How Much Do Pornstars Get Paid?
October 26, 2016
There are benefits of being an independent pornstar. You get to set your own rates, and you get to choose what kind of scenes you want to do. Shit, you can even put up a video on your own site, and make viewers pay for a membership to watch your smut. However, if you want to get paid with a lot from scratch, it would be difficult for you to achieve that on your own.
That is why people that want to work within the porn industry often sign on to agencies or studios like Digital Playground, Reality Kings, and Brazzers; they’re the highest ranking studios on the market too, so you could imagine how much competition newbies get when they want to sign up for the first time.
However, if you are thinking about breaking into the industry, and want to create a name for yourself amongst many porn fanatics, then maybe you should have a look at how much money adult stars make per scene. Pornstars aren’t given a fixed salary or wage like office clerks do, which means that you can star in 3 films and receive your rent’s money within the same week.
Male Pornstars: $500 – $5000
Original source: Giphy
To the present day, porn is the only industry that is known to pay females a higher rate than men, and this is because the majority of its audience wants to see women on their screens; it pays the stars based on what their market wants, not based on the skills of that star.
Depending on how prolific he’d be, the average male pornstar can earn around $500 or $600. An established male star would be able to earn anywhere between $700 – $900, and a ‘superstar’ could earn up to $1500 for a sex scene.
If you’re a guy that’s going to do one porn scene, of course, it’s not going to be enough to keep the roof over your head. But a porno only needs one day to get it’s recording done, so once you’ve done your bit in the video, you’re free to do another shoot; it’s not like you’re needed for a film that needs a minimum of 8 months to complete!
Female Pornstars: $800 – $10,000
Original source: Tumblr
As I’ve mentioned in the previous section, porn is the only industry that’s known to pay the female stars more money than the male stars. Well, maybe model agencies pay the women more than men too, but that depends on what kind of models they have.
Anyway, the wage rule applies to the female pornstars as well as the male pornstars. An average lady can earn anywhere between $800 – $1000, that’s for a ‘traditional’ sex scene, but we’ll get more into that later on in the piece.
An established lady can earn just under $1,500, and a superstar can earn between $1,500 – $2,000 per scene. You can already see the difference in rates when you compare it to one of a female and a male pornstar; it’s just how the porn industry works. No sexism, no Illuminati conspiracy, just business and marketing.
Girl-On-Girl: $800 or more
Original source: Tumblr
I am still yet to find out the reason why Girl-On-Girl scenes get less pay than Guy-On-Girl scenes, but that’s for me to discover if I ever get the chance to interview some porn directors or studios in my lifetime.
If you’re an adult actress that has just started building your portfolio within porn, you would see yourself receiving a pay-cheque of at least $800 once you’ve fucked a girl on camera. If you’re an established star or a superstar, like Riley Reid or Malena Morgan, you would see yourself receiving a paycheck of around $1,200.
Guy–On-Girl: $1,000 or more
Original source: Sex
If you’re an aspiring female adult entertainer that doesn’t think that she’d perform well with another female on set, don’t worry, people still like to pay for Guy-On-Girl porn. The minimum amount of money that you would receive for riding and grinding on a guy would be $1,000, and if your name is spread across the internet, your payslip could be more than that, possibly up to $1,500.
That’s enough for you to pay for one month’s rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, New York. Or, if you still want to be settled in Europe, that check can pay for one month’s rent in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs, with a little bit of money left over.
Anal Sex: $1,200 or more
Original source: Tumblr
In this section, you will understand why there are a lot of female pornstars that do anal sex scenes. For most of the studio’s, their audience wants to see sex scenes that are a bit more than average; they’re not living in the 1950s anymore, so it’s acceptable for them to watch porn that may be deemed as a little bit extreme amongst vanilla folk.
Now, if you’re an average pornstar (again), and you’ve signed yourself up to do anal sex with a hot stud, you would be seeing yourself earning around $1,200 for that shoot. If you’re someone like Asa Akira, you could make double that amount, due to the fact that you would have had a lot of experience in getting fucked in the forbidden hole, and the fact that your name is plastered on social media.
Double Penetration: $4,000 or more
Original source: Tumblr
If you think that doing an anal sex scene wouldn’t be able to give you enough pocket money for the trendiest boots on the market, or you want to have a bit of reserve money when your washing machine breaks or something like that, then a double penetration scene can make your bank account happy for a week or so.
The average wage for a DP sex scene is around $4,000, that amount of money can pay for 2 and a half month’s rent in a two bedroom apartment in the centre of Stockholm, eight 40” flat screen television sets, 60 months worth of utilities, and 44 months worth of public transportation.
Other Extreme Scenes: $2,500 or more
Original source: Tumblr
Now, these are the scenes that can make you feel like you’re part of the porn dynasty. The rule of thumb in the adult entertainment industry goes like this: the more extreme your sex scene is, the more money you’d get.
Hence, the reason why you’d also see so many girls doing slightly crazy stuff in pornos, like squirting, rimming, or even oil wrestling. Additionally, the amount of money you’d receive depends on the studio you do the shoot for; you’d probably earn more than $5,000 if you do a BDSM shoot for kink, or an extreme jail porno scene for Brazzers.
Gay Scenes: $1500 – $5000
Original source: Tumblr
The homo-erotic department in the porn industry sets a different pay to hetero-smut. The average male pornstar can get a pay of $1,500 if he licks, sucks, and fucks another guy on screen.
And depending on how extreme the scene would be, an adult actor could earn up to, or even more than $5,000. This system was what created the ‘gay-for-pay’ phenomenon, which a lot of real male homosexual pornstars hate; it’s the same kind of hate that hipsters have towards ‘mainstream’ people that start liking their favourite niche band for reasons other than they make good music. You know, that ‘You only like the band because it’s famous now’ kind of attitude.
Newbies with a ‘Bad Reputation’: $300
Original source: Reddit
You know that one colleague in the office that always does the shittest work, still gets paid for it, and you think to yourself ‘how the fuck do you still have a job here?’, you get that kind of people in the porn industry too.
Some newcomers can already get a ‘bad reputation’ amongst directors, agencies and studios; they may give a bit of an attitude to the crew members, or they can’t perform a certain sex position right. Those newbies could earn as little as $300, which would be able to get you half a 40” flat screen television, that is if you’d be allowed to slice them in half.
Writers: $250 – $400
Original source: Tumblr
Well, even if you’re already placed on the grey list of new pornstars, you’d still earn more money than a porn writer would; looks like porn writing is not an option that I could take in the future, unless it’s for freelance work.
However, like the creative that I am, I could always write imaginative scripts and scenarios that would bring a new kind of smut to the field.
For me, it’s all about the art, not the money.
She is possibly most famous for her erotic stories, but is equally adept at giving top quality sex advice, all the time bringing in her 'personal experiences'.
When she isn't sharing her most intimate encounters, Zoe keeps herself active by watching videos on Youtube, and listening to music.
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