Click a Part to jump to:
| Part 1: Lifetime Vs Subscription (2016) |
| Part 2: Premium Snapchat Popularity (2019) |
| Part 3: Premium Snapchat Vs OnlyFans (2020) |
| Part 4: Back On The Snap (2021) |
| Part 5: A Snap Story (2022) |
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Written: Sep 2016 -TPR
(Lifetime Vs Subscription)
The concept of premium snapchat or private snapchat is still relatively in its infancy, especially compared to the legit website based porn and clips for sale type that proceeded this and is still in existence, irregardless of the tube sites that now populate the adult space. It's a growing avenue of porn and a lot of models have made a lot of money in a short space of time, selling it as a one off payment/lifetime option.
Some models, both new and old, have started to use subscription type payments for their snap services. This method of payment is usually used by models with whom snapping is seen as another viable stream of income (as opposed to just a quick hustle to cash in on guys' lustful tendencies) or as a means of solely promoting their other xxx content.
Those models must have also realised that solely providing a lifetime option isn't really sustainable, especially given the fact that you have to add people to your private account, to view the stories, and I think as it currently stands you can only add around 2500 people before snapchat says you've filled your quota. At least with reoccurring memberships, those that don't want to continue paying can be deleted, leaving space for potential new subscribers.
Ultimately, it's probably better for both parties- models can generate a more regular income and by way of this, members should get a better service because the model will be more incentivised to consistently provide good content, to retain their paying viewers. Another benefit to members could be that tipping would feel like less of a requirement or something that you're made to feel guilty for not doing, occasionally being made to feel you're being treated second rate to someone who can afford to tip. Tips can then be given for extraordinary shows or really specific requests.
There's a couple of accounts that I joined, where the models already had subscription type payment options but one model, for example, implemented the change for all current members and newcomers- albeit with at least a good month+ of prior, daily notification of the coming changes. Her fee took into account that this wasn't a common thing amongst other premium accounts and she set the price at $2.50 per month, with the initial lifetime fee now being the one time signup fee. Others started this type of system after I joined too, but only made the changes for the subsequent new members.
With the increase in subscription snaps, some models have opted to use merchant snap sites or adult content sites (eg sexysnaps.me or Manyvids) that help models by dealing with subscribers, cutting down the time they have to spend verifying individual purchases or chasing up those who forget to include their username, when purchasing. These snap sites can automatically renew subscriptions and inform the model's when someone's membership hasn't been renewed- so they can remove them from the snap account.
Other models choose to do it manually, using spreadsheets or other systems to tell them of expired membership.
XXX snap, is becoming more like adult websites in terms of providing content for a reoccurring fee. But it's also becoming/become like that in terms of piracy. I'm not talking about screenshots or members saving individual snaps via the DM's (the latter I think is a silly reason for models to ban on a premium account) but by those who use replica Snapchat apps, to copy whole stories. They then use the content to open fake private accounts to scam people (pretending they're a model) or in some instances, dissatisfied customers will put it on the net out of spite to 'hurt' the model(s).
(From what I've seen, this has mainly affected those that have offered lifetime premium for a very low price.)
Subscriptions could possibly fuel content stealing further, but if the content and interactivity with members is good as well as competitively priced, they'll still be making money- even if there is a slight decline in new members. As I mentioned previously, the ability to talk and share stuff with your favourite model(s) is a big plus for this snap thing and stolen content that's uploaded somewhere, can't replicate that.
I don't think a subscription is unreasonable, all depending on the price which should be reflective on the content provided (locations, costume, time/length etc). Higher priced subscriptions were more justified with legit website porn, because you took into account overheads ranging from website hosting fees, lighting, editing software etc, those factors don't really apply as much to Snapchat; but still, even in the world of 'free porn', you can't expect a model who solely works via Snapchat, to provide continued great service for 'a lifetime' @ $20....
However, the models who have created a paid for, private/premium account, where 90% of their content is mainly promotion of their videos or cam shows- with the remaining percentage being mild titillation, teasing and everyday snaps, a one time fee is adequate and a subscription in that scenario wouldn't make sense.
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Written: Mar 2019 -TPR
***UPDATE*** (Premium Snapchat Popularity)
A lot of the the things I wrote about, above, still hold true and some have also come about as I expected.
The world of Premium Snapchat has really taken off in the last year or so. Models/adult stars who used to either legitimately not know or those that used to feign ignorance/be completely dismissive about private Snapchat accounts, now have one and promote it constantly.
I feel like one of the reasons it got bigger was definitely due to Snapchat's Memories feature, which wasn't a thing when I first started using the app and early premium models didn't have the luxury of this feature. It's arrival has been a good and a bad thing- it has allowed great models the opportunity to still post their past snap stories on days off or upload video content recorded outside of Snapchat, while still continuing to make and post new content the rest of the time. It also allows for promo videos or info snaps to be posted with ease.
The bad is that it has allowed scammers and/or lazy models who are just trying to make some quick money, to post the same 1 or 2 stories repeatedly, while most of their effort will go into promoting their inferior product.Thanks to the people who take the time to write into the site about some of their experiences of the false advertising and/or scams.
I talked on lifetime vs subscription previously. Models still sell lifetime as an only option while others offer both options, with the lifetime usually being at a considerably higher price. Some only use subscription/re-occurring payment options (monthly, yearly) while others go back and forth between the two. The latter tend to use lifetime offers when doing special deals to attract new customers, going back to monthly prices after the offer is concluded. Generally the ones who offer lifetime at a cheap or discounted price, I assume do it with the intention of getting the buyer to later upgrade to a premium which comes with more added benefits (DM/Phone sexting, accepting dick pics, picture requests) or at least be more encouraged to occasionally tip, if the shows are consistently good. (Also in some cases it's done for models to appear in the best sellers list on Fancentro.) Subscription options were already starting to be implemented the last time I wrote about it but it's becoming more straightforward and common, with adult online sites helping to make collecting and sending funds easier.
In the first write up I mentioned some of those sites that help models with subscribers and currently Fancentro has now become the place to go for this. Even attracting more current and established adult stars, such as Sophie Dee, Asa Akira, Eva Lovia, Lisa Daniels and others, to use the platform. Manyvids also is continuing to do it, while some models use other more niche companies that utilise similar billing systems.
I'll go back to the piracy issue. It was always going to be something that would happen, just like any other content (adult or vanilla) put out on the net. It's probably set to increase as more popular performers and former internet "influencers" have taken up XXX snapping, causing adult Snapchats to become more mainstream and popular- plus screen recording has become more accessible.
Another good thing to evolve from the earlier days of premium is that models are now promoting themselves on Snapchat- meaning that the models are promoting amongst themselves. Almost all the models I routinely watch have other models takeover or promote their Premium Snapchat on their own premium account and vice versa (In some cases paying for it too). In the earlier days, a lot of the takeover accounts were usually run by guys, some of whom where cool but also some who apparently liked having a fleeting and fictitious power over the models. I only know this because some models at the time told me of some of the account owners requesting nudes to allow them to promote on their platform.
The model 5ucia, who has retired from making adult content, pioneered a lot of things in Premium Snapchat content creation but among them was being one of the first that I saw to create a dedicated account just for models to perform takeovers- an account that was only for her premium members to view. Majority of takeovers I see now are on models' own premium accounts or separate accounts created by models for their premium members. This obviously helps them to cut through the people who have no real intention of buying, directly to those who are more likely to do so.
So this is a positive evolution for models but it's also good for the premium viewing audience because you can source premium content that is more likely to be legit because models will be wary of who they allow to have access to their premium account. Obviously the quality of the model's content will still be subjective but at least getting scammed will be less of a likelihood. (Read here for more tips that I wrote a while back). Also, the earlier days of dedicated, public takeover accounts were more restricted, for fear of the account being deleted which routinely happened but with this method, takeovers can now be more explicit, with models showing what they get up to on their premiums, rather than just insinuating what they would show.
The only bad I've experienced with it, is that it can sometimes get spammy. After a model's takeover, some of them fill up my snap inbox with info on their premium too.
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Written: Mar 2020 -TPR
***UPDATE*** (Premium Snapchat Vs OnlyFans)
The selling of access to Snapchat accounts, is still a popular form of viewing adult content but it's popularity has been slightly overshadowed by the emergence of OnlyFans, in the last couple of years. Some of OnlyFans' relatively quick success could be attributed to a few things.
Possible reasons for the popularity
1) When I first heard of the platform, the general comments from models were that they were happy with the fast payouts and that they took less commission, which is a fair praise and something that should be the case, as I assume that OnlyFans has less overheads, generally- compared to a platform like Manyvids that produces their own content and has camming capabilities etc. I have however heard from models that there have been issues in not being able to withdraw their money or accounts being closed due to false reporting of inappropriate content, from a member, resulting in any funds being lost and refunded to all their subscribers.
2) Another reason could be that Onlyfans has designed a very cam-esque culture of tipping for most of the services (even if you are subscribed), which could attract a certain type of model.
3) The way OnlyFans provide models the incentive to promote their success. I have repeatedly seen models posting promo for their OF accounts by showing screenshots of a notification from OnlyFans admin telling them that they are 'in the top 1% of all creators', I'm not too sure about what type of data is required for the algorithms to come up with the percentage, but I've seen too many models with that 'top 1%' statistic for it to be credible or have enough validity to influence me to subscribing. I mentioned in the last write up that it's the same with FanCentro's top influencers list or possibly even Manyvids top video sellers list, these lists can be manipulated through offering free or reduced content prices and subscriptions- and most times isn't a true indication to how good the actual content is. My thing has always just been my personal like or interest in the model(s).
(They even send similar notifications to customers- I received one saying 'you are a top 5% fan of model X' 🤷♂️)
3b) Something else that promoted their success, which is a common marketing method that other platforms do too, is the promotion of sales, 'Yay! Another Subscriber' or other similar type, 'content has been sold'' promotion- usually in the form of automated tweets, is something that you'll see scrolling through a lot of model's twitter pages. But with OnlyFans it seemed to hit differently with the added attraction of some models taking screenshots of their OnlyFans dashboard, displaying the supposed money they had made, in a short period of time.
Reasons for switching
1) Some models have talked about their reasons for abandoning Premium Snapchat or at least venturing more towards OnlyFans. They've mentioned Snapchat being harder work but that is somewhat of a falsity, only if they're saying that in regards to the ease of putting out content. Since Snapchat's Memories feature was introduced, it made providing snap shows infinitely more easier- and the majority of snap models use (or some abuse) this feature often.
2) It might only come down to OnlyFans being a reoccurring payment platform- but that still doesn't make sense, as sites like FanCentro/ModelCentro offered and still offer that service for Snapchat (As well as archiving of past snaps).
Subscription/reoccurring payments has never been an issue to me, I mentioned in the very first write up in 2016 that offering solely cheap 'lifetime' premiums with no higher level options, wouldn't be sustainable- especially as a sole means of adult income. I've noticed some models having a passive aggressive resentment for customers who bought their 'lifetime' at a relatively cheap price which is unprofessional, as they set the price and even though I believe tipping should be encouraged, it's not an obligation. In reviews, I've talked about often tipping (money, gift cards, wishlists etc), buying content from the model directly or from their other platforms and said it's a thing that should happen, if a model's snap content/service is great- or they themselves are cool people. Expecting tips outside of that is a weird thing for me to understand and that's why I get OnlyFans' appeal to some models.
3) The problem of screen recording was also an issue that I heard mentioned as a reason to divert from using Snapchat but again, it's an issue that is always gonna be a thing no matter the platform. Most video content put online has the potential to be pirated, big budget movies or even movies and shows from Netflix get lifted and put online for free. OnlyFans, even before their supposed hack, was not exempt from this. One model that I was subscribed to and another that I just follow on social media, talked about their anger in discovering their stuff online.
On model's social media pages, I've also seen posts warning their followers of the copycat fake OnlyFans pages, impersonating them, with obvious intent to scam money from people. Again, it seems to be one of those things that happens but OnlyFans has a verification process so I'm surprised that that it does.
4) I guess the main reason for being wary of Snapchat is in it not being adult friendly and sometimes deleting model's accounts, due to reports from bitter models or disgruntled customers.
That's where OnlyFans excelled, they didn't prohibit the use of sex work on their site, like other mainstream platforms did (Patreon) and some still do. Like I mentioned above, some accounts have still been closed down due to reporting and I'm not sure if OnlyFans ever tries to investigate if the reports are factual before automatically deleting the account; But for all intents and purposes OnlyFans is not an adult platform, they just allow adult content on there and I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying they're pro-adult work either because any public promotion that I've seen from them has been in promoting the vanilla influencers who use the platform- even though I'm sure that at least half, if not the majority, of their income come from the adult content creators. I always thought that Snapchat should've allowed for verified XXX models to use the platform in a similar fashion that Twitter does- shadow banning with the intention of not letting underage users easily come across adult accounts (from suggested friend adds), instead of just deleting the account.
Experiences using OnlyFans
I've noticed that some models have adapted the promo methods initially used on Snapchat, by creating free accounts where potential customers or just 'connoisseurs of free porn' can subscribe to look at previews of the videos and be sent (sometimes bombarded with) messages containing locked videos, that can only be viewed after the required amount has been paid.
I've subscribed to models' paid accounts and the free promo ones. For me, they don't really differ much in terms of experience. On the paid subscription accounts, some models still spam the DM's with the same locked videos that were on their free account. Some of these videos where highly priced while being very short (but that's subjective as the content could still be worth the money) what's bad is when they've purposely left vague or misleading info about the contents of the video- to elicit purchases from 'their fans'. I'm also not a fan of the option to tip for your messages to be read when you're already on a paid subscription account and/or are buying locked content. Manyvids had a great way of handling this by only allowing customers to send messages to a model- if they are an MV Subscriber, they purchase content from a model or if the model contacts them first, which is a fair system. I understand models get a stupid amount of messages from people with no intentions of buying but subscribers or buyers should be able to communicate freely, within reason.
My preference
Unsurprisingly, for me, it's still all about Premium Snapchat, although the general consensus is probably the opposite- well at least for now. Recently, AVN launched AVN Stars and I saw a trend of model's moving there and openly encouraging others to do the same- and in another couple of years something else will probably come out.... probably Premium TicTok accounts. All platforms serve their purpose and have their own unique selling point but only Snapchat has that instant accessibility and intimacy that I've often described a fondness for. On there, even though you know there are other customers on the model's account you're not conscious of them or vice versa, unless a model mentions them. The same can't really be said for OnlyFans and other platforms because you're reminded when seeing the comments and likes received for a video, that's uploaded on the public feed.
But that Snapchat experience I'm talking about is also dependent on the model's level of engagement and interactivity, regardless of the platform. There have been models who were unprofessional on Snapchat too, especially when uploading videos became a possibility, causing the adult snap world to be saturated with quick money and no content having, type models. I'm sure there are models who do offer great content and a great service on OnlyFans and I'm sure there are customers who solely enjoy the OnlyFans way of receiving their XXX content. I'm also sure there are models who just understand that intangible thing or value that Snapchat has - when used properly - and will still be there to cater to me and my fellow snap folk.
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Written: Oct 2021 -TPR
***UPDATE*** (Back on The Snap)
In this latest instalment of the Future of Premium Snapchat, I want to talk about the seeming resurrection of this form of adult content viewing.
With the 2020 OnlyFans bubble bursting from the ending of lockdowns, and due to the uncertainty that OF (and any adult subscription with Mastercard as a payment processor) has shown, I've seen a noticeable increase in the return of models who seemingly abandoned Snapchat during the 'everything OF' period- some only using snap to promote their OF, during their exodus.
In the past couple of months or so, OnlyFans spoke about plans to get rid of explicit content. They quickly reneged but the damage was done and some people finally saw what I and others had been talking about when discussing OnlyFans. I talked about it in the previous portion of this expanding article and also in a separate article, Why Fancentro is Underrated and OF is Overrated.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."- Maya Angelou
That quote is partially true but in this instance it's very true. OnlyFans gave multiple signs of not being for the creators that helped popularise their platform, even outside of the credit card issues- I won't list them here but check out the articles I just mentioned.
Anyway back to snap. For the past few months, I've noticed premiums being promoted more again. In 2020 it was mainly a sea of OnlyFans links on Twitter, now i see "i sell Snapchat" in the bios and more selling it through FanCentro as they were looking for alternatives for OF- and FanCentro just so happens to have the best system for selling snaps too.
Aside from trouble with subscription sites, I think another big reason for people coming back to or joining Snapchat is that if you ever collaborate with someone, like a partner who is not really a performer, on sites like OF, you will still need to provide ID of that person and that person will need to make an account on the platform too. I can understand that being annoying to models, especially if you've had content previously on there that will have to be removed; and I can also understand the reticence or unwillingness for a performer, who is not really in the adult world, to have to give their ID to a random company. Snap alleviates those extra hurdles for models.
As anyone who reads this knows, by now, that I'm a fan of premium snaps... when done correctly- so more models doing it, or returning to it, is not a bad thing necessarily..... just as long as long as its a genuine XXX snap experience and not a vehicle to promote other sites.
Possibly see you in a few months for this continued story of Premium Snapchat.
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Written: Oct 2022 -TPR
***UPDATE*** (A Snap Story)
Took a little longer than the few months I said in the previous instalment. This article has spanned 5/6 years, and I think I can finally bring it to an end. To me, Snapchat or specifically adult premium Snapchat doesn't have the same vibe that used to make it special. In various entries to this article I've documented how its changed over the years, in particular the moment when Snap introduced the memories feature and my mixed feelings on its introduction. It was simultaneously one of the greatest things that snap introduced but also the worst. It helped the highly creative models to elevate the type of content they could upload on snap, as we'll as allowing their incredible work of the past to be replayed and not forever lost. But it also allowed those not so gifted in content making or just indolent, to continually replay the same average content. I definitely feel that that a lot of models wouldn’t have used Snapchat if the ability to upload wasn’t there, which would’ve been a great way to filter out those not built for the level of patience and creativity that was initially required.
Snapchat used to be my primary place for watching content, often opening the app solely to watch the models I subscribed to but in the last year or two, I found myself watching the SFW content that Snap curates more than the porn.
It could just be me growing or it could be that the quality and passion isn't there anymore - probably a mixture of both.
I think my feelings are shared by models. A few months back, I was talking to a former snap model who was one of my favourites that I also reviewed in the past, and I shared my nostalgia of that time and she agreed with my sentiments. It was a different time, where premium snaps were a thing in its own little bubble, before it changed and brought with it those who didn't see it as a viable platform before the change.
Some of the current crop of models seem to be migrating from the platform again. The first time being when OnlyFans started to become popular but this time they are going to Telegram. They have a distain for Snapchat too but their reason for leaving is not the same. A lot have been victims of account deletions, and Telegram so far seems to be more stable and adult friendly. I also think part of the reason for moving is that Telegram prevents people from screenshotting or screen recording their content, on their phones, something that Snap doesn't do. Its not completely the case, there are ways to bypass that undetected, which I obviously won't share here. Most are just effectively using Snap to promo the accounts outside of the platform.
I think premium Snapchat will still be around to some degree, I do have a couple of models on there that are great and still view their content from time to time.
It has been great to be able to document the happenings and some of my feelings about the world of premium Snapchat over the years and this will probably be my final entry, but I think it's the right time. I appreciate you following it with me.
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