There is a fine line between prostitution and escorting. Prostitutes provide sex in exchange for money, while escorts offer companionship, which can (and often does) include sex.
Both are highly profitable, but the former remains illegal in many jurisdictions, while you can get away with the latter in most of the modern world. To illustrate, prostitution is against the law in New York, but an average escort in that city earns about $1,200 an hour.
Just imagine how much her agent makes. Or better yet — don’t — and read our guide on how to start your own escort business.
Why Start an Online Escort Business
Today, anyone can form an online escort service and earn big bucks with barely any entry costs. You don’t need to know a thing about website development or being a webmaster.
Widely available and powerful tools such as premade escort templates have completely changed the escort business game. Thanks to them, you can easily service a location on another side of the world.
Even better, you can handle everything online without actually having to meet your escorts or clients. That being said, you should still do some prior research.
Before deciding to target an area, you’ll want to learn about its laws and prepare accordingly. Assuming that any place would welcome a porn company would be like assuming that all Latinas have amazing asses — it would be nice, but reality isn’t that glamorous.
For instance, while escorting is legal throughout the United States, prostitution is only legal in Nevada. Therefore, if you were to target that tasty US market, you wouldn’t want to come off as a service that explicitly sells sex. Instead, you would keep things more discreet.
How to Start an Escort Business: Step-by-Step Guide
This article will teach you the following:
- The two different kinds of escort businesses and the differences between them
- Why you’ll need adult hosting, as well as how to choose a hosting provider
- How to build and launch your website
- Which location(s) to focus on, if any
- How to optimize your website for search engines
- How to recruit escorts
- The various methods for maximizing your earnings
- Everything you’ll need to analyze and grow your escort business
Step 1: Choose Your Escort Business Type
Before you begin, you’ll need to pick the right escort business type for you. You have two options:
- Escort agencies
- Escort directories
Escort Agencies
With an escort agency, you’ll be actively representing your escorts. You’ll help them reach clients and arrange services via your website, and they’ll pay you a percentage of what they earn.
An escort agency has the following pros and cons over a directory:
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Escort Directories
With an escort directory, you won’t be directly associated with the escorts you list. Instead, you will essentially be running a promotion platform. Escorts will pay you for being featured, and what they earn will be theirs to keep.
With a business like this, escorts won’t be working for you. Instead, you’ll be servicing them.
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Step 2: Pick an Offshore Hosting Company
No matter how passionate you are about your upcoming escort business, its website won’t just pop into existence on the internet. You’ll have to build and host it somewhere.
We will cover hosting in this section. For help with building your site, check Step 3.
So, what does a hosting company do? Simply put, they store your website and make sure that it’s always online. Without hosting, no website would exist on the internet.
But not all hosting companies (or even the hosting plans they offer) are the same. For best results, you’ll want to get offshore hosting, meaning that the server storing your website will be at an offshore location.
This will allow your hosting provider to guarantee you full data privacy and host your site where escorting is legal.
Your choice of hosting will also affect your website’s security, load times, and overall performance — and with them, the user experience.
Keep in mind that 53% of mobile users will hit “back” when the page they’re trying to access takes more than three seconds to load. Also, conversion rates drop by 4.42% for every additional second of load time.
Similarly, you won’t want to skimp on security. Around 75% of websites that use a content management system (CMS) employ open-source platforms. WordPress — the market leader with a share of 64.4% — is no exception. And because anyone can access open-source code, platforms that use it are easier to hack than those that don’t.
Vicetemple will help you avoid such risks. Not only are we based in Amsterdam (where escorting is legal), but we also feature:
- Specialized hosting services and themes for adult businesses
- Quick and secure servers with 99.99% uptime
- Built-in privacy protection
Come Up With an Original Domain Name
Your hosting provider will also set you up with a domain name, which will determine your website’s URL (for example, LusciousLadies.com). While you will decide on your domain, keep in mind that you can only select an available one.
As a rule of thumb, you’ll want a snappy domain name like Lust or Eros.com, which will make your site recognizable and easy to remember. Of course, with so many domain names being already taken, this is easier said than done.
If you have an interesting idea in mind, you can check its availability on Vicetemple’s adult domain page. Should it happen to be available — we suggest booking it before someone snatches it right under your nose!
If not, Vicetemple will be more than happy to suggest a great one free of charge. Just drop us a message over live chat, and someone will be with you in no time.
Step 3: Build and Launch Your Website
Creating an escort website has never been easier.
To start with, you will need to decide on how to build your site. Next, you should figure out your brand. With that done, you can have your website built (or build it yourself). Finally, all that’s left is to launch it.
Decide How to Build Your Website
When it comes to creating an escort website, you generally have three options:
- Create it yourself
- Hire a freelancer or an agency to build it for you
- Use an escort website template
Whichever you end up going for, make sure to consider your future brand. That way, you’ll make sure that your business starts off with its own unique personality.
Build Your Own Website
Depending on your skill set, willingness to learn, and available time, this can be a great or terrible option. True enough, most people can’t code, but platforms like WordPress make it easy for anyone to build pretty much any kind of site — given time and the right plugins.
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As you might expect, handling the lion’s share of web development is often too much for most people to swallow. The option is still there, but if you value your time, you’ll probably want to go with another one.
Hire a Professional
Web development experts come in two flavors: freelancers and agencies. The former are cheaper, but the latter will often give you better results.
When hiring a freelancer, you should consider the following:
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On the other hand, the following is often true for agencies:
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Luckily, not all agencies will peel the skin off your back. Vicetemple offers top of the line web development services at an accessible cost.
However, such services are still more expensive than option number three.
Use a Website Template
A ready-to-use template is a great choice for anyone looking to save time and money when launching their escort site.
Templates have the following pros and cons:
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To make sure that you get your money’s worth, check our recommendations in the following section.
Recommended Website Templates
With a handful of differences, escort agencies and directories will require the same features from a template:
- Elegant and intuitive design
- Thorough SEO optimization
- The ability for users to browse, search, and filter escort profiles
- Different member types (clients, escorts, and possibly agencies for directory sites)
- Mobile-responsive design
- Multiple payment methods (including a percentage-based cut system for agencies)
- Different advertising options
- Detailed escort profiles
Some of the better agency-specialized templates on the market include:
For a directory, you’ll want to consider:
Brand Your Upcoming Website
A brand is a company’s personality. Make yours charming, and you’ll have an easy time attracting and keeping clients.
Decide on a Color Palette
Your choice of color scheme can make or break your business. Hiring the most stunning escort in the world won’t be pleasant on a website that’s hard to look at.
Just as importantly, you’ll want your color scheme to invoke an air of sensuality. Clients will be more inclined to book an escort when they’re in the mood.
For basic tips on making colors work, check this guide.
Design a Killer Logo
As the picture that represents your brand, a logo is worth more than a thousand words. You’ll want it simple, recognizable, and easy on the eyes.
In line with the nature of your business, your logo should also be sexy, yet discreet. You won’t want to come off as company that sells sex work. Subtle thirst will work for you — vulgarity, against you.
So, how do you actually get it done? You will need three things:
- Fonts, which are available at 1001 Free Fonts
- Images, which you can get at Free Icons
- A tool for combining and tweaking them such as Canva.
Consider Hiring a Professional
If you’re not confident in your visual skills, getting a designer is often a good idea. This is another decision that you should make based on your budget.
As we explained before, a freelancer could deliver great value, but they might also be a bad investment. An agency will be more reliable, but will often cost more — although Vicetemple will gladly cut you a great deal.
Build Your Website
Once you’ve got your brand down, you can actually build your website, or give your hired professional(s) the green light to do so. If you went for a premade template, you should adapt it to reflect your brand by strategically placing your logo and tweaking the color palette.
Launch Your Website
With your website made and ready, it’s time to put it online. This is a simple matter of hitting the Publish button in your admin console or removing a content lock plugin, if you had one installed.
Step 4: Choose a Location to Target
For a directory, your initial choice of location won’t matter too much. You can always add cities, regions, or countries to your assortment — or remove them.
If you plan to run an agency, though, you will want to pay attention to how sex work-friendly the laws in your targeted location are. If prostitution isn’t allowed, you should keep things more low-key by taking our Tips on Avoiding Legal Pitfalls.
Most of the time, you’ll want to service a big city in a country that either explicitly allows sex work, or is known to turn a blind eye to such services.
Sizable communities are usually better than smaller ones due to the locals often being more tolerant of escorts and more open to hiring them. Unfortunately, you’ll also have to deal with a lot of competition in a big city.
On the flip side, you could start in a smaller town.
While the residents may not be too keen on seeing an escort business move in, a lot of them will become loyal customers, even if they’d hesitate to recommend it to their neighbors. Aside from not having to deal with any competition, you’ll also have access to an untapped local recruitment ground.
Top Five Sex Work-Friendly Countries
Any of these would be a great place to start your upcoming escort agency:
- The Netherlands, where prostitution and escorting are thriving, legitimate businesses
- New Zealand, where sex workers enjoy social benefits
- Denmark, where disabled prostitutes receive financial support
- Belgium, which has state-of-the-art brothels with keycards and fingerprint tech
- Germany, which actually allows and supports streetwalking.
Top Five Cities to Start an Escort Agency in 2022
If a whole country seems like too big of a bite, there’s nothing wrong with starting locally and taking things from there. The following five cities are all exceptional choices for any new escort agency:
- Amsterdam, where sex work is legal, regulated, and fully supported
- Atlanta, Georgia, where prostitution isn’t legal, but the local escort scene is positively drowning in money
- Berlin, for its legal and regulated sex market, as well as overall friendliness to adult businesses
- San Diego, California, another gigantic market where prostitution is illegal, yet escorting services thrive
- Las Vegas, Nevada, which surprisingly doesn’t allow prostitution, but hosts many presitigious and successful escort businesses
Step 5: Optimize for SEO
SEO — or search engine optimization — is how good your website is at communicating its purpose to Google and similar services. If search engines consider the site relevant, they’ll put it on page one or two when people search for related terms.
Otherwise, they’ll bury it under countless similar websites, which won’t be good for anyone. As you might expect, SEO is crucial for getting more clients and unlocking additional recruitment options.
With proper optimization, clients will have an easy time finding your website and your listed escorts, and — you guessed it — sending money your way. In addition, once you start appearing in search results, interested escorts will start coming to you, so you won’t have to spend as much on recruitment.
It’s win-win at its finest.
What’s also neat about SEO is the fact that you can do it yourself. By following the tips below, you can help your site rank with the best of them.
Pointers for Do-It-Yourself SEO
First, you will need the right tools for the job. This means getting a keyword research tool, which will let you find worthwhile terms to target on your site. However, not just any keyword research tool will suffice. Because mainstream tools like Google Adwords and Ubersuggest won’t work with adult words, you will need one that will. We recommend Ahrefs or Moz.
Second, you’ll need to perform keyword research. There are many strategies for doing so, but one is particularly effective: localized keywords. Simply put, focus on keywords that help people find businesses near them. Examples include Paris escorts, book hot girls in West London, exotic massage central Berlin, and the like.
Third, you should apply those keywords to your website. You do this by mapping keywords onto pages and targeting specific terms with each page. To learn more about SEO, you can check the in-depth guide from Ahrefs.
Fourth, you should make sure that your website is mobile responsive. It needs to look good and function properly whether you open it via desktop, laptop, cell phone, or tablet. Luckily, most website templates will be mobile responsive by design. If you’re having an expert build your site, though, make sure that they check its final version for responsiveness.
Fifth, you will need to do some link building by getting respected websites to link to yours. Because link building is a process with many moving parts, we recommend this guide.
Step 6: Recruit Escorts
Running an escort business without escorts is like launching a porn site without content. And if you’re going for an agency, you’ll need the right people for your niche.
Not just anyone will join up as soon as you ask them, though. You’ll need to sweeten the pot, as well as adapt your approach based on whether you’re running an agency or directory.
If you’re recruiting for an agency, offering potential candidates a higher than average percentage (25% to 40% is standard) of what they earn is often a good idea.
With a directory, they’ll be paying you upfront, so you’ll need to figure out a more enticing selling point. Examples include a wider client base, more exposure due to site traffic and SEO, an exceptional website, great security, and so on.
Know Where to Search
Here are some tried-and-true ways for finding escorts:
- Check your local adult establishments and ask around if anyone would be willing to graduate to escorting
- Join adult online forums, post about having openings in your upcoming escort business, and respond to users seeking to join the adult industry
- Look up escort directories like AdultSearch, Euro Girls Escort, Skipthegames, Skokka, and OneBackPage, LoveHub Escorts and reach out to their featured escorts
- Contact an adult ad network and buy ads on popular porn websites, and have the ads say that you’re hiring escorts
- Create a non-explicit page on a popular social media network (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and pin a comment stating that you’re hiring
- Ask around porn conventions and other major adult industry events
- Set up a recruiting page on your website
- Once you have some escorts working for you, ask them if they could bring anyone else on board
Step 7: Promote Your Website
You should start promoting your escort business as soon as your site is online. That being said, not all promotion channels are adult-friendly. Below you’ll find some great ones that are.
Forum Marketing
Aside from being handy recruitment spots, adult forums are great for raising awareness about your platform. You won’t want to start promoting your escort business right after signing up, though.
Take things slow. Join a world-renowned escort forum like SAAFE and others like it. Post relevant and well-researched content and help new users. After a month or two, you can add your website link to your signature.
Even then, you should resist the urge to mention your escort business at every possible opportunity. You’ll want to come off as a helpful community member who happens to run an escort site — not a business owner looking for another way to promote their hustle.
Social Media
While mainstream social media platforms get gigantic amounts of traffic, most will simply ban you for posting any adult content. A handful are a bit laxer with their rules on the matter, though. They can drastically widen your reach, so not using them would be a mistake.
For such a large platform, Twitter has a surprisingly relaxed stance on explicit imagery. This has made them everyone’s mainstream lewd platform of choice after Tumblr started banning adult content.
If pornstars can self-promote and share their videos, you can do the same with your escort platform. Just flag your content as sensitive and have your pinned tweet contain a link to your site.
Telegram
As a rapidly rising alternative to WhatsApp, Telegram is taking the world by storm. With a focus on privacy protection, features such as data encryption and private messaging, and a policy supporting free speech, this messenger has become a favorite among escort businesses across the world.
Agencies and directories use this platform by creating their own groups and channels, where they can post messages to their followers. For an example of an escort business on Telegram, check out Travel Girls Club. Once you get the gist of it, you can create your own group or channel and post your girls there.
Tumblr
Tumblr is no longer the shrine to adult content that it was. However, it can still be a great way to reach people and drive more traffic to your escort website. Play nice, don’t post anything explicit, and you’ll be fine.
As the hottest social network on this list, Instagram can bring you tremendous amounts of traffic. Just keep your posts tasteful and you’ll have a long and fruitful career on the platform.
If you have any doubts, look no further than Pornhub’s Instagram page. They’re playing entirely by the rules without compromising any of their business goals.
Adult-Friendly Sites
These won’t bring in as much traffic as the larger social networks, but the visitors they’ll send your way will often be very interested in what you have to offer. And as we all know, relevant traffic beats general traffic in both length and circumference.
You’ll definitely want to use these three:
- Reddit, or more specifically, its adult subreddits. While Reddit is gigantic, the fact that it’s structured like a forum means that what you post in an adult-focused sub will only be visible there. Still, you won’t want to pass up using it.
- Sharesome, which is not only free, but also explicitly friendly to all kinds of adult content. They’ll let you promote your escort service without worrying about restrictions or bans.
The following sites are smaller in comparison, but there’s no harm in giving them a shot:
Buying Advertisements
In addition to selling ad space as we explained before, you can also buy it to promote your platform. Unfortunately, doing so can get rather pricey. For more bang for your buck, we suggest affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing
Simply put, affiliate marketing includes creating your own ads (such as static images or banners), which your partners (affiliates) will sprinkle all over their websites.
The best part is that you won’t need to pay them just for displaying your ads. Instead, they’ll get commission whenever one of their visitors navigates to your site and makes a purchase.
Most website themes will let you set all of this up easily and almost automatically. If you’re not sure how to do so, we suggest contacting the theme’s developers.
Step 8: Maximize Earnings
While escort businesses are certainly profitable, keeping such an operation going isn’t free. Hosting, marketing, visuals, and more — you’ll have to pay for it all in regular intervals.
The many monetization options that we will cover below will make that easier.
Agencies: Take a Cut on the Escorts’ Earnings
Escort agencies typically keep between 20% and 40% of what their escorts earn. On your platform, you should try and strike a sustainable balance between maintaining your business, having enough for yourself, and keeping your escorts happy.
Speaking of escorts, you’ll need to work out a way to collect your share. You often won’t be able to go with cash, so we suggest a good adult payment processor.
Naturally, you’ll need to clearly state both your cut percentage and collection method in your escorts’ contracts.
Directories: Charge for Escort Listings
Directories normally make money by selling website space. When yours has between 500 and 1,000 regular clients, you can consider additional monetization methods.
For instance, you can charge freelancers and agencies differently, create special tiers for VIP escorts, escorts serving specific fetishes, etc.
Advertising
Once your site starts getting traction, ad revenue will become one of your primary sources of income. You should start looking to monetize via this method once you have between 5,000 and 10,000 visits.
However, you probably won’t be able to use Google Adsense — very few adult websites get that privilege. Therefore, if you want to earn in this manner, you’ll have to either sell traffic to ad networks or directly rent website space to advertisers.
Ad Networks
Ad networks are the pimps of online advertising. They’re the easier of the two options.
You’ll simply need to sign up with them, pick which of their ads you’d like to display, and you’re done. Just make sure that the network you go for has a good number of adult ads to offer.
These arrangements do have a downside, though, as you’ll be giving the network a share of your ad revenue. Still, many online webmasters find them too convenient to pass up.
If you’re interested, check out these:
Selling Ad Space
Alternatively, you can skip ad networks, directly negotiate with advertisers, and trade your convenience for more money. This option would require a lot of work, though, so you probably won’t find it worthwhile early on.
However, once you start generating large amounts of traffic, advertisers will start directly reaching out to you with offers. When that happens, you can knock yourself out and enjoy the extra earnings.
More Tips on Using Ads
No matter which option you pick, you’ll absolutely want to run ads in some way. Let’s say that you’re generating 150,000 impressions.
If your website isn’t monetized, that’s up to $300 in ad network revenue that you’re not getting. And by directly selling to advertisers, you could double that number.
If you can help it, you should apply Google’s best practices for ad placement. In short, don’t overdo them. By featuring too many ads or placing them poorly, you will lower your revenue, and even drive many visitors away.
Step 9: Analyze and Grow
Google Analytics is a great tool for monitoring and improving your website’s performance.
To start, you’ll need to sign up and set up a property — your website’s dedicated space. There, you will be able to see all of its data and performance reports. It’s also important to add your property’s reporting view, so that you can set parameters for filtering your data.
Finally, you will need to add a website tracking code for Google Analytics to connect to your website and collect its data. If you’re using a WordPress-based template, you can easily do that with a plugin.
We recommend:
- Analitify
- ExactMetrics
- MonsterInsights
- WP Google Analytics Events
- Actionable Google Analytics for WooCommerce
Tips on Avoiding Legal Pitfalls
Because directories do not exactly sell escort services, their owners won’t be charged if their listed escorts get caught doing sex work. However, if you’re running an agency, you should definitely follow the advice below to protect your business and yourself.
- Use clever wording. Don’t advertise your escort business as a service that sells sex work. Instead, state that you’re selling intimacy, companionship, romance, or an exclusive girlfriend experience. That way, you’ll be able to service jurisdictions where prostitution is illegal.
- Have a disclaimer. Clearly state that you only provide companionship services. Explain that anything else that may happen — including sex — is purely between consenting adults and neither guaranteed nor compensated. Show this disclaimer on a prominent part of your website, such as the homepage.
- Ask for donations, tips, or voluntary contributions. Don’t refer to the money your clients give you as charges, fees, costs, or rates.
- Go to big cities. Running an escort service in a busy place will help you in two ways. First, you’ll find clients easier. Second, you’ll be able to blend in and hide in plain sight.
- Get a small business license. Not registering your business will make you look suspicious. On the other hand, registering will tell the authorities that you have nothing to hide.
- Pay your taxes. Similarly, trying to save a handful of bucks via tax evasion will get you shut down faster than a spanking porn site in Britain. Think of paying taxes as investing in your business’ long-term safety.
- Learn local regulations. You can do your own research on how to start an escort business in your local area, then run what you find by a specialist lawyer.
Vicetemple Has Your Back
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end!
If you apply that drive to your escort business, there’ll be no stopping you. However, if you ever need a bit of wind in your sails, Vicetemple has your back.
Let’s make a thriving escort business and give people an unforgettable time!
