Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover tips & donations and monetization & payments. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Donorbox | Ko-fi | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $150 | From $12 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Not stated |
| Covers | Tips & Donations, Crowdfunding, Monetization & Payments | Monetization & Payments, Memberships & Subscriptions, Tips & Donations |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | YouTube, Twitch |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Donation pages and recurring giving
Donorbox is built for nonprofits and reads that way, which is exactly right for a creator running a fundraiser or a cause and wrong for one collecting tips. Recurring donations, an embeddable form and donor records are the substance. Its free plan charges a higher percentage on each gift than the paid one.
Our note
Pro costs $150 a month and saves roughly 1.5 percent per donation, so it pays for itself somewhere around $10,000 a month in giving. Below that the free plan is the cheaper one, whatever the fee percentage looks like.
Only on this side
Tips, memberships and a shop with no platform cut
Ko-fi takes nothing from tips on the free plan, which no other platform of its size does. Memberships, commissions and digital downloads all work from the same page. It is lighter than Patreon in every direction, which is often the point.
Our note
The best free option for somebody who mostly gets tipped, and worth weighing against Patreon the moment memberships become the larger half of the income. Do the Gold arithmetic yourself rather than taking the upgrade prompt's word for it.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.