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 | Patreon | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $12 | Free |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Usage-based |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 10% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Not stated |
| Covers | Monetization & Payments, Memberships & Subscriptions, Tips & Donations | Memberships & Subscriptions, Community Platforms, Monetization & Payments |
| Works with | YouTube, Twitch | YouTube, Podcast, 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
Membership tiers and posts for paying supporters
Patreon is still where most audiences expect to pay a creator monthly, and that familiarity is worth something. Tiers, member-only posts, and now paid courses and shops. The platform fee is 10 percent of what you earn, before payment processing.
Our note
Patreon costs more than Ko-fi and more than running memberships yourself, and what you buy with the difference is recognition: a listener who hears the word already knows what to do. Once an audience would follow you anywhere, that premium stops earning its keep.
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.