Same here, I've worked with a few different agencies (both small and big ones) not so long ago (when I had a slow period as an indie and needed quick cash) and honestly I DO NOT recommend it AT ALL.
Here are the reasons why you should stay away from agencies in my personal experience :
-you will never be busy with big agencies because they have too many girls in their portfolio and you would see that for some reasons it's always the same girls who get all the bookings and obviously not you, the owners always have their favourite girls (to give you an idea, I worked with big agencies for about 4 months and I'm not joking, I got 4 genuine (bookings that went through) bookings in 4 months
)
-with smaller agencies, you get a bit busy at the very beginning (the very first month is good and then the amount of clients you get gradually drops until you get absolutely no bookings (or maybe once a month lol), after 3 months, expect to get almost nothing.
-Their screening is really poor (even though some agencies claim the contrary when you ask them) so be ready to see a lot "bad clients" turning up at your door. In fact most of the bad experiences I had with clients were with the agencies (for example, people coming who don't have money and just want to look at you and go, people asking for crazy services you might not provide, dodgy people looking around asking if you are alone in your place and get scared at the sight of a security camera, serial timewasters who don't show up/cancel at the very last minute, many boundary pushers, and also a higher proportion of rude and entitled people that would have probably never passed your screening as an indie). All those bookings that don't go through are wasting your time as well as preventing you to make money and you're obviously not compensated for the loss. (In other words, the agency doesn't care about your safety and well being)
-With big agencies, if you ever refuse a booking for any particular reason, for example because you don't feel comfortable with a client, be prepared to never get any work again
-With smaller agencies, the owners are usually quite mean, bitchy, and ruthless and in the case you don't get along with them at some point, expect to never get any bookings (I would go even further and say that if they don't like you they give you bad clients on purpose)
-Whenever you ask them to update your profile (to change pictures for example, update your services, or change your prices/location), you have to ask them many times until they finally do it and it takes them ages to do it (when the thing would literally take 1min to do lol), you are never in control of your own profile
-You always have that burden over your shoulders that you have to let them know when you are/aren't available and you have to sit around all day waiting for bookings that might not even happen (because when you miss a booking, they start being moody)
-Even though you charge higher prices with agencies (usually) because you have to take into account the commission, you will always end up getting less than with indie bookings (very disadvantageous especially when you do longer bookings because the rates for longer bookings are usually discounted)
-You never (or rarely) get regular clients from agencies because their clients always want to try out the newcomers
So in conclusion, unless you are really financially desperate and in need of quick money to survive, I would totally advise against working with agencies, and if you still decide to join agencies and in the event it works for you (who knows, everybody is different
), always keep in mind that agencies are never a long term solution and that you won't manage to get a reliable income from them in the long run!!
Good luck