That's not exactly correct... Depending on the agency and/or the particular pornstar, they may cover all or only part of her expenses.  A big name girl who the agency knows is going to do a lot of business is much more likely have her expenses covered completely, but those expenses only include airfare and hotel.  Meals, taxi rides, even condoms are usually at the girl's own expense; and since she's "on call" almost all day long she's forced to eat a lot of expensive room service food.

A 50% agency cut is also on the high side; for a one or two hour date, it's usually 40% maximum.  And some agencies have a flat fee rather than a percentage.  A good way to tell is to look at different agencies booking the same pornstar.  The rates vary widely:  Belive me, it doesn't matter if the lady is touring with E2k, Body Miracle or Sophie's... she pretty much tells them what she wants as her end.  The difference in her agency rate is the difference in what the particular agency tacks on as their cut.  If you use the 40% figure as the highest mark-up and work backwards, you can pretty much figure out what the girl's base is, then you can figure out what the other agency's are grossing on a booking.

And while we're on the subject, I know a lot of guys complain about that agency mark-up, but if you analyze it, you'll see that they're not gouging their clients as much as you may think.  They pay all or part of the airfare, all or part of the hotel, they advertise her on Eros and USA-Erotics at about $150 per ad per city, they pay their phone girls plus give them a commission on each booking, and in some cases they have to kick back a percentage of THEIR end to the girl's agent.  A girl who has a poor tour can actually lose money for the agency, and that cuts into the profit made by the girls who do well.  That's why you seldom see a pornstar touring  marginal cities.

Let's look at the numbers... putting aside NYC, which is the most profitable touring city, let's use a figure of $600 round trip from LA to Philly - Sometimes there are airfare deals out there, but they usually entail booking well in advance, and it's not often easy to pin down a committment from a pornstar, so I think $600 is a reasonable average.  Even with corportate discounts, you can't get a decent hotel in town for much less than $100 per night, and many of the girls have specific hotels that they'll only stay at - and they're not normally the cheap ones!  So for a three night four day tour which includes arriving on the first day and leaving on the fourth (which limits their availability for those two days), that's $600 for airfare and a minimum of $300 for the hotel.  $150 each to advertise on Philly-Eros and Exotics-Phily is around $300 for a total of $1200.  If the girl arrives a day before her bookings start and/or leaves the day after they end, that's one or two extra room charges that are a pure expense, but let's ignore that for the sake of this example.  Let's say the girl's base rate is $1000 and the agency charges $1350 (these are legitimate and common figures).  That means the agency makes $350 per booking, but out of that they have to pay a $50 commission to the phone girl.  So the agency doesn't break even until the 5th appointment, and that's not counting their other costs such as the phone girl's hourly rate, office rent, their phone bills, etc.  So if the lady averages three guys a day for the three days, the agency's gross profit (after subtracting the phone girl's commission) is $1500 before overhead.  If they're only partially paying her expenses, that figure will be higher, but only by about $300 to $500.  And other than NYC, it's very common for a lady to sit on her ass for an entire day without seeing anyone, so then the figure is often less.

I'm NOT saying not to try to book direct; obviously we all want to do that whenever possible.  And I'm also not trying to be an apologist or shill for the agencies, although I'll probably be accused of it... I'm simply pointing out that they're businesses with overhead, something that we seem to overlook when we bandy about those 40 to 50 percent figures.  The net profits can be and often are substantially lower than the gross.    

-- Modified on 6/5/2004 6:27:33 PM

-- Modified on 6/5/2004 6:29:02 PM