Best Patreon Alternative for Creators (Free Options Too)
Patreon takes 10% from new creators. Ko-fi, Payhip, Stan Store and shopspace compared on $500 and $2,000 a month in memberships.
The best Patreon alternative depends on what you sell. For tips and one simple membership, Ko-fi costs very little. If you sell memberships next to courses, downloads or calls, a flat-price store with no cut per sale keeps the most. Patreon takes 10% of income from creators who launched after August 4, 2025, plus processing and payout fees.
shopspace is that flat-price store: you can start a 7-day free trial of shopspace and sell memberships at 0% per sale for $19 a month billed yearly.
What Patreon actually costs
Patreon's pricing page shows one standard plan for new creators: 10% of the income you earn on Patreon. Patreon's support center says this standard fee applies to new creators from August 4, 2025; creators who were on Patreon before then keep their older plan. On top of the 10% come payment processing fees, currency conversion fees, payout fees and applicable taxes. Patreon does not list those percentages on its pricing page and we could not verify them, so the math below uses the 10% alone. Your real cost on Patreon is higher than the table shows (source: Patreon pricing).
For that you get monthly and annual memberships, one-time payments and a shop for digital products. Patreon also has one advantage no alternative can copy: many fans already know it, and a familiar checkout can make joining feel safer. Whether that is worth 10% of your income is the question this article answers.
Patreon vs the alternatives: what you keep
Here is what each platform takes from $500 and $2,000 a month in membership income, as of September 2026, using yearly-billed prices where a plan offers them. Card processing (Stripe or PayPal) applies on every platform, so it is left out to keep the comparison fair.
| Platform (plan) | Pricing model | Takes at $500 | You keep | Takes at $2,000 | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patreon | 10% of income | $50 | $450 | $200 | $1,800 |
| Ko-fi (free option) | 5% on memberships | $25 | $475 | $100 | $1,900 |
| Ko-fi Gold | $12 a month, 0% | $12 | $488 | $12 | $1,988 |
| Payhip Free | 5% per sale | $25 | $475 | $100 | $1,900 |
| Payhip Plus | $29 a month + 2% | $39 | $461 | $69 | $1,931 |
| Stan Store Creator | $25 a month yearly, 0% | $25 | $475 | $25 | $1,975 |
| shopspace Creator | $19 a month yearly, 0% | $19 | $481 | $19 | $1,981 |
Patreon is the most expensive option at both income levels, and that is before its processing, currency and payout fees. A flat $19 a month becomes cheaper than Patreon's 10% as soon as your members pay you more than $190 a month. Ko-fi Gold is the cheapest line in the table, and it is a good choice if all you run is tips and a simple membership.
At $2,000 a month in memberships, Patreon's 10% is $200 you never see, before its processing and payout fees. Start a 7-day free trial of shopspace and keep it: 0% per sale, flat $19 a month billed yearly.
Ko-fi: cheapest for tips and a simple membership
Ko-fi has three options. Ko-fi Free charges 0% on one-time tips and Goals and 5% on shop sales, memberships, monthly tips and commissions. The Standard option, which Ko-fi says is the default for new creators, charges 5% on everything, tips included. Ko-fi Gold costs $12 a month and charges 0%. One catch: memberships taken through Stripe before you switch to Gold keep the 5%. Payouts go instantly to your own PayPal or Stripe account (source: Ko-fi pricing).
Ko-fi's listed product types are tips, memberships, shop items and commissions. Courses and bookings are not among them, so it fits best when your membership is a way for fans to support you rather than a product with lessons and calls.
Payhip: free to start, and it handles EU VAT
Payhip's Free Forever plan charges 5% per sale, Plus is $29 a month with 2%, and Pro is $99 a month with 0%. Every plan has every feature, including memberships, courses and coaching. Payhip also collects and remits EU and UK VAT for you, which shopspace does not do. If many of your members live in the EU and you do not want to deal with VAT yourself, that is a real reason to pick Payhip (source: Payhip pricing).
Stan Store: 0% per sale with a higher base price
Stan Store's Creator plan is $29 a month, or $25 billed yearly, with 0% transaction fees. It sells memberships and communities alongside courses and bookings. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and email broadcasts are only on Creator Pro at $99 a month (source: Stan Store pricing).
Kajabi: only if you are building a full course business
Kajabi bundles courses, memberships, communities, email and websites. As of September 2026, Basic is $179 a month ($143 billed yearly), Growth is $249 ($199 yearly) and Pro is $499 ($399 yearly). There is no revenue share when you use Kajabi Payments; with a third-party processor Kajabi adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro. Basic is limited to 5 products, 1 community and 2,500 contacts (source: Kajabi pricing).
That price makes sense for a business built around courses with a large list. For a creator who wants to replace Patreon, it is several times the cost of the other options here. If courses are your main product, compare the course-first platforms in the best platforms for selling online courses.
If the community is the product
Ask what your members pay for. If it is access to you and your work, any membership tool above will do. If they mainly pay for access to each other, a community-first platform such as Mighty Networks is built for that; check its own pricing page, because we could not verify its current plans. On shopspace, community access comes with memberships, so members get your content and a place to talk in the same login.
Where shopspace fits
shopspace is for creators who want memberships to sit next to everything else they sell. On the Creator plan you get memberships with community access, courses with progress tracking, digital downloads, bookings for calls and coaching, webinars, bundles and a tip jar, with unlimited products, courses and members. Email campaigns and sequences, automations on store events (a welcome sequence when someone joins, for example) and Instagram automations such as auto-DM on comment are included. shopspace takes 0% of each sale, and payments go straight to your own Stripe account.
What it does not do: there is no free plan, no discovery or marketplace, and no VAT handling. It does not bring you members; you bring your audience. If you are earning less than $190 a month from members, a percentage plan will cost you less for now.
How to move your members off Patreon
- Build the membership first. Set up your tiers and join once yourself so you see what a new member sees.
- Expect members to sign up again. A card saved on one platform does not move to another, so each patron joins your new membership fresh. Give them a reason: a founding price or a bonus for moving.
- Send new members to the new store straight away. Keep Patreon running for existing patrons while they move over.
- Tell people why. "Less of your money goes to fees and more goes into the work" is an honest message most fans respect.
- Close Patreon last, once most of your active patrons have switched.
For the setup itself, read how to build a paid membership site.
The verdict
Tips and one simple tier: Ko-fi. Switch to Gold once memberships pass about $240 a month.
Many EU members and no appetite for VAT paperwork: Payhip.
Memberships plus courses, downloads, calls or Instagram selling: shopspace. It keeps more than Patreon from $190 a month in member income, and everything sits in one store with one flat price.
Stay on Patreon only if your fans' familiarity with it is worth more to you than 10% of your income plus its other fees.
If you are ready to stop giving away a tenth of what your members pay, try shopspace free for 7 days. A card is required at signup, nothing is charged during the 7 days, and if you cancel inside the trial you pay nothing.