Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover monetization & payments and memberships & subscriptions. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Ko-fi | LaunchPass | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $12 | From $29 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 3.5% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Not stated |
| Covers | Monetization & Payments, Memberships & Subscriptions, Tips & Donations | Community Platforms, Memberships & Subscriptions, Monetization & Payments |
| Works with | YouTube, Twitch | Discord |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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
Charge for access to a Discord or Slack group
LaunchPass puts a paywall in front of a chat community you already run, and hands out and removes the roles as people pay and lapse. It connects to Discord, Slack and Telegram, and the money arrives through your own Stripe account. It manages access rather than hosting anything, so the community stays where your members already are.
Our note
Sensible if your community is already somewhere and already wanted. Compare it against DoorFee if the community is on Discord, since DoorFee sells the membership as well as gating it, and against Circle or Skool if you were half thinking of moving anyway.
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.