Payment processors and adult games: what each platform allows

Why the rules come from payment companies

Most platforms do not write their adult rules on their own. They copy what their payment partners demand. Here is where those rules come from:

• Card networks. Mastercard's rule 5.12.7 bars transactions that could "damage the goodwill" of the brand. It names nonconsensual sexual content, among other things.
• Stripe prohibits "pornography and other mature audience content" designed for sexual gratification, and that includes AI-generated content.
• PayPal requires pre-approval for adult content delivered digitally.
• Patreon says its payment partners, like Mastercard and Visa, require ID and age verification for adult creators and written consent from any real people shown.

This is why rules can change overnight, and why two platforms can land on almost the same list of banned themes.

What happened in 2025

• 16 July 2025: Steam added a rule against content that may break the standards of "Steam's payment processors and related card networks and banks", naming "certain kinds of adult only content". Valve said it was retiring those games from sale because losing payment methods would stop customers from buying anything else on Steam. It gave affected developers app credits for future games.
• 24 July 2025: itch.io deindexed all adult NSFW content from browse and search, citing pressure from payment processors.
• 31 July 2025: itch.io began reindexing free adult content and said paid content would come back "slowly". Stripe told itch.io it could not support content designed for sexual gratification because of its banking partners.
• August 2025: Mastercard said it had not evaluated any game or required any restrictions. Valve replied that Mastercard had passed its concerns to payment processors and their banks, who then passed them to Valve.

Where each platform stands (as of 26 September 2026)

Patreon

• Allowed: sexual content with non-real subjects (animated, illustrated, written or audio) on pages categorized Adult/18+.
• Not allowed: sexualized incest in any work, consensual non-consent, bestiality, and anything sexualizing minors. Since March 2026 the rules also require animated adult content to show unmistakably adult subjects.
• Public spaces: explicit material must stay behind the paywall. Profile images, banners, tier descriptions, free posts and shop previews must have no nudity.
• Limits: Patreon Video is not available to Adult/18+ creators. Its help page lists web and Android payments for adult pages.
• Fees: pages published after 4 August 2025 pay a 10% platform fee plus processing, for example 2.9% + $0.30 on USD card payments.

SubscribeStar

• Where: a separate adult site at subscribestar.adult, which showed the name SubscribeStar.art when we checked.
• Allowed: fictional and digitally created content only. Content where real people are the main subject is not allowed, and all content is pre-screened.
• Not allowed: incest between close family members, rape and non-consent (including consent removed by hypnosis, drugs or blackmail), underage or underage-looking characters, sexualized gore, and bestiality. The ban applies to fictional and animated work as well.
• History: this wording appeared on 11 March 2026. The next day SubscribeStar told press the update was "overly ambiguous and poorly formulated" and would be reverted. On 26 September 2026 the published page still carried the 11 March 2026 wording.
• Fees: the adult site's pricing page lists a 10% service fee plus processing of 3% + $0.30 to 10% + $0.40. Its homepage calculator showed 8.0% + $0.40.

Ko-fi

• Allowed: lightly sensual, non-explicit work, and only with the NSFW tag.
• Not allowed: pornography, sex acts, and sexualized nudity offered as a product, whether real or fictional. Its NSFW article also bans the "development or streaming of pornographic/explicit erotic/sex simulator games". Rape, incest and bestiality are banned too.
• Links count: Ko-fi's rules cover what you link to. It may ask you to remove links to sexually explicit content elsewhere.
• Payments: money goes straight into your own PayPal or Stripe account, so those companies' rules also apply to you.

itch.io

• Allowed: fictional, illustrated and rendered adult content that is legal and correctly labeled.
• Not allowed: sexualized images of real people, photoreal AI imagery of real people, content glorifying sexual violence, and minors or minor-presenting characters in a sexual context.
• Paid games: itch.io lists themes it cannot support for sale because of card networks: non-consent, "barely legal" themes, incest or pseudo-incest, bestiality, coercion, sex trafficking, voyeur content and extreme fetish content.
• Status: free adult games are back in search. The last official word on paid adult content is still the 31 July 2025 post, and we found no newer announcement on the developer updates board as of September 2026. Even so, the paid NSFW browse page listed 709 paid games on 26 September 2026, some of them sexual, so some paid adult pages are selling again. Check which payment methods your own page can offer.
• Get it wrong and: violations end in permanent action, and funds on the account are not paid out.

Steam

• The rule: as of September 2026, Steam's onboarding rules still ban content that may break payment processor standards, "in particular, certain kinds of adult only content".
• Review: games that mark "Adult Only Sexual Content" have their store page and build reviewed together, which can take longer than 3 to 5 business days.
• AI: Steam will not ship games with live-generated AI adult sexual content "at this time".
• Labels: adult content must be labeled and age-gated, and nude or sexually explicit images of real people are not allowed.

DLsite

• Payments: DLsite kept its adult catalog, and in April 2024 Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments were suspended there. As of December 2025, JCB was the only card brand it supported. Its operator, viviON, has since added its own payment options, including a JCB card usable from January 2026.
• What it means for you: DLsite still sells adult games, but Western buyers without a JCB card have fewer ways to pay.

Banned almost everywhere

Rules differ at the edges, but these themes are banned or can't be sold on almost every platform above. Most ban them even in fictional or drawn work:

• Minors, or characters who look underage, in a sexual context
• Incest (itch.io also names "pseudo-incest")
• Non-consent, including hypnosis, drugs or coercion
• Bestiality
• Sexual content with real people (banned on itch.io and SubscribeStar.adult, consent paperwork required on Patreon)

If your game leans on any of these, expect trouble with paid distribution anywhere that takes Visa or Mastercard.

Payout methods and minimums

• Patreon: PayPal ($10 minimum, 1% fee capped at $20), Payoneer for non-US creators ($25 minimum), bank transfer for non-US creators, and direct deposit for US creators ($0.25 per payout).
• SubscribeStar: bank transfer and other methods that depend on your country. You need USD 150 on balance, or USD 30 for some US creators. The platform keeps a rolling reserve.
• itch.io: "Direct to you" sends each sale to your own PayPal or Stripe account. "Collected by itch.io" pays out by PayPal or Payoneer, with a $5 minimum and a 7-day wait after each purchase.
• Steam: monthly payment by bank transfer once you pass $100, by ACH in the US and USD SWIFT wire elsewhere.
• DLsite: non-residents are paid by SWIFT bank transfer, and anything under 30,000 yen rolls over to the next month. Japanese withholding tax is deducted first, so ask a tax adviser how it affects you.

Check the current policy

Every rule on this page was checked on 26 September 2026. Adult policies at Patreon, SubscribeStar and itch.io all changed at least once between July 2025 and March 2026, sometimes with no warning. Before you launch a page, price a game or move your community, open the current policy pages linked in the sources and read them yourself. This page is a map, not legal advice.

A safe base for the free build

When itch.io brought adult games back in July 2025, it started with free ones: pages had to pick the "no payments" option. A free build is the easiest part of your game to keep online. naughty.games hosts free browser builds at no cost, is non-exclusive and takes no revenue share. You keep 100% of what your Patreon, SubscribeStar, Ko-fi, Steam or itch.io links earn. You can submit your game, or read how to make money from your adult game for the wider plan.