Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover monetization & payments and tips & donations. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Ko-fi | StreamElements | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $12 | Free |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Monetization & Payments, Memberships & Subscriptions, Tips & Donations | Tips & Donations, Live Streaming, Monetization & Payments |
| Works with | YouTube, Twitch | YouTube, Twitch |
| 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
Overlays, alerts and a chatbot, all free
StreamElements is the layer over a stream: alerts when somebody follows, overlays built in a visual editor, a chat bot with commands and loyalty points, and a tipping page. All of it is free with no tier above it, because the business is sponsorships rather than subscriptions. Most streams running something other than plain OBS are running this or its one real rival.
Our note
StreamElements and Streamlabs are the two, they do much the same job, and this is the one that has never charged for it. Set it up alongside OBS rather than instead of 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.