Adult tube websites: the secrets of making money from free content

Searching for free porn online, you will certainly come across adult tube websites. They work similar to YouTube, but instead of funny cats and music videos their content is adult related. Tube websites are posing notable competition for paysites and traditional magazine and DVD-based pornography. How do their owners manage to make free porn surfers happy – and earn money? Read more to find the answer. 

What are tube websites?

The past few years have seen an explosion of adult tube sites - Youporn.com, YouSex.com, AdultMovieTubes.com, Pornhub.com, Xtube.com, Tube8.com, Megarotic.com, Xvideos.com, RedTube.com, and many many others. 

As the name suggests, they let surfers upload and watch a large selection of sex videos for free. The clips on tube websites - like those on YouTube - range from the amateur videos to the professional material. 

Tube sites are commonly regarded as the second generation of porn sites (Porn 2.0) because they engage typically passive surfers to take part in the production and sharing of their home-made amateur videos. So they move away from the traditional relationship between producers and consumers of Internet pornography.

Besides free content, tube websites offer a lot of additional benefits. For example, you can enjoy easy and user-friendly navigation, a great choice of videos from different niches collected at one place and the opportunity to watch clips with just a few clicks of the mouse. 

Building a tube website 

Following "if you can't beat them - join them" mentality, more and more adult webmasters create their own tube websites to generate and monetize traffic. One of the things for consideration is content. Daily updates and fat archives are more important than ever to get surfers interested in the website.

Some webmasters are buying/producing the videos, some allow users to upload their own home-made clips, some submit short clips from sponsors and then place an affiliate link to their website. There are also illegal tube sites that steal quality content from paysites. 

Another actual problem for any tube owner is bandwidth. Get ready to handle the incredible volume of bandwidth this project would generate. For example, it is estimated that YouPorn consumes more than three terabytes of bandwidth each day, which has caused the website to go down at times due to the sheer volume of users and the large size of the videos. 

So tube sites are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the more users you will get, the more money you can receive. On the other hand, it will cause you additional expenses. You need to have enough funds to maintain and promote your tube website until it brings enough money to cover all losses.  

How do tube owners make money? 

Everything that generates a lot of traffic might be used for making money. If you want to earn a living with a tube website, there are three distinct revenue streams: 

• Advertising. This category includes banners, text links, live cam advertisements, paysite buttons, etc. that you can see on any tube website. A lot of website owners also upload 3-5 minutes clips or low-resolution videos from sponsors and then place an affiliate link to the lengthy quality video on the paysite. They think that anyone who really likes good porn will be willing to pay for the high resolution version. This strategy works because there is a large difference in quality. 

• Premium content subscription. In addition to free access to user-generated or sponsor content, some tube websites also offer surfers premium access to a large collection of high quality videos and DVDs. The average price is $30 per month. Usually, you can also take advantage of $1 trial. Trying to entice visitors to sign up, some website owners limit the number of free videos they can watch per 24 hours. 

• Additional services. Some tube websites offer their own additional services to monetize the traffic, for example live cam chats, toy stores or adult dating services. In this case a tube site serves as an excellent promotional tool to attract millions of visitors every day (who doesn’t love free stuff?). 

Keep in mind that just as with YouTube, adult tube sites have far more traffic than income. The reason is simple: they attract visitors who don’t want to spend money. So even if the videos are viewed 1 million times every day, it can result into just a couple of signups per month.

The big players

The best way to learn how to build a good tube website is to examine the successful projects of other webmasters. Here are five big players of the industry:  

• Youporn.com. YouPorn is the largest and most popular adult tube website on the Internet. It provides a platform for uploading, sharing, and viewing various types of adult content - quality pornographic movies, amateur sex videos and advertising clips for paysites. Visitors can rate the videos on a scale of 1 through 5. YouPorn is ad-supported. It also operates a store, chatroom, sexblogs, dating service and webcam chat.

• PornoTube.com. PornoTube is one of the highest-traffic adult websites. It provides adult audio, video, and photos for free. The site offers self-shot amateur videos, clips from paysites, and scenes of regular porn movies in the straight, gay and lesbian category. There is also a webcam service, toy store and video on demand theater. PornTube is an ad-supported website. 

• Pornhub.com. Pornhub is a popular video hosting and streaming website for adults. It offers porn videos, downloadable DVDs, photo albums, and free sex community. There are about 9 million visitors each day. The website's uploaded videos range from amateur clips to professional material generated for various types of sex. You can choose among three types of access – free for non-members, free for members and premium ($29.95 per month). 

• Redtube.com. Redtube is an adult tube website which provides free streaming video for porn surfers as well as live cam and dating services. There are two types of access – free and premium. For $29.95 per month, you can download over 3000 DVDs to your computer or mobile phone. 


• Xtube.com. Xtube offers surfers free adult videos in several categories: most viewed, best rated, featured, most discussed, top length, top favorites and random. You can also upload and share your personal photos and videos, participate in the adult community, alter sex Wiki and use a lot of other free and paid services. 

Critics of tube websites

Industry specialists notice that tube sites significantly devaluate the adult content. Paysite owners lose sales because of the volume of free product available online. If the consumers have the ability to watch high quality videos for free, why should they pay other adult website owners for the same or similar content?

There are also concerns that it is not possible to verify the age of the persons depicted in the user-generated videos, check that sex tapes are uploaded with the consent of all involved parties, and avoid using stolen content.

However, no matter how many tube websites will appear down the road, there is always going to be a place for professional actors and professional websites. They can become a niche product, but as with any other niche, there will be people interested in it.