Saw some really good stuff posted above, thought I'd share this. Back in late 2013, we were really trying to understand the market of both hobbyists and providers. Even though a few years has passed, still seems pretty close to the actual experience by many posters here.
Posted 03/2014
Estimating The U.S. Market Size
To properly estimate the potential market size in the Phoenix area, we have to first understand the National market.
There is a U.S. population of 308 million people.
147.6 million of them are adult men over age 18.
- unemployement rate of 8.8%
= 134.6 million, employed, adult men in the U.S.
Between 15% and 20% of men have retained an adult companion once in their lifetime.
http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004119#United Thus, between 20.5 to 29.5 million men have seen an escort once in their life.
NOTE: Most men under-report as they view an affirmative answer as socially unacceptable. Many other studies suggest the percentage to be much greater. Distributing these percentages evenly across the average lifespan of 60 years yields between 341,666 to 492,000 active clients annually which doesn't come even close to the second study below. (When extrapolated down to the local market, it would suggest an average of just 11 appointments per year, per provider - which we know is terribly understated.
Another study estimates total US clients to number between 700k and 1 million men annually (with an average of 2.3 visits per year).
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/04/14/Prostitution-and-the-Escort-Economy NOTE: This study is heavily skewed to represent ONLY escorts and or clients in the $500+ per hour range. Again, extrapolating out their estimates of market size, the study errantly would suggest there were a mere average of 1.89 appointments per provider, per month. However, we think there may be some merit in the "average" of 2.3 visits annually since it may better accurately account for those who are far less active.
We suspect the more realistic number of active clients to be somewhat more than the 700k-1mm in the second study, and potentially less than the 20-29 million suggested in the first study.
To error in the conservative, we chose to estimate just 10%* of American adult males that are employed, or about 13.5 million and we will NOT use the multiplier of 2.3 visits, to offset any over estimates accidentally made in this calculation.
* NOTE: There was another study that cited 1 in 10 men globally see an escort, in support of our above conclusions.
http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/stats-on-prostitution/ The Phoenix Market
There are 4,192,000 people who call the greater Phoenix area their home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale,_AZ_MSA This represents 1.36% of the US Population.
Thus 1.36% of the 13.5 million, employed, adult, hobbyist men in the U.S. = 183,600 "Phoenix hobbyist sessions" - since we are combining individuals with sessions to be more conservative. (However, applying a 2.3 average annual session frequency to 183,600 would = 79,826 individuals).
If one were to look at the total combined membership & review volume of the local boards (or of 1.37% of the major nationals) this number appears to be well within reason.
According to another study, it revealed a ratio of 23 providers per population of 100,000 people. This means that Greater Phoenix would have about 964 providers - a number that frankly, in all our market research, has never come close. But, again, we will use it to be conservative - resulting in understated estimates.
http://prostitution.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000095 This means that (on average) there is a minimum annual opportunity of 190 sessions provided per year, per provider, or 15.9 sessions per month, or 3.66 sessions per week.
Thus, if a provider delivered 190 sessions at $200 per session, her annual income would be $38,000.
This is an estimated average. According to all our marketing research, we've never been able to accumulate more than 400 provider contacts at any given moment (full and part-time). This reveals that a significant portion of the provider market is providing on a very part-time and perhaps even a casual basis causing the weighted average to dip severely.
When weighting the figures accordingly, most full-time providers should be earning at least $50,000 annually.
This is much more in line with our own experience as a specialty niche provider and our exposure to other providers that we know and have mentored.
Under our new weighted average estimate, the baseline for full-time providers would have at least 250 sessions annually, or about 21 sessions per month or about 5 sessions a week for an annual income of $50,000.