Which Is Cheaper for Memberships: Patreon or Ko-fi?

Quick answer

Ko-fi Gold ($12/month, 0% fee) beats Patreon (10% + processing) on cost once you pass $120/month in memberships. Patreon offers built-in discovery and more mature tools — Ko-fi is cheaper but you bring your own audience.

Patreon and Ko-fi both run recurring memberships, and on fees they sit at opposite ends. Every new Patreon creator pays a flat 10% platform fee plus payment processing — roughly 12.9% all-in on a web pledge. Ko-fi charges 5% on memberships on its free plan, and 0% on its Gold plan for a flat $12/month.

So Ko-fi keeps more of every membership dollar. The honest question is whether Patreon's higher cut buys you enough — discovery, tooling, and fan habit — to be worth it.

How Does a $5 Membership Compare Across Patreon and Ko-fi?

On a $5 web membership, Patreon keeps roughly $0.94 in platform and processing fees, leaving you $4.06. Ko-fi Gold removes the platform fee entirely, so you keep $4.56 after processing alone. That $0.50 gap per pledge compounds across every active member each month.

How Do You Compare Your Real Take-Home on Each Platform?

Use the calculator below to enter any membership price and instantly see the net payout on Patreon, Ko-fi free (5%), and Ko-fi Gold (0%). The difference becomes obvious once you move the price slider past $10, where Patreon's percentage-based fee pulls noticeably further ahead of Ko-fi Gold's flat processing cost.

Switch between Patreon, Ko-fi's free plan (5%), and Ko-fi Gold (0%) at any membership price.

How Big Is the Membership Fee Gap at Scale?

At low volumes the per-pledge difference feels minor, but membership revenue is recurring. By the time you reach 200 active $5 members, Patreon's 10% platform fee alone costs $100/month while Ko-fi Gold's flat $12 stays fixed. The gap widens linearly from there, making the choice increasingly expensive to defer.

On one $5 membership the difference is about $0.50. Across a membership base it compounds. At $1,000/month in $5 web memberships, Patreon's 10% platform fee alone is about $100/month — before processing. Ko-fi Gold removes the platform fee entirely for $12/month, so against Patreon, Gold pays for itself almost immediately and keeps widening the gap as your base grows.

Where Does Patreon Earn Its Higher Cut?

Patreon's 10% buys discovery, mature tier management, and an audience that already expects to pay creators monthly. If your growth depends on being found inside a platform rather than driving traffic yourself, that fee functions more like a marketing cost than a pure tax on revenue.

Fees aren't the whole story, and Patreon's extra 10% buys real things:

Discovery and habit. Patreon is where many fans already are and already expect to pay creators monthly. That built-in behavior and search presence can drive memberships Ko-fi simply won't surface for you.

Tiered memberships and tooling. Patreon's tier system, gated posts, and member management are more mature for running a true membership program with multiple levels and perks.

The iOS caveat cuts the other way. Patreon pledges made inside the iPhone app get hit by Apple's cut of up to 30% — so Patreon's real rate on app sign-ups can be far worse than 12.9%. Steering fans to the web matters on Patreon in a way it doesn't on Ko-fi.

Where Does Ko-fi Pull Ahead on Memberships?

Ko-fi Gold at $12/month with 0% platform fee is the largest structural fee advantage in fan funding. Once your membership revenue is predictable and your audience comes from your own channels rather than platform discovery, that flat monthly cost beats Patreon's 10% on every single pledge.

Cost, plainly. 0% on Gold versus 10% on Patreon is the largest structural fee gap in fan funding. The more predictable your membership revenue, the more that flat $12/month wins.

Tips and shop included. Ko-fi bundles 0% tips and a low-fee shop into the same page, so it's not just memberships — it's your whole supporter surface at a lower blended cost.

Which Platform Should You Choose for Memberships?

Choose Patreon if your audience already lives there and you need tiered memberships with built-in discovery. Choose Ko-fi Gold if your audience comes from your own channels and you want the lowest possible cost per pledge. Many creators run both — Patreon for tier-based membership content and Ko-fi for tips and shop sales.

If you're building a serious membership program and lean on discovery, tiers, and fans who already live on Patreon, the 10% can be worth it. If your audience comes from your own channels and you mostly want to keep the most per dollar, Ko-fi — especially Gold once you're past ~$120/month in memberships — keeps noticeably more. Many creators run a Ko-fi page for tips and a Patreon for tiers, and split the difference. For the complete fee math on each platform, see Patreon fees 2026 and Ko-fi fees 2026. If you're weighing Ko-fi against another tipping platform, see Ko-fi vs Buy Me a Coffee.

What If You Run Both Patreon and Ko-fi?

Running both platforms means two dashboards, two fee structures, and no combined view of your real net income or tax obligations. When we built Owelet's Patreon integration, we discovered that iOS-originated pledges show as pending for up to 75 days in creator balance because Apple processes and remits on their own schedule, completely separate from Patreon's monthly payout cycle.

A Patreon and a Ko-fi side by side means two dashboards, two fee structures, and no single view of your real net or your tax set-aside.

That's what Owelet does. Connect Patreon, Ko-fi, and everything else, and see your true take-home, fee drain per platform, and tax set-aside in one place. Free to start at owelet.app — the dashboard that shows your combined membership income after every fee.

The iOS tax on Patreon memberships is also a hidden cost worth understanding — see the hidden fees most membership creators never calculate →

For the full cross-platform fee ranking, see creator platform fee comparison →

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