This is my personal Megalist of Payment Processors, Storefronts, Membership and Donation Sites for Adult Artwork. Each one of these categories serves a different purpose and some websites offer a combination, like how Gumroad offers both Storefront and Membership features. I’ll refer to Storefronts, Membership and Donation Sites collectively as “paysites”.
Unfortunately, most of the popular paysites used by artists either explicitly ban Adult Content or have updated their policies in recent years to ban more and more types of artwork. I’ve linked each of their Terms of Service pages where they address Adult Content.
This is a work-in-progress article, and I’ll update it as I do more research. If you have any suggestions or corrections, reply in this Twitter thread @TangoBatDraws or contact me.
Adult Merchant Providers
Credit card companies categorize Adult Content as High-Risk due to factors like high chargeback rates. There are High-Risk Merchant Account Providers that specialize in these types of businesses, and you can apply to them to register a Merchant Account. This will allow you to transact with major card companies without dealing with the ToS of third-party paysites like Gumroad or non-adult processors like Paypal, but be warned that it is expensive.
Merchant Accounts are different from traditional business accounts. A Merchant Account is a bank account that allows your business to receive digital payments such as credit cards. After a waiting period, these funds are transferred to your traditional business account.
To register as an Adult Merchant you’ll need to provide proof of your business, pay an annual registration fee to Visa and Mastercard, and meet compliance standards like adding certain information to your website (Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, contact information, etc). There is also a monthly service fee to the Merchant Account Processor itself, higher transaction fees for High-Risk accounts, and high chargeback fees.
This is all very expensive especially for small businesses, but it’s your best bet in avoiding demonitization from anti-NSFW policies in the long term. Do your own research on these providers before deciding to apply.
Non-Adult Processors
You’ll need to look out for paysites that depend on these payment processors. If a payment processor doesn’t allow Adult Content, chances are they’ll force paysites that use them to ban it eventually.
Paypal: Prohibited Square: Prohibited Stripe: Prohibited Payoneer: Prohibited Wise: Prohibited Venmo (Owned by Paypal): Prohibited
Storefronts, Membership & Donations
These services provide a more user-friendly interface for Creators to directly share their work with supporters. Note that all “adult-friendly” paysites ban illegal content (as they should), but some still have restrictions on certain types of sexual content even if it’s perfectly legal. Read their Terms of Service before signing up.
SubscribeStar: Allowed Fansly: Allowed JustForFans: Allowed Self-Hosting*
Itch.io: Allowed (uses Paypal and Stripe) Boosty: TBD (explicitly prohibits real-life porn, unclear on illustrated porn. contacting for clarification) Fanbox: Very Strict (Paypal disabled for 18+ accounts, censorship required, “realistic” 3D prohibited) Patreon**: Very Strict (many fetishes banned)
Gumroad: Prohibited Ko-Fi: Prohibited BuyMeACoffee: Prohibited
*Self-Hosting means purchasing your own domain, web host, and adding a storefront service. You can either implement the storefront yourself–which is beyond the scope of advice I can give since it’s much more technical–or use third-party tools like WooCommerce or Shopify. This gives you the highest degree of independence possible, although you’ll still need to rely on Social Media to drive people to your site.
**Patreon, despite being the biggest membership platform for artists, is the worst offender in the “Allowed” section. They’ve suspend creators for arbitrarily “young-looking” characters, their fictional content bans have become more strict almost every year, and they monitor creators’ external galleries to enforce their ToS outside the platform.
If you’re a Patreon creator, USE ANOTHER PAYSITE AS A BACKUP and encourage your patrons to switch over. I highly recommend SubscribeStar.
Disclaimer
I’m not a lawyer or financial expert, just a guy on the internet who loves drawing lewds. Remember that if you receive money from artwork, Adult or otherwise, you are running a business. It is your responsibility to research your paysites’ TOS, manage your finances, and file your taxes. Here are a few guidelines I follow:
- File a Sole Proprietorship and a Fictitious Business Name (choose one that’s different from your online handle). This is necessary to set up a Business Account with a Payment Processor, allowing you to hide your personal info from customers.
- Use invoices for commissions, never accept “pay as friend/family”. You’re running a business, don’t try to wriggle out of taxes.
- For invoices, use nonspecific item descriptions and disable customer comments.
- Rotate between multiple Payment Processors just in case one suspends your funds for whatever reason.
- NEVER KEEP LARGE SUMS OF MONEY IN A SINGLE PAYSITE OR PROCESSOR ACCOUNT. I withdraw to one of my banks after every single commission, and for storefronts/memberships I withdraw AT LEAST twice a month. Don’t risk losing a huge chunk of your annual income by treating these services as banks.
Also if you sell Adult Artwork, there’s technically nothing stopping you from using a Payment Processor that prohibits it. They won’t know the exact details of your products unless you flat-out tell them. But you do so at your own risk!
Suggestions
If you have any other suggestions for this list, or if any of the information here is incorrect, please contact me!
