Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover memberships & subscriptions and monetization & payments. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Patreon | SubscribeStar | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | Free |
| Pricing model | Free | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 10% of what you earn | 5% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Memberships & Subscriptions, Community Platforms, Monetization & Payments | Tips & Donations, Memberships & Subscriptions, Monetization & Payments |
| Works with | YouTube, Podcast, Discord | YouTube, Discord |
| 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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Membership tiers with the fees printed
SubscribeStar runs paid membership tiers and posts for creators, and prints its fee arithmetic on the front page rather than in a help centre. A free profile gets the publishing tools and the money only costs something when it moves. It is smaller than the platform everybody names first, which matters, because a membership platform is only worth what an audience will follow you onto.
Our note
Patreon takes 10 percent and gives you an audience that already has an account there. This takes half that and gives you none, which is the entire decision. It is worth running as a second option rather than a replacement.
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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