Buy Me a Coffee Alternative: Free Trial, 0% Per Sale

Buy Me a Coffee takes 5% of every sale. See what you keep at $500 and $2,000 a month on Ko-fi, Patreon, Gumroad, Payhip and shopspace (0% per sale).

Buy Me a Coffee takes 5% of everything you earn, on tips, memberships and shop sales alike. If most of your income is small tips, that is a fair trade. If you now sell products, courses or memberships, a flat-fee storefront like shopspace (7-day free trial, then from $19 a month, 0% per sale) keeps more of your money once you pass roughly $400 a month.

Buy Me a Coffee is where a lot of creators take their first dollar. A supporter clicks, buys you a "coffee", and you feel it. That first sale matters. But the page you started on is built around tips, and tips have a ceiling. Somewhere between your first $100 month and your first $1,000 month, the question changes from "will anyone pay me?" to "how much of what they pay do I keep, and can I sell more than a coffee here?"

This article is for that second question. Numbers below come from each platform's own pricing or help page, checked in September 2026.

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What does Buy Me a Coffee actually charge?

Buy Me a Coffee's FAQ says it plainly: no monthly fee, a 5% transaction fee, and "creators keep 95% of the earnings." That 5% applies across the board, so a $5 coffee, a $15 a month membership and a $200 ebook in the shop all give up the same slice. Card processing is charged on top by the payment provider, as it is everywhere.

That structure is generous when you are small. Earn $60 in a month and you pay $3. There is no plan to pick and no bill arriving when you had a quiet month. The catch is that the fee never stops scaling. Earn $3,000 and you pay $150, every month, for the same set of features you had at $60.

When does 5% start to hurt?

Percent fees feel free right up until they don't. The tipping point is easy to find: divide a flat monthly price by the percentage. At 5%, a $19 a month storefront costs the same as Buy Me a Coffee at $380 in monthly sales. Above that, the flat fee wins and the gap widens every month.

That $380 line is also about where most creators stop being "tip" creators. Once you have a $10 membership with 40 members, or a $49 course that sells eight copies a month, you are running a small shop, not a tip jar. The tools you need change too: a proper checkout, a course player, member-only content, an email list you own, and something that turns Instagram comments into sales without you answering DMs all day.

Which alternatives are worth a look?

Here is the short list, ranked by how well each fits a creator moving from tips into products.

shopspace. A storefront for digital products, courses, memberships and bookings, with Instagram comment-to-DM automation built in. 7-day free trial with a card on file, then from $19 a month billed yearly or $29 billed monthly. 0% per sale. Payments run through your own Stripe account, so processing goes to Stripe and nothing goes to the platform.

Ko-fi. The closest cousin to Buy Me a Coffee. Ko-fi Free charges 0% on one-time tips and 5% on memberships, shop sales and commissions; Ko-fi Gold is $12 a month with 0% (source: Ko-fi pricing). Strong if tips stay your main income. We compare it in more depth in our Ko-fi alternative guide.

Patreon. Patreon's pricing page lists a 10% platform fee for new creators, "plus payment processing, currency conversion, and payout fees." Great community features and discovery, but the most expensive option here at any volume. Our Patreon alternative for creators breaks down when it is still worth paying.

Gumroad. 10% plus $0.50 on every direct sale, per its pricing page, and 30% on sales that come through its Discover marketplace. Simple to set up, expensive to keep.

Payhip. Free Forever is 5% per sale, Plus is $29 a month with 2%, Pro is $99 a month with 0% (source: Payhip pricing). Reasonable for digital downloads, with a heavier price ladder than the others, and it handles EU and UK VAT for you.

How much do you keep at $500 and $2,000 a month?

Platform fees only. Card processing (about 2.9% + $0.30 per sale) applies on every platform and is left out so the comparison is apples to apples. The Gumroad row assumes a $25 average order. The shopspace row uses the $19 yearly rate; at the $29 monthly rate, subtract $10 from each figure.

Two things stand out. At $500 a month, everything lands within about $40 of each other, so pick on features, not fees. At $2,000 a month, the flat-fee options pull ahead by roughly $80 to $220 a month against the percentage platforms, and the gap keeps growing. A creator doing $5,000 a month on Buy Me a Coffee is paying $250 a month for a page that used to cost them $3.

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What do you lose by leaving Buy Me a Coffee?

Be honest about this before you move. Buy Me a Coffee has a familiar brand your supporters trust, one-tap checkout with no account needed, and a clean page that takes ten minutes to set up. It also has no monthly bill, which matters if your income swings.

If you move, you will need to bring your supporters with you. Export your supporter emails (Buy Me a Coffee lets you export the list), post the new link in your bio and pinned posts, and give existing members a reason to re-subscribe, such as a bonus download or a locked-in price. Expect a small dip in the first month. Most creators who make the switch do it because the products they want to sell no longer fit in a tip jar, not because 5% alone is unbearable.

Where shopspace fits

shopspace is built for the creator who has outgrown the tip jar. One storefront holds your digital downloads, courses, memberships and bookings. Payments go straight to your Stripe account, and shopspace takes 0% of every sale. The part that is hard to find anywhere else at this price is the Instagram automation: a follower comments a keyword on your post, shopspace DMs them the link, and the sale happens without you in the loop.

It is not free. There is a 7-day trial with a card on file, and nothing is charged for those 7 days. After that it is from $19 a month billed yearly, or $29 billed monthly. If you earn under about $400 a month and mostly from tips, stay on Buy Me a Coffee for now. If you are above that, or you are about to launch a course or a membership, the flat fee pays for itself and the tools are the ones you would otherwise be stitching together from three subscriptions.

The verdict

Buy Me a Coffee is a good first home and a costly permanent one. Its 5% is the lowest percentage among the big names, and with no monthly fee it is the right call while you are testing whether people will pay you at all.

The moment your income comes from products rather than tips, the maths flips. At $2,000 a month, a 0% storefront on a flat fee keeps you about $80 more than Buy Me a Coffee and about $180 more than Patreon, every month, and gives you a real checkout, courses, memberships and comment-to-DM selling in the same place.

If that is where you are, start the trial, move one product over, and see whether the numbers hold for your audience before you move the rest.

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