Selling photos of your feet: is it really that simple and profitable?

“I make 30,000 euros ($33,000) a month selling pictures of my feet.” A girl said this in a video that went viral on TikTok just a few weeks ago. A quick Google search on the topic will yield millions of results and headlines: “I sell photos of feet, it’s easy, and I receive many strange requests” or “The business of selling photos of feet that sweeps the Internet.” However, only a few articles try to make sense of this business model. Earning thousands of euros a month selling pictures of feet sounds like a new urban legend.

Selling photos or videos of feet has become a new trend on social media. There are even pages specialized in it that put sellers and buyers in contact with each other. Normally, the roles are very gendered: women sell the pictures and men buy them. The latter are usually people with a fetish for this part of the body, i.e. there is a sexual objective, which is to get aroused by these images. On the other hand, anyone can take pictures of their feet and offer them for sale. Besides, at the end of the day they are just feet — it is not as intimate as other parts of the body, and it is possible to appear in the image without showing your face. The trend has become easy bait for young (and not so young) women who see it as a way to earn income. But is it that simple and profitable?

Jaime has been a regular buyer of this type of photos for some time. In a month he can spend around 120 euros ($133) on it. The most he has ever paid at one time was 340 euros ($377) for six photos of a celebrity. In his opinion, for a woman to be able to earn thousands of euros a month selling pictures of her feet she has to have worked very hard before, building a following on social media. “For someone just starting out, it’s difficult,” he assures.

If you take a look at a specialized website such as FeetFinder, the prices per photo range between 5 and 40 euros ($5 to $44). Jaime confirms these figures: “It usually ranges between 10 and 30 euros ($11 to $33) per image if they are not models and between 20 and 45 ($22 and $49) if they are. Some women with a small following on Twitter and Instagram can charge 10 euros for an image of just the soles or just the toes.” With that base price you would have to sell 100 photos to get €1,000 ($1,110) and 3,000 photos for €30,000 ($33,000).

However, not all photos are priced equally. Jaime gives a first clue to increase the price: to have a substantial following. Carlos is a foot fetishist and agrees with his colleague on the importance of dedication. “It’s not enough to upload a couple of photos and charge for them. You have to promote yourself on social media: upload photos, videos, stories, reels... to draw the attention of those of us who enjoy this fetish.” He also adds another factor: innovation. “Uploading regular content is not enough in my opinion, you have to add a touch of innovation,” he reflects. “If someone posts content in different places, with different angles, showing the different parts of the foot, performing role-playing games, for example, I think it can do very well.”

Here too there are different tastes. There are people who prefer feet with a high arch, flat, with long toes, more fleshy, with ballerina slippers, stepping on fruit, among many other possibilities. You could say that every foot has its audience, you just have to find it. “I like to see photos of the soles and toes, as well as the face. That’s why I ask that the photo be taken in front of a mirror. I’m not interested in buying photos without a face,” Jaime comments. “Because the person shows his or her face and breaks anonymity, some refuse. And those who agree ask for more money,” he says. The price can also increase if the model wears underwear, if she shows herself in certain poses or if she complies with some specific request. “I’ve seen some models charge around 90 euros ($99) for a short video of them simulating a footjob [masturbation done with the feet] on a dildo.” Therefore, the more specific the photo is and the more requirements it fulfills, the more money you can ask for.

There is another factor that must be taken into account: competition. On the one hand, you can find millions of free photos and videos of feet on the net. On the other hand, the more people decide to sell their images, the harder it is to find a buyer and the more likely the price will drop. It is simply the law of supply and demand.

Foot fetishism, the erotic taste behind the business

Thanks to today’s more open vision of sexuality, other forms of enjoyment have become visible. Fetishism, that is, feeling erotic attraction to a specific object or part of the body, is one of them. And the taste for feet is the most popular of all, as confirmed by the study Relative prevalence of different fetishes published in February 2007.

Even so, there are a few myths about this erotic taste. One of them describes fetishists as peculiar people with a certain obsession for that part of the body. Some of that definitely underlies the boom of this business. This is what Carlos says when talking about the need to innovate in the material: “It’s about changing the somewhat superficial approach that fetishists only like to see feet and that’s it.”

Certainly, that naive idea that anyone can make a lot of money selling pictures of their feet is a simplification of fetishism. Under that false premise, fetishistic people dive headlong at any foot stimulus and are willing to pay for anything. This is not the case. In general, they are people with criteria and tastes who value more than just feet. They value, like everyone else, the whole person, only that, in addition, they focus on the lower part of the body.

In short, there is demand, there is supply and there can be business, but without falling into simplicity or easy money.