How Much is the Porn Industry Worth?

It is difficult to equate how much the porn industry is worth.  With both free and paid premium porn sites available to consumers, the porn industry generates revenue both through subscription fees (pay sites) and online advertising (free sites like PornHub).  It is estimated that 1/3 of all internet searches are for pornography.  This number is expected to grow as the internet reaches more and more households and expands its global reach.

According to a 2019 article posted by The Guardian “Current revenue estimates for the US range from $9bn to $97bn a year. The latter figure looks excessive, but a conservative estimate is $15bn. That makes it bigger than not only Netflix ($11.7bn) but also Hollywood as a whole ($11.1bn) and Viacom ($13.3bn). In other words, online porn is huge.”

Almost all of the porn companies that have become prominent are not publicly traded.  This makes coming up with an exact figure of worth for the porn industry next to impossible.