There is one product page, a few thumbnails, and a price on a single line: 1,280 yen. Press the checkout button and that one video enters your library, with no extra charge at month’s end. There is no ongoing relationship; the transaction is complete in a single exchange.

Tanpatsu-uri (Japanese: 単発販売, “single-shot sale”) is the umbrella term for the distribution model in which sexual content such as video, photo sets, and audio is sold for a one-time purchase. As the counter-concept to paid membership and monthly sales, it has formed the core of indie erotic and doujin distribution. Abroad it is called PPV (pay per view).

Lineage

The idea itself follows the classic “buy once, own it” model of books, records, and DVDs. In the adult field it is the basic form long continued through bini-bon, adult magazines, and AV package sales (VHS, DVD). The move to internet sales came from the late 1990s into the 2000s. After mail-order DVD sales of studio works, the 2010s brought downloadable video distribution (FANZA, formerly DMM, and DUGA). On the doujin side, FANZA Doujin began selling doujin software in the late 1990s, and DLsite, founded in 1996, supported the same single-item sales. In individual erotic sales, platforms such as Gcolle and BOOTH were built up in the 2010s as bases for selling video and photo sets by the unit.

Contrast with monthly membership

Single purchase and monthly membership carry different interests for buyer and seller. For the buyer, single purchase suits buying just one favourite work or buying a little from several creators; a 1,200-yen video once a week runs about 4,800 yen a month, but chosen flexibly to taste. Unlike a membership’s time-limited access, purchased content stays viewable semi-permanently (as long as the platform lasts). For the seller, single purchase ties revenue directly to a new work’s quality; stable income is harder to predict, but a hit brings large short-term income, and there is no obligation of continuous updates, making shooting cycles easier to keep irregular. In practice many individual creators and circles use both, building stable income through membership while adding spot revenue from single sales at each new release.

Main platforms

FANZA Doujin is a major platform selling doujin games, doujin audio, live-action individual works, and digital comics by the unit; run since the late 1990s, it expanded live-action individual-work listings from the 2010s. DLsite, founded 1996, centres on doujin games, audio, and comics, with limited live-action but a central role for doujin audio, ASMR, and script works. Gcolle specialises in live-action individual works (mainly couple and individual filming), with individual sellers and small circles as the main listers. BOOTH, run by pixiv, handles doujinshi, costumes, and audio, and permits sexual content. Monthly-membership platforms increasingly embed single-sale functions, as with OnlyFans’s PPV, which sells limited video for an extra charge even to members.

Pricing and revenue share

Single-sale prices for live-action individual works range from about 200 to 5,000 yen, centred on 1,000 to 2,000 yen, roughly on par with the ~1,500 yen of a commercial AV stream, though the production scale, length, and editing polish are smaller for individual works; buyers accept the difference as the price of “real material.” Platform fees vary: about 40 to 50 percent at FANZA Doujin, about 30 percent at DLsite, about 20 to 30 percent at Gcolle, and about 20 percent for myfans single posts. With no agency fee deducted, the seller’s net rate tends to run relatively higher than a commercial AV appearance fee per unit.

See also

• Monthly sales
• Paid membership
• DLsite
• Individual erotic sales
• Erotic creator economy
• myfans