there's never any sure numbers, but we can go by where the RPers tend to congregate, RPC and Tumblr. While the RPC boasts around 12k members, around 5.8k - 6k of those have 0 posts (Yes, I did count). The RPC also had around 1200 logins over the last month and 400-600 in the last week (I can't remember which).

I know people are going to say "But not everyone knows about the rpc!" which, duh, but to say it isn't well known is false. It's the first thing that pops up on google when you type "FFXIV Roleplay". Most people use it to see where the rp server is and move on, and, yes, a lot don't make an account.

Next is Tumblr, which is harder, but I counted around 300-400 accounts that have used the FFXIV RP tag in various forms (I can't tell you which ones are inactive now, not gonna search through all the blogs), but I know some of those are also people who post on the rpc and a lot are Mateus (Mateus is taking over tumblr!) so I'll be safe about say 300

That puts the total so far at 1500. Now I'm going to double it for all the people who don't do either - which exist though I don't think it's 1500 hundred people but it might be.

That would put the number at 3k give or take.