LaunchPass vs Patreon Comparison 2026
LaunchPass puts a paywall in front of a Discord, Slack or Telegram community you already run, $29 a month for Premium at a 3.5 percent fee. Patreon is free to open and takes 10 percent of what members pay, with no subscription of its own but a much higher percentage. Working the two against each other, LaunchPass Premium becomes cheaper once membership revenue passes roughly $446 a month; below that, Patreon's zero-subscription structure costs less.
Charge for access to a Discord or Slack group
Membership tiers and posts for paying supporters
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
- LaunchPass takes 3.5% of what you earn against Patreon's 10%.
Side by side
LaunchPass | Patreon | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $29 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing (they differ) | Monthly or annual | Usage-based |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Not stated |
LaunchPass
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.
Patreon
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.
Why people weigh these two
- Patreon instead of LaunchPass
- Patreon is free to start, built around membership tiers and posts rather than Discord roles, better for an audience that reads updates more than it chats.
- LaunchPass instead of Patreon
- LaunchPass locks a Discord or Slack server behind a paywall specifically, with a free tier to test and paid from $29, for a creator whose community lives in chat rather than in posts and tiers.
Which one should you pick
Choose LaunchPass if the community already lives on Discord, Slack or Telegram and moving it to Patreon is not the plan, since $29 a month at 3.5 percent is cheaper than Patreon's 10 percent once revenue is real. It manages access rather than hosting a feed of posts.
Choose Patreon if the audience already expects to pay a creator monthly there, particularly on YouTube or in podcasting, since that recognition is worth something LaunchPass cannot sell. Below roughly $446 a month in membership revenue its zero-subscription, 10-percent structure costs less than LaunchPass Premium, and it is free to open either way.
Common questions
- Which one is cheaper?
- It depends on revenue. LaunchPass Premium is $29 a month plus 3.5 percent, which beats Patreon's 10 percent once membership income passes roughly $446 a month. Below that, Patreon's lack of a subscription fee makes it cheaper.
- Does LaunchPass replace Discord or Slack the way Patreon replaces a community platform?
- No, LaunchPass only manages the paywall; the community stays exactly where it already is on Discord, Slack or Telegram. Patreon is the platform itself, with its own posts, tiers and member space.
- Which one has more audience recognition?
- Patreon does, by a wide margin; most audiences have paid a creator there before and need no explanation. LaunchPass is invisible to members in the same way, since it only gates access to a community they already use.
- Can I sell a one-off product on either platform?
- Patreon added paid courses and shops for one-off sales to the same audience. LaunchPass is built specifically around recurring access to a chat community rather than one-off product sales.
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.