MintStars: ‘Ethical’ OnlyFans rival more than doubles in value
MintStars, a start-up launched as an ‘ethical alternative’ to OnlyFans, more than doubled in value during its latest financial year, it has been revealed.
The challenger was established by Jessica Van Meir and Daniel Sargent, who serves as its chief executive, in 2022.
In an interview with Morning Wire last year, Van Meir said the platform had around 3,500 users and 1,000 creators.
Now, new accounts filed with Companies House show that the firm’s net assets jumped from £209,279 to £505,446 in the year to 31 January, 2025.
By comparison, OnlyFans posted a revenue of $1.3bn (£1bn) in the year to 30 November 2023, an increase of 20 per cent.
Its pre-tax profit over the same period also rose by a quarter to $658m.
The number of creator accounts on OnlyFans’ platform also increased to more than 4m while the number of fan accounts totalled 305m, both up by around 30 per cent.
The so-called porn unicorn hit a $1bn valuation in 2021 with its platform that allows anyone to earn money off homemade ‘spicy’ content.
Globally, the adult entertainment market is expected to surpass $96bn (£76bn) by 2032, according to Allied Market Research.
OnlyFans has been criticised for enabling abuse and piracy, and allowing underage users on its platform.
However, former chief executive Amrapali Gan has rejected some of the claims, saying in 2022 that the company’s product is “truly the safest and most inclusive social media platform.”
The company claims to have some of the toughest policies in the industry for dealing with the misuse of the site. In 2022, regulator Ofcom said the company had “put a broad range of measures in place to protect its users from harm on its platform.”
Speaking to Morning Wire last year, MintStars co-founder Van Meir said her platform is designed to give the power back to online sex workers, who she said are being debanked and having a large portion of their profits taken by OnlyFans.