Even The Sugar Daddies Are Feeling The Squeeze

It was 9 p.m. in San Francisco, and Jackson, a 29-year-old tennis coach, was scrolling through Chinese takeout on Grubhub. Just as he was about to click “order,” a text came in: Daddy, can you send me money to get my nails done? He sent about $100, closed the app, and went to bed hungry. “In that moment, I decided not to eat,” he says. “I only have so much cash.”

Jackson had never planned on becoming a sugar daddy. Until one day earlier this year, when a female friend texted him a picture of herself trying on dresses in a store and asked which one to get. “I said, ‘Oh, I’ll buy you whichever one you want,’” he recalls. She didn’t believe him — until her phone lit up with the Venmo “ka-ching.” Soon their conversations turned steamy. “The first time, it was extraordinarily hot,” says Jackson, who, like the others interviewed for this story, spoke to me on the condition of using a pseudonym. “There was something about her excitement and responsiveness. I found myself eager to give more and to get more. It was evident to me that capitalism has created such dire conditions that the power of money was sexual in nature.”

From there, he fostered multiple sugar relationships, sometimes seeing as many as four women at once. Compared to the time-intensive hassle of modern dating, it was an efficient way to get his needs met. “I’m ultimately this successful because I work 10 to 14 hours a day,” he says. “I’m saving time by just being able to be like, I need you to send me a picture of your butt. And then when I want your emotional support, we can schedule a time to talk.”

But soon, his income took a hit. Amid layoffs, industry slowdowns, and a tense economic backdrop, tennis clients started to tell him they couldn’t afford his coaching anymore. Meanwhile, requests from his sugar babies kept adding up: nails, shoes, flights, $3,000 Ariana Grande tickets. He describes the dynamic as “unethical nonmonogamy” — not because they wanted sexual exclusivity, but because he often felt forced to choose between whom to send money to. Too tired to cook on account of his long hours, he started skipping his frequent DoorDash habit to keep up. “I was like, ‘Why am I starving myself for this?’” he says. “Sex is important in my life, but it shouldn’t take precedence over me eating.”

“It’s embarrassing to talk about. Yeah, I want the G6 lifestyle, but I can afford Delta Economy Class.”

When we hear the term “sugar daddy,” the collective imagination conjures images of penthouses, caviar, and private jets. But in 2025, many are actually men like Jackson: mid-career professionals with some disposable income, but not so much that money is no object. And between inflation, skyrocketing rents, and a seemingly perpetually looming recession, even men who once seemed financially secure have had to cut back.

Morgan, a mid-20s escort and former sugar baby, says she’s seen a shift in what clients expect. “They want the full girlfriend experience, but for less,” she tells me, noting that for the first time, she had to offer a client a payment plan. Another cited the cost-of-living crisis when he tried to negotiate. Yet another asked for a discounted rate, then sulked when she had to leave his chosen date — an ecstatic dance class soundtracked by Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” — to see another client.

“He said he should have gotten more for his money because he’s not, like, a rich finance bro. But I’m not doing it on a sliding scale!” she says, exasperated. “He calls himself an anti-capitalist writer, but I think he really just means he doesn’t have a lot of money.”

On Reddit forums like r/SugarRelationship, babies commiserate about clients who fail to value their time — dubbing them “Splenda daddies” and “salt daddies.” “It’s embarrassing to talk about,” says John, a sugar daddy who follows these discussions; he got into sugaring to find satisfaction outside his marriage after his sex life with his wife went cold. “It’s like, yeah, I want the G6 lifestyle, but I can afford, you know, Delta Economy Class.”

“We went from Versace bags to freaking Beats by Dre. Mind you, it’s my f*cking birthday! I wanted a trip to the Philippines.”

Economic anxiety isn’t the only reason these norms are shifting. Over the years, the sugar baby lifestyle has become less stigmatized and more mainstream, especially as trad-leaning buzzwords like “provider mindset” and the “high-value woman” flourish online and bring conversations about financial expectations in relationships to the fore. (See also: the rise of fin-dom, or financial domination.) On TikTok, it’s not uncommon to see “stay-at-home girlfriends” or a self-proclaimed “mattress actresses” glamorizing their #soft lifestyle, complete with luxury vacations and penthouse suites. And as more women expect financial compensation from their partners outside the strict boundaries of “sex work,” this shift has led to an imbalance in the market — one that gives sugar daddies more freedom to lowball.

“The men aren’t as generous as they were before,” says Sabrina, a longtime sex worker who lives in Canada and recently left sugaring for strip club work. “They expect a lot more for a lot less. And as the standards get lower, I’m seeing a lot of girls just accept it. We’re not unionized. We don’t really have a choice.”

For Sabrina, the breaking point came on her birthday. She had visions of a luxury vacation, a Michelin-star dinner, and a designer bag. Instead, she tore open the wrapping paper to find a pair of headphones. “We went from Versace bags to freaking Beats by Dre,” she says. “Mind you, it’s my f*cking birthday! I wanted a trip to the Philippines.” For her, it was more than just a disappointing gift — it was a recession indicator. “All the sugar daddies have dried up,” she says flatly. “Prices are getting higher, and sex is getting cheaper. It’s a tragedy.”

Millionaire status has never been a prerequisite for being a sugar daddy. Jay, who supported his sugar baby through her final year of college, says he treated it like any other expensive hobby. “I work at a bank, and I was able to budget carefully,” he says. Still, he’s had to make some sacrifices to maintain his habit. “The one thing I would consider retiring for would be having a pet. I would love to have a cat or a dog, but the problem is, I’d have to give this up — because that takes up a lot of money, time, and attention.”

“I have a fairly high income, but I don’t come from money, so cost is certainly a factor,” says John, the married sugar daddy. “I’m able to take breaks and build up a reserve of money to do what I want with, but I would need to be in a much higher income bracket if I was trying to have someone at my beck and call.”

For some, sugaring doesn’t look that different from a traditional relationship, with biweekly dates and shared vacations. The way they see it, all relationships are transactional in some way — they’re just making the implicit parts explicit. For other daddies, “pay per meet” dates provide a way to fulfill specific fantasies, be with more beautiful women, or get a leg up in a hostile dating market. “I’ve been with models, people who posed for Playboy,” says Jay. “And also everyday girls who are better-looking than what I’d get on the dating scene.”

“I would love to have a cat or a dog, but the problem is, I’d have to give [sugaring] up — because that takes up a lot of money, time, and attention.”

Plus, as we heard from Jackson the tennis coach, the act of paying can be erotic in and of itself. “It totally gets me off,” says Daniel, a New York-based creative director who discovered the thrill when he started footing bills for female friends. “Whether it’s an impromptu Venmo for a meal or taking care of someone’s gym membership… it feels exciting, especially since the economy’s in the sh*tter. I guess it’s kind of, like, the danger.”

For others, the appeal of sugaring is wrapped up in anxieties about masculinity. As some daddies point out, dating as a man already comes at a high price point: not just the cost of dates, but the numerous dating app subscriptions it takes to get that date; the cover you pay to get into a nightclub, in hopes of meeting someone; even the price of a hobby you take up to expand your social circle. Sugaring, by comparison, is a reliable expense they can budget around. (Women looking for that “provider mindset” make a similar argument: Between wage gaps and keeping up with beauty standards, it takes a lot of effort — and money — to be a desirable date.)

Growing up, Jackson internalized the message that wealth was a first-class ticket to romantic success. “My dad would always point at bald men with beautiful women and say, ‘You only get that if you have money,’” he recalls. “When I got older, I’d see dating app prompts that were like, ‘If you’re balding, don’t swipe.’ ‘If you’re under 6 feet, don’t swipe.’ ‘If you don’t make X money, don’t swipe.’ And I was like, ‘Oh — these things are real.’”

But if skipping meals wasn’t enough to change his mind about being a sugar daddy, a recent incident where a sugar baby ghosted him after taking his money was. “It made me realize that everybody is in this dynamic of trying to survive financially, and people aren’t able to have a good-faith connection in any realm, even when money is the thing that’s connecting you,” he says. “I remember seeing some meme of some dominatrix being like, ‘I know we’re about to hit a recession because all of my finsubs don’t want to give me money right now. And when the people who get turned on by paying don’t want to do it, that’s a bad sign.’”

“That was just such a hard thing for me to accept: I don’t need to provide money for you to like me. I just had to be myself.”

With the threat of an economic dive, he’d rather not have his love life tied up with his accounts. “It feels limiting, only being able to do what you do because of the economy at large,” he says. “I don’t have infinite resources, and this year was worse for me than the last two years. Recently, one of my babies was like, ‘I want to do this, but I need a hotel’ — and a year ago, I would have just paid for that hotel. But this year, I had to hesitate. It made me realize I don’t want my romantic life to be steeped in financial exchange.”

Another eureka moment came when, after months of exclusively sugar dating, he hooked up with a new friend, who initiated a makeout session with no money involved. “I was playing her a song on the guitar and she just started kissing me randomly, out of nowhere,” he recalls. “I was like, oh, right, I didn’t need to buy you anything. You’re attracted to the fact that I’m musical and I’m creative and that I’m holding space for you emotionally. That was just such a hard thing for me to accept.” It was a lesson straight out of the rom-coms he loved when he was younger: “I was like, wait — I don’t need to provide money for you to like me… I just had to be myself.”

As candid as they are about the pressures they experience, most of the men I interviewed spoke highly of their sugar babies: the connection they feel, despite the transactional circumstances that brought them together; their positive influence on one another’s lives. But with many of us feeling the squeeze financially, it’s worth remembering there are other, equally valid ways to connect — and if you can’t afford a $10,000 trip to Ibiza, well, maybe you’re better off just buying a guitar.