Patreon

Name: Patreon
Brand: Patreon
Price: 010 USD

Free to start, 10 percent forever, and your members live on someone else's domain

Patreon is a membership platform for creators that hosts paid tiers, posts, native video, livestreams, community chats, direct messages, private podcast feeds, and a digital shop on patreon.com, with iOS and Android apps that a large audience already has installed; it costs nothing to start and charges a flat 10 percent platform fee on earnings for creators who joined after August 2025, plus payment processing, payout, and currency conversion fees, and Apple's 30 percent commission on new memberships bought inside the iOS app.

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Overview

Patreon is the default answer to the question of how a creator gets paid by an audience, and has been since Jack Conte and Sam Yam founded it in San Francisco in 2013. Conte was a musician watching YouTube ad revenue fail to pay for the videos he was making, and the original product was almost embarrassingly simple: a page where fans pledge a recurring amount. Thirteen years, roughly $413M raised, and a $4B peak valuation later, it has grown into a full membership platform with posts, native video, livestreaming, community chats, direct messages, private podcast feeds, a shop for one time digital purchases, and email newsletters.

For this category, the important thing to understand is what kind of community Patreon actually gives you. There are community chats, which are real time rooms attached to your page and gateable by tier, plus comments on posts and direct messages. What there is not is a forum: no threaded discussion structure, no spaces with independent permissions, no member directory of any depth, no search worth the name across historical conversation, and no ability to build a knowledge base. Community here is a benefit you attach to a membership, not a product you operate.

The commercial trade is the sharpest in this category. Patreon costs nothing until you earn, and then takes 10 percent of everything, forever. Creators with pages predating 4 August 2025 keep legacy rates of 5 percent on Lite, 8 percent on Pro, and around 11 to 12 percent on Premium, but only while the page stays published. On top of the platform fee sit payment processing of roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, a micropayment rate of 5 percent plus 10 cents on pledges of $3 or less, payout fees, and currency conversion. Most creators surrender somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of gross depending on average pledge size.

Then there is Apple. Since November 2024, Apple's 30 percent commission applies to new memberships and shop purchases made inside the Patreon iOS app. Patreon built a tool that raises iOS list prices by roughly 43 percent so the creator nets the same, but that means iOS members pay visibly more than web members, and creators outside the United States cannot opt out. If a meaningful share of your audience buys on an iPhone, model that before you compare Patreon's 10 percent against Circle's 2 percent.

Best for

Individual creators, podcasters, musicians, artists, and video makers who want to start earning from an audience today with zero fixed cost and zero setup, who value Patreon's installed app base and discovery more than owning the domain, and whose community needs are chats and comments rather than a structured forum.

Not the right fit for

Any business doing real revenue that could use a flat fee platform instead. Ten percent of $50,000 a month is $5,000, against roughly $150 a month on Podia or Teachable, which is a difference of nearly $58,000 a year.
Anyone who needs to own the customer relationship. Patreon is the merchant, the domain is patreon.com, and your members are Patreon's account holders as much as yours.
Communities that need structured discussion. There are chats, comments, and DMs, but no forum, no spaces with independent permissions, no meaningful search across history, and no way to build a knowledge base.
Course businesses. There is no curriculum structure, no lesson progression, no quizzes, no certificates, and no completion tracking; a course on Patreon is just a series of gated posts.
Creators with a heavily iOS audience outside the United States, who cannot opt out of Apple's 30 percent commission on in app purchases and have no route around it except pushing members to the web.

How it works

1
You create a page at patreon.com under your creator name. There is no custom domain, no white labelling, and no way to remove Patreon's branding: the member experience is Patreon's, with your artwork on it.
2
You define membership tiers with monthly or annual pricing, plus one time payments and free trials. Each tier maps to what a member can see: which posts, which chats, which private podcast feed, which shop items.
3
You publish. Posts carry rich text, images, audio, native video, and livestreams, and each post is gated to specific tiers. Podcast importing and Spotify integration mean an existing show can be mirrored to members with an RSS feed that works in normal podcast apps.
4
You run the community layer through chats, comments, and direct messages. Chats are real time rooms gated by tier, comments hang off posts, and DMs let members reach you privately. Discord is also commonly connected so that a Patreon tier grants a Discord role.
5
Money moves through Patreon as the merchant. Fans pay Patreon, Patreon takes its 10 percent plus processing, and pays you out on a schedule with a payout fee and any currency conversion applied. You do not have a merchant relationship with your own members.
6
Discovery is the part no other product here offers. Patreon has its own creator directory, recommendations, and a large installed base of iOS and Android app users who already have accounts and payment details saved, which materially reduces checkout friction for a new supporter.

Feature breakdown

23 features in 4 modules

Community layer

Real, but shallow. Chats and comments, not a forum.

Community chats: Real time chat rooms attached to your page and gateable by membership tier, so a $10 tier and a $50 tier can have separate rooms. They behave like Discord channels with worse tooling and better billing.
Comments on posts: Threaded replies under each post, gated to whichever tiers can see the post, which is where most member conversation actually happens.
Direct messages: Private one to one messaging between creator and member, plus automated welcome messages to new supporters.
Tier gated access: Every chat, post, feed, and shop item is visible only to the tiers you specify, handled natively rather than through bots or plugins.
Discord role granting: Connect a Discord server and Patreon assigns roles by tier automatically, revoking them when a membership lapses. Most serious Patreon communities actually live in Discord, with Patreon handling the money.
Member analytics and insights: Retention, churn, tier distribution, and earnings reporting, which is more subscription analytics than most community platforms provide.

Publishing and content

The strongest part of the product, and unusually broad for a free platform.

Posts with rich media: Rich text, images, audio, and file attachments, each gated to specific tiers, with a scheduling option.
Native video hosting: Upload video directly to Patreon rather than linking to an unlisted YouTube video, with playback in the apps and on the web.
Livestreaming: Broadcast live to a chosen tier natively, without a third party streaming tool, which is a genuinely valuable inclusion at zero fixed cost.
Private podcast feeds: Members only RSS feeds that work in normal podcast apps, plus podcast importing, Spotify integration, and Synced Feeds for creators mirroring a public show.
Email newsletters: Send posts as email to members, with an exportable email list, which is the one lever that makes leaving Patreon survivable.
Patreon Shop: Sell one time digital purchases alongside recurring memberships, which turns the page into a small storefront rather than only a pledge form.

Memberships and money

Zero fixed cost, and a percentage that never stops.

Monthly and annual subscriptions: Recurring memberships in both intervals, with annual pledges materially improving retention and reducing per transaction fee drag.
One time payments: Tips and single purchases alongside recurring tiers, on the same member record.
Free trials, discounts, and sales: Promotional mechanics native to the platform, including limited time offers on tiers.
Automated growth tools: Recommendations, welcome flows, and win back prompts that Patreon runs on your behalf using its own audience data.
Creator first discovery: Patreon's own directory and recommendations, plus a large installed base of app users with payment details already saved. No other product in this category brings you members you did not already have.
Exportable email lists: You can export member email addresses, which is the difference between a platform you can leave and one you cannot.

Apps and reach

The mobile story is the best and worst thing about Patreon.

iOS and Android apps: Mature, widely installed apps that many of your prospective members already have, with saved payment details. This is the single biggest practical advantage Patreon holds over every hosted community platform.
Apple in app purchase commission: Since November 2024, Apple takes 30 percent of new memberships and shop purchases made inside the iOS app. Existing memberships are unaffected.
iOS price adjustment tool: Patreon can automatically raise iOS list prices by roughly 43 percent so that after Apple's commission the creator nets the same as a web purchase. Members on iOS therefore see a higher price than members on the web.
No custom domain: Your page is patreon.com/yourname. There is no custom domain, no white labelling, and no way to remove Patreon's branding at any price.
Subscription billing migration: Creators still on legacy billing are required to move to subscription billing by 1 November 2026, which changes charge timing and should be planned for rather than discovered.

Use cases

4 documented

Podcaster adding an ad free tier

A show with an engaged audience and no infrastructure, where spending $89 a month on a community platform before a single supporter signs up is not a sensible bet.

A Patreon page costs nothing until money arrives, generates private ad free RSS feeds that work in normal podcast apps, and reaches listeners through an app they already have installed.

Video creator monetizing an audience

YouTube revenue is volatile and sponsors are inconsistent, and the audience keeps asking how to support the channel directly.

Native video hosting, livestreams to a chosen tier, community chats, and Discord role granting turn a subscriber base into recurring income without building or hosting anything.

Artist with a small, generous audience

A few hundred supporters at $5 a month, where the 10 percent fee costs less than any subscription platform would.

At $2,000 a month gross, Patreon costs roughly $200 in platform fee plus processing, which is comparable to Circle's $89 plus 2 percent and requires no setup, no domain, and no maintenance.

Established creator reconsidering the fee

A page earning $50,000 a month is paying roughly $5,000 in platform fees alone, which would fund an entire operations hire.

The honest conclusion is usually to migrate: export the email list, move billing to Memberful at 4.9 percent or Podia at zero percent, and keep the community on Discord, accepting the churn that migration causes.

Pricing

from $0 to start, then 10 percent of earnings plus processing

No subscription. Patreon charges a percentage of creator earnings, plus payment processing, payout, and currency conversion fees, plus Apple's commission on in app iOS purchases.

Plan	Price	Includes
Standard (all new creators)	10 percent of earnings, plus fees	Every feature included: posts, video, livestreams, chats, DMs, shop, newsletters Unlimited members and unlimited tiers iOS and Android apps and Patreon discovery Private podcast feeds and Discord role granting Exportable email list Applies to every creator who started a page after 4 August 2025. There is no feature gating; the fee is the only lever.
Legacy Lite	5 percent of earnings, plus fees	Grandfathered for pages created before 4 August 2025 Same feature access as the standard plan Lost permanently if the page is unpublished Legacy rates survive only while the page stays published. Unpublish for any reason and you move to 10 percent with no way back.
Legacy Pro	8 percent of earnings, plus fees	Grandfathered for pages created before 4 August 2025 Same feature access as the standard plan
Legacy Premium	Approximately 11 to 12 percent of earnings, plus fees	Grandfathered for pages created before 4 August 2025 Historically included merchandise and dedicated support

Add-ons

Apple in app purchase commission (30 percent of new iOS purchases): Applies to new memberships and shop purchases made inside the iOS app since November 2024. Patreon's optional tool raises iOS prices by roughly 43 percent to offset it, so your iOS members pay more. Creators outside the United States cannot opt out.

Billing notes

Reviewed August 2026. Patreon retired its tiered plans for new creators on 4 August 2025 and now charges a single 10 percent platform fee.
Payment processing sits on top at roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, with a micropayment rate of 5 percent plus 10 cents applied to pledges of $3 or less. Payout fees and currency conversion apply depending on your country.
Small pledges are punished by the flat 30 cent component. A creator whose average pledge is $5 typically loses 15 to 20 percent of gross once every fee is counted, not 10 percent.
Model it. At $5,000 a month in member revenue across 1,000 pledges of $5, you pay roughly $500 platform fee plus roughly $445 in processing, about $945, or 18.9 percent. At $50,000 a month across 10,000 pledges of $5, that scales linearly to about $9,450, or 18.9 percent again. With a higher average pledge the percentage falls: $50,000 across 1,000 pledges of $50 costs roughly $5,000 plus $1,750, about $6,750, or 13.5 percent.
Compare that with Podia at roughly $1,900 or Teachable at roughly $1,939 on the same $50,000. Patreon is between three and five times more expensive at scale, and the gap only widens.
Legacy rates of 5, 8, and 11 to 12 percent survive only while a page remains published. Unpublishing to pause, rebrand, or restructure costs the legacy rate permanently.
All creators still using legacy billing must move to subscription billing by 1 November 2026, which changes when members are charged and can cause a one time dip in reported earnings.

Value assessment: Patreon is the cheapest option in this category up to roughly $1,000 a month in earnings and the most expensive one above roughly $5,000. Below the threshold, paying nothing until money arrives is genuinely valuable, and no subscription platform can match a zero fixed cost start when you do not know whether anyone will pay. Above it, the arithmetic becomes brutal: a page earning $50,000 a month hands over between $6,750 and $9,450 depending on pledge size, where Podia would charge about $1,900 and throw in a website, courses, and a real community. What you buy with that money is not software, because Patreon's community tooling is worse than everything else here. What you buy is discovery, an installed mobile app base with saved payment details, and the fact that setup takes twenty minutes and requires no decisions. That is worth 10 percent when you are starting and worth very little once you have an audience that would follow you anywhere.

Strengths & limitations

Strengths

Zero fixed cost. No subscription, no trial clock, and no bill until members pay you, which no other product in this category offers.
The largest installed mobile app base in creator memberships, with millions of people who already have Patreon accounts and saved payment details, which removes real checkout friction.
Genuine discovery. Patreon's directory, recommendations, and automated growth tools can bring you members you did not already have, which nothing else here does at all.
Broad publishing for free: native video hosting, livestreaming, private podcast feeds with Spotify integration, email newsletters, and a digital shop.
Exportable email lists, which means leaving is possible; many platforms in this category make the member relationship far harder to take with you.
The Discord integration is mature and widely used, so most serious Patreon communities run discussion on Discord with Patreon handling billing and entitlement.
Thirteen years old, roughly $413M raised, and the default brand in its category, so members trust the checkout without explanation.

Limitations

Ten percent forever, on top of processing, payout, and currency conversion, with an effective rate of 13 to 20 percent depending on average pledge size. At scale this is the most expensive model in the category by a wide margin.
Apple takes 30 percent of new memberships bought in the iOS app, and creators outside the United States cannot opt out; the workaround raises prices for iOS members by roughly 43 percent.
No custom domain, no white labelling, and no way to remove Patreon's brand. Your community lives at patreon.com and looks like Patreon.
The community layer is chats, comments, and DMs. There is no forum, no spaces with independent permissions, no useful search across history, and no way to build a knowledge base.
Patreon is the merchant of record, so you have no direct payment relationship with your members and migrating billing elsewhere means asking everyone to sign up again.
No courses in any real sense: no lesson structure, no progress tracking, no quizzes, no certificates. A course here is a series of gated posts.
Legacy rates are conditional on keeping the page published, which quietly penalizes anyone who needs to pause or rebrand.
Nothing on Patreon is indexed usefully for your own acquisition; the discovery you get is Patreon's, on Patreon's terms.

Head-to-head comparisons

6 alternatives

Patreon vs Memberful

from $49 per month plus a 4.9 percent transaction fee

Owned by the same company and built for the opposite creator. Memberful charges $49 a month plus 4.9 percent, hosts nothing, and puts everything on your domain in your own Stripe account. Patreon charges 10 percent, hosts everything, and owns the customer relationship. Above roughly $1,500 a month in earnings, Memberful is cheaper; below it, Patreon's zero fixed cost wins. Patreon built and kept Memberful precisely so it had an answer for creators who outgrow this trade.

Full Patreon vs Memberful comparison

Patreon vs Circle

from $89 per month (Professional)

Circle at $89 a month plus 2 percent gives you a real community platform on your own domain with spaces, courses, events, live streaming, and a member directory. Patreon costs nothing to start and 10 percent forever, has a much weaker community, and brings discovery Circle cannot. At $50,000 a month in member revenue Circle costs roughly $1,600 to Patreon's $6,750 or more. Start on Patreon, move to Circle when the community becomes the product.

Full Patreon vs Circle comparison

Patreon vs Discord

from $0

The overwhelmingly common pairing rather than a choice: Patreon takes the money, Discord hosts the community, and Patreon assigns Discord roles by tier automatically. Discord's own Server Subscriptions also take 10 percent and keep everything inside Discord, but Patreon gives you posts, video, podcast feeds, and an email list you can export. If you are going to pay 10 percent to somebody, Patreon buys more with it than Discord does.

Full Patreon vs Discord comparison

Patreon vs Podia

from $42 per month billed annually (Mover), or $49 billed monthly

Podia at $84 a month with a 0 percent platform fee hosts a community, courses, a website, a blog, and a checkout on your own domain. Patreon costs nothing until you earn and then takes 10 percent. Crossover is around $1,000 a month in revenue. Above that Podia is dramatically cheaper, and at $50,000 a month it is roughly a quarter of the cost. Patreon's counterargument is discovery and the installed app base, which are real but do not scale in your favour.

Full Patreon vs Podia comparison

Patreon vs Substack

from $0 to publish and send; 10 percent of paid subscription revenue if you monetize

Substack takes 10 percent plus processing, the same headline as Patreon, but is built around writing and email with a genuine recommendation network of its own. Patreon is better for audio, video, and livestreams and has a stronger app. Neither gives you a custom domain experience that feels fully yours, and both make you the tenant. Choose on medium: words go to Substack, everything else goes to Patreon.

Full Patreon vs Substack comparison

Patreon vs Kajabi

from $179 per month (Basic), or $143 per month billed annually

Not close on cost or capability. Kajabi at $179 a month takes near raw card processing rather than a platform cut, and includes courses, funnels, email marketing to 25,000 contacts, a website, and a branded mobile app. Patreon takes 10 percent and gives you a page. Kajabi becomes cheaper above roughly $2,500 a month in revenue and does far more. Patreon's only remaining advantage at that point is discovery.

Full Patreon vs Kajabi comparison

Implementation & onboarding

Setup time: Twenty minutes to a live page taking money. Patreon is by an enormous margin the fastest product in this category to get from nothing to a first paying member, and that speed is a genuine part of what the 10 percent buys.
Learning curve: Very low. Tiers, posts, and chats are the only concepts. There is no domain to configure, no entitlement matrix to model, and no payment gateway to connect.
Onboarding: Entirely self serve with no sales contact at any earnings level. Patreon publishes extensive creator guidance and runs its own growth recommendations on your behalf.
Migration notes: Moving in is trivial. Moving out is the hard part and should be planned before you need it. Email addresses export, which makes contact possible, but Patreon is the merchant of record for every subscription, so nobody's payment method transfers: every member must re-subscribe on the new platform, and realistic expectations are that a meaningful share will not. Posts, chats, and comment history have no clean export path. Anyone who expects to outgrow Patreon should be building an email list off platform from day one.

Platform, API & security

Platforms: Web at patreon.comiOS appAndroid appPrivate podcast feeds in any podcast app
API: A public API and webhooks used mainly by third party tools that grant Discord roles, gate websites, or sync members to email platforms.
Compliance: GDPRPCI DSS handled by Patreon as merchant of recordSales tax and VAT handled by Patreon
Data residency: US hosted, with no regional residency options for creators.
SSO: No corporate SSO. Members authenticate with Patreon accounts, and OAuth is available for third party apps to verify membership.
Security notes: Patreon is the merchant of record, so card data never touches you and tax compliance is Patreon's responsibility. The corollary is that the payment relationship belongs to Patreon rather than to you, which is the single most consequential fact about the platform.

Support & resources

Channels: Help center and support ticketsPriority support historically attached to the legacy Premium plan
Documentation: A large help center covering tiers, billing, iOS in app purchases, the subscription billing migration, and integrations.
Community: A very large informal creator community across Reddit, Discord, and YouTube, plus Patreon's own creator resources and news blog.

Company

Founded: 2013
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
Ownership: Venture-backed, privately held
Founders: Jack Conte, Sam Yam
Employees: Several hundred, following multiple rounds of restructuring since 2022
Funding: Approximately $413M raised across multiple rounds, including a $155M Series F in 2021 led by Tiger Global at a $4B valuation. Acquired Memberful in 2018 as its white label offering.

Funding history

Round	Amount	Year	Notes
Series C	$60M	2017	Led by Thrive Capital as the creator economy thesis took hold.
Series E	$90M	2020	Raised at a reported $1.2B valuation during a surge in creator memberships.
Series F	$155M	2021	Led by Tiger Global at a $4B valuation, the company's peak.

Timeline

2013Founded in San Francisco by musician Jack Conte and developer Sam Yam, after Conte concluded YouTube ad revenue could not fund the videos he was making.
2017Attempts a service fee restructure that shifts fees onto patrons, faces significant creator backlash, and reverses it.
2018Acquires Memberful in August as a white label option for creators who want memberships on their own domain.
2021Raises a $155M Series F led by Tiger Global at a $4B valuation, the high water mark for the creator economy funding cycle.
2023Ships community chats, native video hosting, and a redesigned mobile experience, moving from a pledge page to a content platform.
2024Apple requires in app purchases in the iOS app from November, adding a 30 percent commission on new memberships; Patreon ships a tool that raises iOS prices by roughly 43 percent to offset it.
2025Retires tiered plans for new creators on 4 August, moving everyone joining thereafter to a single 10 percent platform fee while legacy rates persist only for published pages.
2026Requires all creators on legacy billing to move to subscription billing by 1 November.

Integrations

Discord (role granting by tier)
Spotify and podcast hosts via private RSS feeds
Mailchimp and other email tools
Zapier
Vimeo and YouTube
Shopify and merchandise partners
Patreon API, webhooks, and OAuth

Frequently asked questions

10 questions

What is Patreon and what job does it do here?

Patreon is a membership platform where creators sell recurring access to posts, video, livestreams, private podcasts, chats, and a digital shop, hosted on patreon.com. In this category its job is membership business rather than discussion community. It has community chats, comments, and direct messages, but no forum, no spaces with independent permissions, and no searchable knowledge base.

How much does Patreon cost?

Nothing to start. Creators who joined after 4 August 2025 pay a flat 10 percent platform fee on earnings. Legacy pages created before that date keep Lite at 5 percent, Pro at 8 percent, or Premium at around 11 to 12 percent, but only while the page stays published. Payment processing, payout fees, and currency conversion apply on top.

What does Patreon really cost per dollar of member revenue?

More than 10 percent, and how much more depends on your average pledge. Processing is roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, with a micropayment rate of 5 percent plus 10 cents on pledges of $3 or less, so small pledges are punished by the flat component. At $5,000 a month across 1,000 pledges of $5 you pay about $945, or 18.9 percent. At $50,000 a month across 1,000 pledges of $50 you pay about $6,750, or 13.5 percent. Podia or Teachable would charge roughly $1,900 on the same $50,000.

What happens if members join through the iPhone app?

Apple takes 30 percent of new memberships and shop purchases made inside the iOS app, which has applied since November 2024. Existing memberships are unaffected. Patreon offers an optional tool that raises iOS list prices by roughly 43 percent so you net the same as a web sale, which means iOS members pay visibly more. Creators outside the United States cannot opt out of the commission at all.

Can I use a custom domain or white label Patreon?

No, at any price. Your page is patreon.com/yourname, the design is Patreon's with your artwork on it, and the branding cannot be removed. This is the deliberate trade: you get Patreon's discovery and its installed app base in exchange for the audience knowing they are on Patreon rather than on your site. If owning the domain matters, Patreon's own Memberful is the intended answer.

Are there member or admin seat limits?

No member limits and no tier limits, so scale is not constrained. Team access exists but is thin compared with a business platform: Patreon is designed around a single creator or a small team, not around an organization with moderator hierarchies and permission scopes.

Is Patreon content indexed by search engines?

Public parts of a creator page are indexed, but the content members pay for is not, and none of it builds search equity for a domain you own. What Patreon offers instead is its own internal discovery: a directory, recommendations, and automated growth tools that can surface you to people already spending money on the platform. That is genuinely valuable and genuinely not the same thing as owning an audience.

How good are moderation and spam tooling?

Adequate for a creator page and weak for a community. You can block members, moderate comments, and gate chats by tier, and because every participant is a paying account with a payment method attached, spam is rare. What you do not get is a moderation queue, automated spam classification, role hierarchies, or the audit tooling that Discourse or Circle provide. Most creators running a substantial community move discussion to Discord and use Patreon only for entitlement.

Can I get my data and my members out if I leave?

Partly, and this deserves planning. Email addresses export, so you can contact people. But Patreon is the merchant of record for every subscription, so no payment method transfers: every member has to re-subscribe on the new platform, and a meaningful share will not. Posts, chat history, and comments have no clean export. Anyone who expects to outgrow Patreon should be building an off platform email list from the first month.

Should I just run a free Discord or Slack instead?

Almost every successful Patreon already does run a free or gated Discord, because Patreon's chats are worse than Discord's at being a community. The realistic comparison is not Patreon against Discord, it is how you charge. Options are Patreon at 10 percent with posts, video, podcast feeds, discovery, and Discord role granting included; Discord's own Server Subscriptions at 10 percent with everything locked inside Discord and app store fees on mobile; or Memberful at 4.9 percent doing only the billing. If your community is free and you have nothing to sell, run the Discord and skip all three.

Editorial verdict

Patreon is the right first move and the wrong long term home. Nothing else lets you go from no infrastructure to a paying audience in twenty minutes at zero fixed cost, with native video, livestreams, private podcast feeds, an email list you can export, automatic Discord role granting, and an app that millions of potential supporters already have installed with a card on file. For a creator who does not yet know whether anyone will pay, that combination is worth 10 percent and there is no honest alternative. The problem is that the 10 percent never stops, processing pushes the effective rate to between 13 and 20 percent, Apple takes 30 percent of iOS signups with no opt out outside the United States, and the community layer is chats and comments rather than anything you could call a platform. At $50,000 a month you are paying Patreon between $6,750 and $9,450 while Podia would charge about $1,900 and include a website, courses, and a better community. Start here, build an email list off platform from day one, and treat the migration to Memberful, Podia, or Circle as a question of when rather than whether.

Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.