Our own account, one AI model on Fanvue, the first 8 days of our new AI chatter. It sent 645 paid offers. 64 were bought, by 24 buyers, for $1,865 gross. That's about $29 a sale.
One of those 24 guys paid $1,345. That's about 72% of the money. The other 23 paid about $520 between them.
Small sample, yes. One model, 8 days, one big fan. We're not saying your account will land on 72%. We are saying the shape is normal. When we went through our older chats from before this AI, the money was lopsided the same way: a few guys at the top, plenty of chats at zero. Plan as if your fans are roughly equal and you're planning for an account that doesn't exist.
What the average hides
$29 a sale and 24 buyers sounds like a steady little business. It isn't. There's one man doing most of it and a crowd doing the rest. Any budget or hiring plan built on that average is built on a number nobody actually behaves like.
So read your month twice. Once with your top fan, once without him. With him we made $1,865. Without him the AI still sold about $520. The second number is the one you can lean on.
Four things to plan around
Set your costs on the number without him
Wages, ads, content. Set them so the account works on the smaller number. If your top guy stays, that's profit. If he disappears, you've still got an account that pays its bills.
Treat him leaving as a normal event
He'll change jobs, meet someone, lose interest, go on holiday. Nobody buys at that rate forever. Go through your top fans every week. When did he last write? When did he last buy? If a big spender goes quiet, you want to know in days, not at the end of the month. Our AI writes his follow-ups about things he told her instead of using stock lines, and that's also a good moment for a person to read the chat.
Put your attention where the money is
Most chat teams work the queue. Whoever wrote last gets answered next. We had 24 buyers in those 8 days, and one of them mattered more than the other 23 put together. He shouldn't wait in the same line. In EmpireChat the Chats page has a Whales view with your top spenders and their custom requests, and purchase alerts tell you the moment he buys.
Keep feeding the crowd
Whales don't arrive with a label. Every big spender started as one more guy who hadn't bought much. That $520 from the other 23 is worth having on its own, and the crowd is where your next top fan is sitting right now. If you only work the top of the list, the list dies when he leaves.
The wrong lesson
The wrong lesson from 72% is "push him harder". He's paying because he's enjoying himself. Treat him like a person and he may still be around next month. Treat him like a target and you've had one good week. That's why she backs off when a guy says he's spent enough for today or has real money worries, big spender or not.
What this does to your costs
Lopsided money is also why we like a fee that moves with sales. We charge 10% of the gross of what the AI sells, meaning PPVs and tips the AI earned. Gross is what the fan paid, before the platform's cut. It's 0% on subscriptions and renewals, 0% on sales a human made himself, with no monthly fee and no setup fee. In a month with a whale you pay more because you made more. In a month without one, the bill drops with the sales. A big fixed cost does the opposite. It stays put when your top guy goes.
And if you want a human on your biggest guy, you can have one. There's a switch per fan. Turn the AI off for him, run that chat yourself and leave it on for everyone else.