

Annaston spoke to Mashable about how she scaled her OnlyFans so high while doing softcore and her many other streams of income.

From TikTok to OnlyFans

Annaston’s fiancé actually got into content creation before she did. He started YouTube in 2017, and when the pandemic hit, he quit his full-time job; YouTube matched his previous salary, and he started making even more.

“That was really motivating for me,” Annaston said.

At the time, she struggled to figure out what she wanted to do. During the peak of the COVID pandemic, she dropped out of school and quit her job to pursue a career on TikTok. While building her following, she began offering eBooks, such as an IBS Trigger Checklist, and eventually launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a wellness journal. 

Around two years later, she started posting to YouTube, where she had a Shein brand deal and tried on the site’s bikinis. She became so overwhelmed with the response (100,000 views in two days, according to Annaston) that she deleted the video.

Around that time, a friend of hers told her how much money she was making on OnlyFans — so she asked her fiancé if it was OK to do it herself, and she set up her OnlyFans as a “call to action” for future YouTube videos. She kept uploading try-on videos and got millions of views, which really established her OnlyFans following.

Annaston kept posting on mainstream social media, kept up the wellness journal business, and independently published a book, called A Book About Wellness, in 2024.

“I want to have just a bunch of different directions,” she said. “My OnlyFans […] allows me to fund creative projects,” she said. 

On top of all of this, Annaston has a Patreon page where she teaches other women the ins and outs of OnlyFans. “I have a female audience who really trusts me and values my advice on Patreon,” she said, who find her from YouTube and even Reddit.

There, she writes in-depth articles about the psychology behind her OnlyFans strategy — topics include why posts work or don’t, how to build a scalable strategy, and how she can do this without crossing her boundaries — those boundaries being nudity and sex on camera. So what does Annaston actually post on OnlyFans?

What Annaston posts on OnlyFans

“I’m basically a big tease,” Annaston joked, “which, for a lot of my fans, from what I’ve heard, is actually [more fun] than full visibility. So I focus on suggestive content, partial nudity.”

“I’m basically a big tease.”

She’ll post strip teases and get her fans to buy what she wears — like the viral $450 panty advent calendar from SKIMS. Annaston ran a fundraiser on OnlyFans for fans to buy; they did so “immediately,” and she made content with that for the entire month of December.

Annaston posts PPVs (pay-per-view videos) a couple of times a week, and her fans can request videos, but she doesn’t sell custom 1-1 videos.

And she doesn’t use an agency or management like many top OnlyFans creators do; she’s a one-woman show. So she answers messages on OnlyFans, but emphasizes that fans need to tip if they want her attention.

“Fortunately, it really works,” she said, “and my subscribers love the fact that they know that they’re helping me […] for all my creative projects. I’m not here buying a sports car or something.”

Why not nudity?

Porn and its creators are highly scrutinized in our society. Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for President Trump’s second term, calls for porn to be banned and its makers imprisoned. And while no laws stating this have been passed yet, several have been introduced in the United States.

And online censorship of sexual content has been going on for longer than the release of Project 2025. Online sex workers (as well as LGBTQ creators, erotic artists, and other non-sex workers) have told Mashable over the years that their social media accounts have been banned or shadowbanned (deprioritized, unable to be searched for). 

And since 2022, age verification laws have swept the United States and the Western world. These laws typically require proof of age like a government ID or a facial scan to view websites that host a certain amount of explicit content. This has resulted in a decrease in sex workers’ income. 

Between societal sex shaming and legislative censorship, it’s no wonder that OnlyFans creators may not want to delve into porn. Even on YouTube, where Annaston racked up millions of views with try-on hauls, cracked down on this type of content in the last year. YouTube’s nudity and sexual content policy states that even clothed genitals, breasts, or buttocks “that are meant for sexual gratification” can’t be posted on the platform.

Annaston deleted several try-on videos with millions of views and discussed it in a separate YouTube video, calling it the “end of an era.” (Annaston has a separate try-on YouTube channel that she’s uploaded to recently, but usually she sticks to trying on pajamas.)

Annaston said that if she started posting explicit content, she would lose out on other opportunities — which, given our prudish society, is likely true. In addition to OnlyFans, Annaston has brand deals, her wellness journal, and her Patreon. 

“Working with brands, it is really fulfilling, being able to work with big brands and have a media kit and then just, have a book and a journal, and maybe down the road, I can have my book in bookstores, all these different things where it’s like, if I, if I branched out into explicit content, extreme content, like, all those Things would just disappear out of my reach,” she told Mashable.

There’s a niche for everything, and while her niche of non-nude softcore is smaller, it exists — and she has leverage over not posting nude, she said. 

“It’s just a very slippery slope, because once you set expectations, your audience is going to feel entitled to a certain type of content, and then you kind of lose that leverage,” she said.

Annaston doesn’t shame explicit creators, though. “We’re all in very different lanes,” she said. “I don’t try to compare myself to those types of creators, adult creators, celebrity creators, who have these huge built-in audiences.”

Business success from an OnlyFans creator

Annaston views her OnlyFans success the same way she views her social media success. “I think they’re hand in hand,” she said. “OnlyFans is an extension of my social media.” And she believes success is determined by social media, not how extreme one’s content is.

In business, she continued, the best way to learn is hands-on experience and trial and error. “There have been so many things I tried and failed,” including a lash business, “and then I just found something that worked.” 

“I just found a way to branch out and not limit myself to just OnlyFans or just brand deals,” she said.

And Annaston doesn’t mind spilling her secrets, as she does on her Patreon. She said, “As much as I think I’m a very unique creator, I think, to some degree, anyone could replicate my strategy.”