What to Ask an Agency in Writing Before You Sign

Every management deal in this industry is sold on a video call. That is not a convenience, it is a choice, and it works against you in one specific way: a call leaves no record.

This page is published by an agency, which is the bias to weigh everything below against. It is not an argument for choosing us. It is the one habit that protects a creator from all of us at once, including us: get the terms in writing before you agree to them, and read what comes back.

Why the call is the problem

Nothing said on a call can be checked later. There is nothing to set side by side against a second offer, nothing to show a lawyer or a more experienced creator, nothing to re-read once the enthusiasm has worn off. Vagueness survives in conversation in a way it cannot survive in a written paragraph.

None of that means the person on the call is lying. It means the format is doing work for them rather than for you, and you are the only one who can change the format.

The whole technique is a single email. After a good call, thank them, say you are interested, and ask for the specifics in writing before the next conversation. Everything below is what goes in that email.

1. The commission, and what it is taken from

Not the percentage. What the percentage is applied to.

Gross earnings, your post-platform payout, or “net” — and if the answer is net, ask for the itemised list of what comes off before the split. Advertising spend, chatter cost and a management fee sitting on your side of the line before the percentage is calculated will change the answer completely. We went through the possible structures in how agency commission works.

A 20% deal on a definition of net you have not seen can cost you more than a 40% deal on gross. That is arithmetic, not opinion, and you cannot do the arithmetic until somebody writes the definition down. Once you have it, the ROI calculator runs the comparison for you.

Ask for one worked example with invented numbers, start to finish: this much comes in, these things come off, you receive this. A serious agency has that example ready, because creators ask for it. An agency that cannot produce it in an email has either not thought about it or would rather you did not look.

2. Who holds the login, and where payouts go

Three separate questions that usually get one blurry answer.

Do you keep the password, or do they hold it? Do they work through a shared management tool rather than the raw login? And can you lock them out on the day you decide to, without needing their cooperation?

Then, separately: do payouts go from the platform directly to your account, or through the agency first? Payouts routed through an agency mean that in a dispute they are holding your money and you are the one asking for it back. That is a structurally different relationship from one where the money never touches them.

“We hold the login” can still be workable with the right people. The point is to know it now, in writing, instead of discovering it in the middle of an argument. It is also the single thing that decides how hard leaving later turns out to be.

3. The termination clause, in full text

Not summarised. Not described. The actual paragraphs.

Read them before the commission section, while you still have the leverage of not having signed. Four things to find:

The notice period, and what counts as giving notice. Thirty days is normal. If notice has to be sent by registered post to an address in another country, that is a notice period with a moat around it.

Whether a fixed term sits underneath the notice period. A twelve-month initial term plus a thirty-day notice clause does not mean you can leave in thirty days. It means you can leave thirty days after month twelve. Those two clauses are usually not printed next to each other.

Auto-renewal. If the contract renews for another full term unless you cancel inside a window, put that window in your calendar the day you sign. People miss it, and that is the entire point of the clause.

What you owe if you leave early, and whether commission continues after you leave. Both need a number or a formula you can compute, and post-termination commission needs an end date. “Damages” with no definition is not a contract term, it is a threat in a serif font. Our clause-by-clause walkthrough covers the rest of the document.

4. Which parts of the pitch go in the contract

Most of what is said on a sales call is a forecast rather than a promise, and everyone involved knows it.

So ask plainly: of everything we discussed, which parts are you willing to put in the agreement? Coverage hours, response times, who produces content, how often you get reporting, what happens if targets are missed.

The gap between what was promised out loud and what the document will commit to is the most informative thing you will find in this entire process, and looking at it costs you nothing.

5. Two creators who left, and permission to contact them

Current creators are a curated reference. People who left are a real one.

Any agency running for a few years has had amicable exits, and one with nothing to hide can name a couple and ask whether they are willing to talk to you. A refusal is not proof of anything by itself — privacy is a legitimate reason and this industry has good cause to take it seriously. But “nobody has ever left us” is a claim you can test against how long they say they have been operating.

The sixth thing, which you do not have to ask for

Watch how they respond to being asked.

Does the tone change? Do you get a version of “you are overthinking this, we are not like the others”? Do the answers arrive in writing, or does every reply pull the conversation back onto a call?

You are watching how a company handles a reasonable request from someone who currently has leverage. Your leverage will never be higher than it is before you sign, and their behaviour now is the most optimistic version of their behaviour later.

Our own answers, since we are asking you to demand them

Our commission runs 25% to 55% of net revenue — charged on what the platform pays out after its own 20% cut, never on your gross. Where you land in that range depends on which services you need and whether you are starting from zero, and the exact number is agreed in writing before anything is signed. No upfront fees of any kind, no long-term lock-in, and payouts go from the platform directly to the creator and never through us. All of it is on our FAQ.

Our own contract contains every clause described above. The exit clause is the one we get asked about most often, which I take as a sign that creators are getting better at this.

We also publish a ten-point checklist that scores us against criteria we did not get to pick after the fact, including the row we do not currently pass. It is at how to vet an OnlyFans agency. It is not a neutral document either. It is a document you can hold us to, which is a different and more useful thing.

If you remember one sentence

Ask for it in writing, and read what comes back — including the silence.

Whether or not you end up signing with anyone, an agency that will not put its own terms in an email before you commit has told you something more reliable than anything it said on the call.