When Courtney Tillia was looking for a new revenue stream after working as a special education teacher in 2017, she joined Onlyf — a service that allows content creators to charge fans and viewers for exclusive content through subscriptions or one-time fees.
Now she is a top creator on the platform, earning between $50,000 and $100,000 per month. In three years of full-time employment on the platform, she earned over $1 million.
“I’m the modern American dream,” Tilia told the entrepreneur.
The entrepreneur spoke to the Los Angeles-based content creator about her lucrative career, working with her husband, and the public’s reaction to her controversial career choice.
I have been a school teacher for six years and have been feeling anxious, depressed and very far away from my family for the past year. My husband and I had my only teaching income at the time – he had quit to start his own business, but it hadn’t quite taken off yet. But I gave up anyway, finished the school year and started doing some personal training, life coaching and some modeling work. On the other hand, I started selling videos and photos through Snapchat and Instagram. I don’t advertise it, I only implement it when people ask for it. In 2019, I just decided to start OnlyF because I was a little frustrated with the community guidelines that Instagram started following. I want a place where I can fully express myself and be who I am, and I want to make $500 a month. In my first month, I made $1,700. Since then, it has bloomed.
It sure seems to be thriving! We wrote a story about your career change in September that went viral, and Instagram shut down your account shortly after.
Instagram will tend, especially with certain adult content creators – they will either ban your account or shut it down. I have had four accounts in the past five months!
How does this affect your business? Are you losing money?
The first one was more than I thought…it had a real impact. I have a verified account with 450,000 [followers] and I’ve lost it twice now. I’ve used three backup accounts and got them around 20-28k followers, I don’t even post there anymore, then they got deactivated. But people will still try to find you.
As a content creator, you can set your own tariffs and business model. How do you decide what restrictions to place on your content and what tariffs to charge?
It’s always been about what makes me feel good and what people offer is different. I just focus on what I want to publish. I always wanted to start with a higher number, so I charged $20.99 per month. When I first started, I didn’t show any nudity at all, just implied. The more comfortable I felt and the more I wanted to put out there, I did. I’ve never been forced to do this or feel like I have to do anything to make more money. And I have restrictions on things I don’t want to do or get involved with, so I play with them. Sometimes I try different things at different times at different prices and see how people react.
