It’s by far the most common question I get asked: “How much do strippers make?” There’s a lot of curiosity about other parts of the job, for sure, and my hands-down favorite is when people ask me some version of “how can you DO that??”
What’s in this post??
1 – The honest TRUTH about stripper incomes.
2 – How exactly strippers make the big bucks.
3 – Secret weapon “strip from home” method.
It’s basically wondering about all the supposed horrible emotional consequences of dancing for a living, to which I say….get the fuck off your high horse. But the much more usual, and more reasonable question is about cold hard cash.
Plenty of answers get thrown around, but I’m gonna tell you how it really is, and honestly I think the truth will probably shock you after all the bullshit.
Of course, it’s no secret that strippers make money by seducing men, and towards the end of this post, I want to get into a more advanced way of doing that which can make you even more money than a good stripper can hope to see.
The Raw Truth About Stripping Money
The first thing you need to understand about how much money strippers make, which very few people DO understand, is that stripping is one of those weird, rare jobs where it’s entirely possible to lose money for putting in a full day’s work. The other example I can think of is waiting tables in restaurants, for the same reason I’m about to explain.
First of all, as a stripper, you will usually have to pay a “house fee” to the club just for the privilege of dancing there, and that can be painful. What’s absolutely AGONIZING, though, is the God-forsaken “tipping out” phenomenon. Yep, we do that.
If you haven’t heard of this messed-up shit, tipping out is when you have to take a portion of your own money and give it to some of the other people who work where you do. Like I said, waiters do this all the time; they’re expected to share some of their tip money with the busboys, the food runners, and a few others. Strippers have it even worse.
I have to tip out the VIP hosts, the cashier, the DJ, the manager, the bouncers…fuck, I’m pretty sure the list of club employees I DON’T tip out at one time or another would be shorter. True, someone like the VIP host only gets tipped out when I actually take a customer into the VIP room, so I’m definitely making something there, but most of the others expect to see a little something no matter what.
If I have a very bad night and don’t make enough to cover them, it comes out of my own pocket. And don’t even THINK of stiffing these people. Technically it’s illegal for any club to force me to tip out, but everyone knows the rules. If I don’t take care of them, they won’t take care of me, and that’s the beginning of the end of my days at that club. So yeah, I can definitely end up in the negatives after any given shift.
Fortunately, most nights aren’t like that, and as it turns out, there’s a reason that the words “stripper money” are understood to mean either thick wads of $1 bills…or big pay. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not reliable; you never know WHAT you’re walking out of that club with. But when it goes well, it can be pretty sweet.
Overall, the biggest factor in how much money strippers make is when they work. Your pay is your tips and your tips come from your customers, so you want to be there when the most loaded and most generous customers show up.
Usually, that’s Friday and Saturday night. The club will be FULL of people then, and most of those will be packs of young guys out for a fun night on the town, not middle-aged tightwads stopping off for a quick beer after work. Then comes the hard part: For the stripper money to really start flowing, you have to know how to interact with the customers.
How Strippers Make The REAL Money
Now, I admit, I used to make one of the biggest possible rookie mistakes all the time when I was starting, and that’s thinking that stripping is just about taking your clothes off while you’re dancing. Shake the ladies and the moneymaker, and those tips will come pouring in all by themselves, am I right??
No, no, and no! This job is about TALKING to the guys who come to the club. You listen to them tell you about their lives, you tell them exaggerated and made-up stories about your own life, and you either find real common ground with them or simply pretend to be interested in something they’re interested in, and have conversations about that.
Strippers can make great money one night, then make peanuts the next. The best way to keep your income somewhat stable is to schmooze with customers and make them “regulars.”
And you do it ALL while smiling, giggling, gently touching their arms or face, and sending all the little signals that tell a man he’s with a woman who thinks he’s hot. This is how lap dances and VIP room visits are born, and without them, the only stripper money you’re going to be seeing is the first kind: $1 bills, crumpled up and thrown at you onstage, and that ain’t cutting it!
When you check all these boxes, though, the question of how much strippers make can become one you’re eager to answer. I’ve already said that a bad night can leave you at less than zero, in negative territory. But when you have a GOOD night, the sky’s the limit. I’ve personally pulled in nearly $2,000 after one busy Saturday night when I had the right customers, and I was TREATING them right. I know other girls who’ve done even better.
The Stripping at Home Trick
More recently, though, I’ve found an even BETTER way to monetize seducing men that totally changes the answer to “how much money do strippers make?” I still strip, because in the end, nothing beats the thrill of counting my tips after a great haul, but my new method is SO easy and fun that I can’t resist rolling it in.
I can also do it at just about any time I want, while working the day shift at a strip club will leave you broke before long. I’m talking about camming, and it’s AWESOME.
If you didn’t know, camming is just sitting on your ass at home and performing in front of your webcam. I’m not even kidding, that’s basically it. You sign up with a cam site online where men go to watch camgirls, and once you’ve got your model account, you can broadcast whenever and for as long as you want.
Like a stripper, you work for tips, and you share a percentage of that income with the site that’s hosting you (which is the ONLY money they take from you; there’s no “house fee” like strip clubs have).
Camming is all about going online day in, and day out. Broadcast at the same time of day, every day, so that fans will be able to consistently find you and tip you.
It takes a couple of weeks to get going, and I’ll admit I had some days right at the very beginning when I didn’t make anything. But once the money started rolling in, holy shit, was I glad I stuck with it! This camming stuff really is a secret weapon for strippers, since the skills needed to do well at it are basically the same: friendliness, seduction, sexy attitude. It’s amazing how just acting like a stripper makes you a good cam girl!
Of all the cam sites I’ve come across, I recommend Chaturbate for anyone looking to get started in the industry. It’s huge, so it has a LOT of traffic, which means plenty of potential tippers. It’s also easy to use, and pretty reasonable in how it treats its cam models. I give it pretty high marks.
Click Here to Signup With Chaturbate as a Webcam Model
So, how much money do strippers make? In the end, it depends on whether they’re also working as cam girls!