Comparison
Backstage casting website, from the model side
Backstage casting website, compared row by row: it is a notice board built around actors, and models apply to notices there like everyone else. Maxgirls is a model directory brands search directly. Checked September 2026.
The short version
Two different shapes of product
Backstage is one of the best known casting websites in the United States, and it has been running for decades. Its centre of gravity is acting: theatre, film, television and commercial roles, with modelling present as one category among many. Talent subscribe and apply to notices. If you are an actor, that is exactly the product you want. If you are a working model whose bookings are decided by category, city, height and whether you are free on a Thursday, you are using an actor tool sideways.
Backstage against Maxgirls
Checked 5 September 2026. Every row describes how a product works, taken from its own public pages. Spot something out of date? Write to support@maxgirls.com.
- Primary audience
- Backstage Actors, with models as one of several talent categories.
- Maxgirls Models only, across nine categories.
- Direction of search
- Backstage Talent apply to posted notices.
- Maxgirls Brands filter the directory and contact the model.
- Model-specific fields
- Backstage Casting notices are free text; matching is done by reading.
- Maxgirls Category, city, age, height, day rate and availability are structured and filterable.
- Who sets the rate
- Backstage The notice states the pay, take it or leave it.
- Maxgirls The model publishes their own day-rate range before contact.
- Profile review
- Backstage Notices are screened; talent profiles are self-published.
- Maxgirls Every profile is read by a person before publication.
- 18+ work
- Backstage Not the platform's category.
- Maxgirls One category of nine, with per-photo blurring at file level.
- Price
- Backstage $24.95 a month, $19.99 a month on a 6-month plan, or $16.66 a month billed yearly.
- Maxgirls Talent from $19/mo. Searching is free.
How Backstage and Maxgirls differ
Where they are genuinely better
If you act as well as model, Backstage covers a market Maxgirls does not touch at all: theatre, film and television roles. Plenty of people should use both. What Maxgirls does that a notice board structurally cannot is let a brand run the search instead of the talent.
The Backstage figures above are the performer membership prices on its own checkout page, read on 10 September 2026. The monthly plan was $18.95 for the first month and a yearly welcome offer was showing at $7.08 a month for the first term. Prices change without notice, so check the source before you rely on it. Source: Backstage, "Select a plan to get started".
What you get instead
The search runs in the other direction
Nobody posts a notice and nobody sifts applications. The model publishes rate and availability once, the brand filters to the people who fit, and the two email each other.
Other comparisons
Get started
Publish one profile. Be findable by the brands who need you.
Create your profile, and a person will review it before it goes live.