How much does porn pay?

[SFCTaleSpinner]

I'm writing a story featuring a woman who dabbles in a bit of porn and I want to get the numbers right.

If there's anyone reading this who has experience with the industry and has genuine knowledge about what the figures are like, could you please help me out? Thx! <3

I know that the multitude of "who" & "what" factors probably have a major bearing on the payment, so here are the key details:

Most importantly, the woman is pregnant, so obviously her work will be based on the niche market for that fetish. I'm planning for her porn career to stretch right through her pregnancy, so she'll be at various stages of "showing" throughout.

She's white, brunette and 21 years old. She has a killer body pre-pregnancy, perfect hourglass figure, tight little ass and natural 36D tits which blossom into 36DDD whoppers by her third trimester. She also has a beautiful face. Her pussy is shaved.

She's very experienced sexually, but new to the industry, so she doesn't have an existing fan base to tap in to. But she's pretty smart, so the producers won't be able to con her in to working for peanuts if she has a shot of negotiating a better payout. She's also quite adept at acting, so she can be counted on to not blow a cheesy premise with horrible acting.

The company is a pretty well established US-based porno company with its fingers in many pots; solo, straight, les, threesomes, bondage, it pretty much caters to all tastes, though it trades in different markets under different brand names.

With all these details, I'd like to know what this woman could expect to be paid for the following jobs:

* Guy on girl - Oral and fake creampie scene (vaginal sex with condom, afterwards some pretend "semen", e.g. a spoonful of cream is tipped into her pussy off camera to simulate a creampie) - Filmed before she is "showing".
* Solo - strip and masturbate with fingers to orgasm.
* Solo - strip and masturbate with vibrator to orgasm.
* Solo - strip and masturbate with dildo to orgasm.
* Solo - bath/shower scene, masturbating with shower head to orgasm.
* Lesbian scene with other pregnant woman. Cunnilingus, heavy petting, vag-on-vag.
* MFF threesome with another pregnant woman. Oral on the guy, gives and receives cunnilingus, vaginal. Scene ends in a double facial with the other woman.
* Guy on girl - oral and vaginal sex culminating in a pearl necklace. Filmed in third trimester.


I'd also like to know what she could make doing a video for one of those "artistic nudes" softcore companies? You know the type with top-quality cinematography, slo-mo shots-a-plenty and their own original soundtracks? Once again, she would be very much pregnant in these videos.

 

[Hard_Rom]

According to Spiegler, there is a relatively straightforward scale for performances by an in-demand actress:
•$800 for a girl-girl scene
•$1,000 for a guy-girl scene
•$1,200 or more for anal sex
•$4,000 or more for "double penetration"

http://www.businessinsider.com/here...et-paid-for-different-types-of-scenes-2012-11

You probably intend to glamourize the hell out of the porn industry. Get the pay scale right and blow the very bad working conditions. Only the top ones have any sort of glamour in their lives.

It is a nasty dirty business. You might actually get a better readership if you stay true to that.

Just Google 'porn industry' and read what you see.

 

[SusanJillParker]

That doesn't seem like enough money to give a man not only the use of your body but also the use of your image.

Some call girls earn much more than that for an hour or two without having a permanent photographic record of what they sexually did in private.

Hell, my mother earn much more than that for having sex with men in hotel rooms. Bachelor parties paid well, but the weekend yacht excursions paid the most.

I was always surprised why she never made an adult film but now I know why.

 

[TxRad]

You might check with RRichard. He has several books out on the porn industry. I think he had direct deals with it.

 

[Black_and_White_Writer]

I'd like to point out that in the porn industry they don't quaintly spoon a bit of cream into the woman's vagina.

What often happens is they'll mix a batch of non perfumes soap down with hot water to give a semen like consistency. They can use things like corn starch and egg white (very bad internally for things like salmonella from the egg and anything floury in a woman's vagina runs the risk of yeast infection). They tend to stick to the soap and this is then inserted into a pump that's attached to a tube that runs down the man's erection (taped out of sight), then when he ejaculates inside her or over her body he (or someone else offscreen) will pump it out.

No matter what anyone says. No man can fire enough semen to cover a woman's face over 5 feet. It's just another fallacy of the porn industry. That's why most porn actresss eat the semen. It's either egg white, soap or maybe that fake semen stuff.

You'll find loads of videos "How to Make Fake Cum!" On YouTube and you can research it all very quickly.

 

[Black_and_White_Writer]

According to Spiegler, there is a relatively straightforward scale for performances by an in-demand actress:
•$800 for a girl-girl scene
•$1,000 for a guy-girl scene
•$1,200 or more for anal sex
•$4,000 or more for "double penetration"

http://www.businessinsider.com/here...et-paid-for-different-types-of-scenes-2012-11

You probably intend to glamourize the hell out of the porn industry. Get the pay scale right and blow the very bad working conditions. Only the top ones have any sort of glamour in their lives.

It is a nasty dirty business. You might actually get a better readership if you stay true to that.

Just Google 'porn industry' and read what you see.

Interesting article using Jenna Jameson. Yes she made a million dollars from porn. Not by doing porn films but by ripping folk off. There are genuinely very few moral and decent people in porn and most end up dead early on or in other sorts of trouble.

Thankfully those getting into porn nowadays tend to do it more for kicks and do it semi-pro in that they control exactly what content they put out and what they do. These are young people looking for fun and pushing boundaries.

Which will do more damage to the porn industry. DVD sales have collapsed long ago (this is a four+ year old article) No one really puts out or buys porn in HD. (The fake gloss doesn't stand up to 1080) so the 'stars' probably get paid a lot less nowadays.

Also read into 'Personal appearances' and 'Feature dancing' as euphemisms for prostitution.

 

[8letters]

You can read articles on Belle Knox, who went into porn while studying at Duke to help pay tuition. I read a few articles about her before her name was known and my recollection is that she would get paid a grand for a weekend of filming. She much preferred that to a minimum wage job.

 

[NotWise]

I think that during the golden age of porn some actresses and actors were able to make their living by acting. The few (auto)biographies I've read of more recent porn models and actress suggest that most of them also make money as prostitutes and in some cases prostitution rather than modeling or acting is their principle income.

 

[Hypoxia]

This seems to be about USA pr0n.

How well are pr0nstars paid in other countries?

Can one make a better living in Europe, Japan, or New Zealand?

 

[holliday1960]

I suggest the OP read up on residuals vs 'buyouts' in both mainstream and porn industries. No one today does a scene for a feature film even in porn for $1000 flat without residuals. (Unless they have no business sense whatsoever.) Contrary to opinions expressed herein, there is money to be made in porn; certainly not on the level of mainstream, but when you consider as SusanJill pointed out, call girls make upwards of $2000 per date, averaging higher for specialty fields, and they are not being filmed for mass production. The figures suggested are ridiculously understated. Residuals on a mediocre film with a plot can run into tens of thousands for a young new starlet. Men are paid considerably less.
As for no man 'firing enough semen to cover a girl's face at 5 feet', I think there are probably some ladies here that will take issue with that. My husband is in his 50's and I regularly have to clean the mirrors at the head of our bed. (thank you, honey!)

 

[NotWise]

In "Money In Pornography: One Of The Most Misunderstood Industries" Andrea DiVirgilio claims that average income for porn actresses is $50,000/year and for actors it's $30,000/year. According to another source, well-known actresses can make six figures. On the flip side, ingenues won't make much.

I don't know about men, but well-known actresses can make a lot of additional money on the side; $1000's/night.

We had a thread a few months ago about money in the porn industry. The people who produce the material (and pay the actors/actresses) claim to be struggling financially, largely because of piracy. If that's true, then it would be hard to expect them to pay much. The articles I've seen are citing stars (Jenna Jamison, for instance) who haven't been active for years. Current conditions could be different.

 

[sr71plt]

This seems to be about USA pr0n.

How well are pr0nstars paid in other countries?

Can one make a better living in Europe, Japan, or New Zealand?

All I can say is that you don't get paid much for it in Thailand.

 

[R. Richard]

The number posted earlier are for 'working girls.' Working girls get paid by the scene. (Working boys also get paid by the scene, but less.) Working girls or boys work through an agent, who gets paid by the performer. (Stiff the agent, no more work.)

Real stars (almost all girls) get paid by the film, at a negotiated rate. There are star girls who work for a porn operation and they get paid by the film. but at a lesser rate. There are few boy stars and even most of them work through an agent.

When a new star girl comes on the scene, she gets paid more for 'firsts.' However, most star girls don't last that long, as the porn people want new faces.

There are other ways for a porn girl to make money. You need to read "Anatomy of An Adult File" by Sunset Thomas and R. Richard.

 

[Hard_Rom]

If you can survive in the industry long enough to earn a name you can get a contract. You can also make more money as a featured stripper and doing conventions. Escorting also pays well.

Checkout some Max Hardcore you will recognize several who went on to being big names. He is well known for using girls new to porn.

There are about 1500 porn stars in California. 225 have died of Aids. Dangerous job.

A typical escort in my town makes 150-250 and hour. At 250 you might get anal and a BBBJ. Anal is rare. Overnight is 1000 - 2000. Some that would be called beautiful and glamorous will charge 5000 for a weekend, transportation extra. Prices do vary quite a bit.

If a girl is good looking. 3 clients with covered BJ (intercourse is always covered) is 600 a day, cash. Can be quite lucrative.

Before the days of lap dances. Up here a stripper got 75$ a turn on stage with 3 appearances. And 5$ a table dance. Probably 300 a shift, cash.

These days girls get paid nothing to dance and have to pay the DJ. They get 20$ a lap dance. Here lap dances are full nude. Stage shows as well. Strip clubs are not what they used to be in my town. Tourist area (those near US border) and T.O. are quite busy. Here in London only on weekends and even then not like back in the 80s.

If girl is very good looking and in a good club the money is still decent but not a way to become rich.

 

[StrangeLife]

According to Spiegler, there is a relatively straightforward scale for performances by an in-demand actress:
•$800 for a girl-girl scene
•$1,000 for a guy-girl scene
•$1,200 or more for anal sex
•$4,000 or more for "double penetration"

In other words the value of an ass is 120% of the value of a pussy. Interesting.

But if you combine the two, the sum goes up from $2,200 to $4K!! Is that synergy or what?

 

[SamScribble]

Back in the 1990s I knew a couple of (UK) porn producers. One had started out in the ‘top shelf’ magazine business. The other had, for several years, been a pretty successful fashion photographer, doing shoots for magazines like Vogue.

The top-shelf graduate specialised in ‘older women’ – 40 plus, 50 plus. The former fashion photographer’s niche was BDSM. Neither paid their talent very generously. Two or three hundred quid went a long way.

In the beginning, they didn’t pay very much because they didn’t need to. Later, by about 2005, they didn’t pay very much because there just wasn’t much money in the business. ‘Too many amateurs willing to do it for nothing,’ the top-shelf graduate told me.

 

[holliday1960]

The statistics show that worldwide the porn industry alone is a 100 Billion dollar industry, with the US contributing roughly 13 Billion to that figure. Pretty good numbers considering the industry declined drastically between 2008 and 2012. (Not including adult toy sales, prostitution, or even erotic dancers, etc.) The decline was reportedly due to piracy, the internet and webcams. Interesting that no one even mentions the decline of economy worldwide during those years. When entire governments were failing, the porn industry managed to survive with staggering profits. (Just thought this was worth mentioning to those who find trivia interesting)
Before Oprah went off the air, she did a show based on the adult toy sales in the US. In that show, her statistics showed that sex related sales generated income more than that of the cosmetic industry in the US which is a pretty bold statement. She further claimed that most of the porn related sales were made by women...Come on now gentlemen, there's got to be something wrong here!

 

[AverageGary]

Remember those figures are from a 2012 article. How much has the pay rate gone up since then?

 

[Black_and_White_Writer]

Remember those figures are from a 2012 article. How much has the pay rate gone up since then?

In real terms?

It's not. Piracy, the economy and the internet have all decimated DVD sales. DVD sales were sliding as they did on regular DVD titles. Most people watch individual sex scenes online now (which works with the 'fast forward' to the action mentality of a lot of porn purchasers).

All these factors have striven to keep porns profitability down. Although porn was never the huge money spinner it once was even in the big money days of the mid to late 1990s and the early 2000s porn was never making the money you'd think or were told it was. It generated the sales but despite what many say it's still as mired in criminality and seediness as it ever was and the only people earning big money from it are the owners of say Playboy or companies like Vivid etc. And even they have seen profits dive.

 

[Black_and_White_Writer]

The statistics show that worldwide the porn industry alone is a 100 Billion dollar industry, with the US contributing roughly 13 Billion to that figure. Pretty good numbers considering the industry declined drastically between 2008 and 2012. (Not including adult toy sales, prostitution, or even erotic dancers, etc.) The decline was reportedly due to piracy, the internet and webcams. Interesting that no one even mentions the decline of economy worldwide during those years. When entire governments were failing, the porn industry managed to survive with staggering profits. (Just thought this was worth mentioning to those who find trivia interesting)
Before Oprah went off the air, she did a show based on the adult toy sales in the US. In that show, her statistics showed that sex related sales generated income more than that of the cosmetic industry in the US which is a pretty bold statement. She further claimed that most of the porn related sales were made by women...Come on now gentlemen, there's got to be something wrong here!

Sadly those figures are pure BS. Oprah's figures were based on hearsay and urban myth. As the FBI pointed out there is still a large trench of criminality involved in porn. As they rather bluntly said if porn were generating that sort of money we'd have no STDs in porn. Most porn stars would not be 'feature dancers' (or more overtly prostituting themselves as many do (but will never admit to)) and the mafia and other criminal organisations still linked to the porn industry as well as low level crime would have profited handsomely.

I've heard all the BS around porn. That if you pout the 'legitimate' entertainment industry; films, tv shows, DVD sales, merchandise like film soundtracks and the like, comics, toys based on these films (think of all those Star Wars action figures and TMNT ones) and the likes of Star Trek and albums and tours from the likes of Madonna and the Rolling Stones and apparently porn made as much as all that.

Pure rubbish. The poem industry probably made profits of several hundred million a year. Maybe a billion dollars in the late 1980s or early 2000s.

You can find some very good books exposing the myths in the poem industry.

 

[rjordan]

Here's a couple of documentaries at Netflix (and elsewhere) you might find interesting:
Hot Girls Wanted
After Port Ends (didn't watch)

It's a very sad industry.

rj

 

[MaybeTwins]

A friend of mine is a porn actor and his girlfriend is a porn star. He has another fairly lucrative job to live off, but even then they are not hugely wealthy. It may be $1000 a weekend of filming but I don't think many people are in films every weekend. The thing about porn is that demand is huge but supply is now near infinite thanks to the internet. It's not a seller's market.

 

[Black_and_White_Writer]

Here's a couple of documentaries at Netflix (and elsewhere) you might find interesting:
Hot Girls Wanted
After Port Ends (didn't watch)

It's a very sad industry.

rj

Those are very good but bleak films.

I'd recommend Boogie Nights for entertainment value (although set in the 70s during porns 'Golden Age', and is thus very dated), it is a good film.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'm writing a story featuring a woman who dabbles in a bit of porn and I want to get the numbers right.

Perhaps you should skip reality and numbers and create a generic pr0n fantasyland rather like the many sororities seen in LIT stories. As said, it's a sad business -- like IRL incest. Make it a hot fantasy and readers won't really care that it is, uh, inaccurate.

 

[NotWise]

Perhaps you should skip reality and numbers and create a generic pr0n fantasyland rather like the many sororities seen in LIT stories. As said, it's a sad business -- like IRL incest. Make it a hot fantasy and readers won't really care that it is, uh, inaccurate.

I like Hypoxia's suggestion.

I've read a number of people who want to write stories around/about porn stars and the stories are clearly fantastic, completely unrelated to the reality of the people or the business. Probably any audience you would write for is also caught up in the same fantasy and introducing reality will just knock them out of the story.

Let your character make a gob of money in a few hours on the side; forget about going to see the doctor over, and over, and over... Heck, you should probably even let her get off, the way the actresses act it out.

Porn is a business about fantasy. If you want to write about it, then that should probably be fantasy too. Unless you want to write noir.

Maybe you could explain why the high school cheerleader from Minnesota (Christine Applegate, I think was her name) became a popular porn star named Shawna Grant, then shot herself in the head at the age of 19.