Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover memberships & subscriptions and community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Patreon | Skool | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $9 |
| Pricing model | Free | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Usage-based | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 10% of what you earn | 10% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Not stated |
| Covers | Memberships & Subscriptions, Community Platforms, Monetization & Payments | Community Platforms, Courses & Coaching, Memberships & Subscriptions |
| Works with | YouTube, Podcast, Discord | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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.
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Community, courses and a calendar in one paid space
Skool puts a forum, a course player and events behind one membership. The interface is deliberately plain, which keeps people posting, and there is very little customization by design. Both plans take a percentage of what members pay, which is the part of the pricing that has changed most since Skool launched.
Our note
Skool was worth recommending when it was one flat fee, and the two-tier pricing has made it a calculation instead. Run the $1,300 sum against your own numbers before picking a plan, and look at Circle instead if the community needs to look like yours.
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.
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