Patreon alternatives: what you keep, what you own, what you give up

Disclosure: we earn a commission if you sign up for beehiiv or Kit through our links. No other tool on this page pays us, and commission never changes our picks. How we make money.

The short answer

• Lowest cost for tips and simple memberships: Ko-fi (5% on memberships, or 0% on its $12/month Gold plan), paid straight into your own Stripe or PayPal account.
• Membership on your own website, with members you can take with you: Memberful or Ghost. Both run on your own Stripe account.
• The newsletter is the product: beehiiv at 0% platform fee (/go/beehiivAFFILIATE), Kit at 3.5% + 30¢ all-in (/go/kitAFFILIATE), or Substack if you want its built-in network.
• Community is the product: Skool.
• Digital access, Discord roles, paid groups: Whop.
• Stay on Patreon if a meaningful share of your members found you through Patreon, use its app every day, or are on a legacy plan you'd lose by unpublishing.

What would change this: if Patreon dropped its standard fee, or if its members could be exported with their payment methods, the case for leaving would shrink to features alone.

What Patreon costs in 2026

Patreon's pricing page says it's free to start and takes "10% of the income you earn on Patreon," plus payment processing, currency conversion, payout fees and applicable taxes. According to Patreon's help center, that standard 10% applies to creators who publish their page after August 4, 2025. Creators who published on or before that date keep their legacy plan (5%, 8% or a higher rate) as long as the page stays published. If you unpublish, or Patreon unpublishes you, you move to the standard 10% when you republish.

The other fees, from Patreon's help center:

• Processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per payment for US cards, Apple Pay and US PayPal/Venmo on tiers over $3. Tiers of $3 or less use a micropayment rate of 5% + $0.10. Non-US PayPal is 3.9% + $0.30.
• Currency conversion: 2.5% when a member pays in a different currency from your payout currency.
• Payouts: $0.25 per bank transfer for US creators, or 1% via PayPal (minimum $0.25, capped at $20).
• iOS: outside the US, memberships bought through Patreon's iOS app go through Apple's in-app purchase, which takes 30% in place of Patreon's processing fee. US buyers aren't required to use Apple's flow.

What the 10% buys: hosting, monthly and annual memberships, one-time sales, video hosting (up to 100 hours a month if you have paying fans), chats, polls and comments, insights, and Patreon's apps. Patreon also handles chargebacks, fraud and most sales tax for you, and supports more than 16 currencies.

One more date if you're already on Patreon: Patreon says creators still on legacy billing must switch to subscription billing by November 1, 2026, or it will switch them automatically and pause billing until they consent.

Example: what you keep at $1k, $5k and $20k a month

Example. Assumptions: average pledge $8; members pay with US cards in USD; monthly billing, one charge per member per month; you're a new creator (no legacy plans or grandfathered rates); list size counted as paying members only (125, 625 and 2,500 members); monthly (not annual) plan prices; no taxes, refunds, chargebacks, currency conversion, add-ons or promotions. Processing uses each platform's published rate. Where a platform says only "Stripe fees apply," the example applies Stripe's standard US rate of 2.9% + $0.30. Platforms that run subscriptions on your own Stripe account may also incur Stripe Billing fees (0.7% of billing volume on Stripe's pay-as-you-go plan); none of these vendors states that it applies, so it's not included.

How to read it:

• The $0.30 per charge is the biggest single cost at an $8 average. It's 3.75% of every pledge, on every platform. Annual plans and higher tiers cut it more than any platform switch will.
• At $20,000 a month, Patreon's standard plan costs about $1,800 to $2,000 a month more than the cheapest options here. Most of that gap is the 10% platform fee.
• Substack and Patreon land in almost the same place. Both take 10%. The choice between them is about format, not fees.
• Flat-fee platforms win as you grow. Ghost, beehiiv, Kit and Ko-fi Gold barely change in cost between $5,000 and $20,000. Percentage platforms scale with you.
• Skool's Hobby plan is cheapest at $1,000 a month; Pro wins above that. Skool's help center puts the break-even around $1,270 a month.

These figures are list-price arithmetic, not a forecast. Your real number depends on pledge sizes, member locations, refunds and taxes.

Can you take your patrons with you?

This is the part most comparisons skip.

On Patreon, Patreon owns the billing relationship. Patreon processes payments itself ("No need to set up Stripe," its pricing page says). You can export your members' names and emails as a CSV from the Relationship Manager, but not their payment methods or active subscriptions. Ghost's own migration guide says it plainly: because Patreon manages subscriptions on your behalf, "there is no direct migration path" for paid subscriptions to another platform. Leaving means asking every paying member to sign up again.

Expect some to drop off. Unpublishing also pauses your web and Android memberships, and Patreon says iOS in-app memberships are canceled without automatic refunds.

On Stripe-based platforms, you can usually move later. When a platform runs on your own Stripe account, the customers and their saved cards live in that account:

• Memberful documents a migration that imports members with their active Stripe subscriptions from another platform, using a restricted key on your Stripe account.
• Ghost imports members with a `stripe_customer_id`, so existing paid subscribers on your Stripe account carry over.
• beehiiv has a paid-subscriber import tool (paid plans) that copies customer and card data from your old Stripe account into the one connected to beehiiv through Stripe's data migration process. beehiiv says you need to create a new Stripe account through its setup rather than reuse an existing one.
• Substack connects to your Stripe account. Memberful's migration guide mentions how Substack handles Stripe subscriptions, which is one sign that Substack paid subscribers can move with their billing intact. Confirm the details with Substack before you plan around it.

On platforms that act as the merchant, moving is harder. Skool processes every payment on its own merchant account and says you can't use your existing Stripe account. Whop processes payments itself. Kit's paid newsletters run on a Stripe Express account; beehiiv's migration guide (a competitor's document, so weigh it accordingly) says Kit doesn't expose the payment data needed to move paid subscribers. Ko-fi pays into your own Stripe or PayPal account, but we found no Ko-fi doc on exporting active memberships to another platform.

If you might leave someday, this matters more than a few points of fees.

What you lose by leaving Patreon

Be honest about these before you switch.

• Discovery. Patreon advertises "creator-first discovery" and recommendations. For most creators, discovery is modest; fans usually arrive from your own channels. But if your Patreon insights show members joining from inside Patreon, that's revenue to replace.
• The app and the habit. Patrons who already pay other creators on Patreon have an account, a saved card and the app. Every new checkout adds friction.
• Built-in community and media. Chats, DMs, comments, polls, native video and livestreaming, podcast RSS and Spotify sync are all included. Memberful and Ghost need Discord or another tool for chat. Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee are lighter.
• Payments handled for you. Patreon takes on chargebacks, fraud and most tax collection. On your own Stripe account, disputes and tax compliance are yours.
• Legacy pricing. If you're on a 5% or 8% legacy plan, you keep it only while your page stays published. Leaving and coming back costs you that rate.

The alternatives

Ko-fi: cheapest way to start, paid straight to you

Ko-fi charges 0% on one-off tips on its Free option and 5% on memberships, monthly tips, shop sales and commissions. New creators now start in "Standard" (Contributor) mode, which adds 5% to tips too in exchange for perks like supporter-only posts; you can switch it off in Settings > Payment. Ko-fi Gold costs $12 a month (monthly only for new subscribers) and removes the service fee, though memberships that started before you joined Gold keep the 5%. Payments land instantly in your own PayPal or Stripe account. Ko-fi says it has no native app; supporters can pin the site to their home screen.

Best for: tips-first creators and small memberships. Skip it if: you need a full community space or rich member content.

Buy Me a Coffee: simple, with an app

Buy Me a Coffee charges a 5% platform fee, with no monthly fee. Its help center lists Stripe processing at 2.9% + $0.30, plus 0.5% on subscription payments, 0.5% for payout processing and 1% on international transactions. You can choose to pass card fees to supporters. It offers memberships (monthly, yearly and one lifetime tier), a shop, posts and email to members, and iOS and Android apps. Its FAQ says your supporters are "strictly yours" and exportable. We don't have a BestCreates review of it yet.

Best for: creators who want a friendly checkout and an app without running a website. Skip it if: you want the lowest fee at volume.

Memberful: membership on your own site

Memberful has one self-serve plan: $49 a month plus a 4.9% transaction fee, with Stripe processing on top. Enterprise pricing is custom. It runs on your Stripe account, works with WordPress, Discord, Kit and Mailchimp, and documents a migration path for members with active Stripe subscriptions. Members don't get a dedicated app.

Best for: podcasters and publishers with their own site who want portable members. Skip it if: you earn under about $1,000 a month, where the $49 base fee bites.

Ghost: publication and membership, 0% from Ghost

Ghost(Pro)'s Publisher plan starts at $29 a month billed yearly, or $35 month-to-month for 1,000 members, and rises with member count ($55 a month at 2,500). Ghost takes 0% of subscription revenue; Stripe's fees still apply. The software is open source, so you can self-host. Members, including paid ones with Stripe IDs, import and export cleanly.

Best for: writers and video creators who want a real website with paid tiers. Skip it if: you want a built-in social community.

Substack: the network, at Patreon's rate

Substack is free to publish and keeps 10% of paid-subscription revenue; writers keep 90% minus card fees, per its going-paid page. You get Substack's app, recommendations and Notes. You give up the fee savings. See beehiiv vs Substack and our Substack alternatives.

Best for: writers who expect Substack's network to bring readers. Skip it if: fees are why you're leaving Patreon.

beehiiv: 0% on paid subscriptions

beehiiv (/go/beehiivAFFILIATE) takes 0% of paid-subscription and digital-product revenue; you pay Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30. Paid subscriptions need the Lite plan, which costs $59 a month at 1,000 subscribers and $79 at 2,500 (less billed yearly). It adds a website, ad network and recommendations, and a paid-subscriber import tool. Read our beehiiv review.

Best for: creators whose membership is mostly a newsletter. Skip it if: your members expect video, chat or a community feed.

Kit: paid newsletters even on the free plan

Kit (/go/kitAFFILIATE) lets you sell paid newsletters, subscriptions and digital products on every plan, including Free (up to 10,000 subscribers), at 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction, card processing included. Automations need the Creator plan. Moving paid subscribers out later may be hard (see portability above). Read our Kit review and Kit vs beehiiv.

Best for: creators who sell products and want memberships next to them. Skip it if: portability of paid members is a priority.

Whop: low processing, platform-held payments

Whop has no monthly plan. Its fee documentation lists 2.7% + $0.30 per domestic card payment (more for international cards and currency conversion), payout fees such as $2.50 for next-day ACH, and optional add-ons: billing automation 0.5%, orchestration 0.8%, tax remittance 2%. It's built around digital access, including Discord roles. Compare it with Gumroad in Gumroad vs Whop.

Best for: paid groups, courses and Discord access. Skip it if: you want your own Stripe account and portable subscriptions.

Skool: when the community is the product

Skool costs $9 a month with a 10% + $0.30 fee (Hobby) or $99 a month with 2.9% + $0.30 (Pro; 3.9% + $0.30 on charges over $900). It includes a feed, courses, calendar, native calls, gamification and Skool's apps. Skool is the merchant of record, so members' billing sits with Skool. See Skool vs Circle vs Kajabi.

Best for: coaches and educators selling access to a group. Skip it if: you want a custom domain or portable members.

How to switch without losing members

1. Check your plan first. If you're on a legacy Patreon plan, price the switch against your actual rate, not 10%.
2. Export your member list from Patreon's Relationship Manager (Creator studio > Audience) as a CSV.
3. Set up the new platform on your own Stripe account if portability matters.
4. Run both for a billing cycle. Give patrons complimentary access on the new platform (Ghost and beehiiv both support complimentary plans), announce a date, and offer a reason to re-subscribe, such as a founding-member price.
5. Pause, then unpublish. Patreon recommends notifying members first and paying out your balance before you unpublish.