Patreon vs Ko-fi: Ko-fi Usually Costs Creators Less

Ko-fi usually costs creators less for one-off tips, memberships, and ordinary shop sales. Ko-fi Free charges no service fee on one-time tips and 5% on memberships and shop sales, whereas Patreon applies a 10% platform fee to pages published after August 4, 2025. Both routes still incur payment-processing costs.

An eligible legacy Patreon page can reverse that result. In particular, Patreon’s Founders plan combines a 5% platform fee with special USD processing rates when its conditions remain intact. Your decision should therefore account for the page’s actual plan, transaction sizes, processor, payout method, currency mix, and checkout route.

What each platform charges

Separate costs into platform fees, payment processing, currency conversion, and withdrawal or payout charges. A comparison based only on the advertised platform percentage understates the effect of fixed per-transaction charges on small payments.

Ko-fi Free: Ko-fi’s official fee table lists a $0 monthly charge, a 0% service fee on one-off tips and crowdfunding payments, and a 5% fee on monthly tips, memberships, commissions, and shop sales.
Ko-fi Contributor: The same Ko-fi fee table applies 5% to all payments, including one-off tips, while unlocking additional publishing and customization features.
Standard Patreon: Pages published after August 4, 2025 use Patreon’s standard 10% platform plan, plus processing and any applicable conversion, payout, or tax charges.
Legacy Patreon: Qualifying continuously published pages retain platform fees of 5% for Founders, 8% for Pro, or 11% for Pro plus Merch.

New Ko-fi accounts start with Contributor enabled, although creators can opt out, according to Ko-fi’s current account guidance. Changing Contributor status does not reprice existing recurring Stripe payments: subscriptions started while Contributor was active can continue carrying the fee after it is disabled, while older subscriptions may remain exempt after it is enabled.

Take-home revenue on $5, $10, and $25 memberships

Ko-fi, standard Patreon, and legacy Patreon membership fees produce different take-home amounts at $5, $10, and $25.

This model assumes a US creator receives a domestic US-dollar card payment without tax or currency conversion. Ko-fi processing uses Stripe’s standard rate of 2.9% plus $0.30 for a successful domestic-card transaction; Patreon’s USD card rate is also 2.9% plus $0.30 for standard and eligible legacy Pro pages.

The estimates are calculated per payment and rounded to the nearest cent. Patreon payout fees are excluded, while Ko-fi funds enter the connected processor account directly; processor-specific withdrawal, conversion, or optional-service costs are also outside the model.

For a $5 membership, applying Ko-fi’s 5% membership fee and Patreon’s 10% standard or 8% legacy Pro fee leaves approximately $4.31 on Ko-fi, $4.06 on standard Patreon, and $4.16 on legacy Patreon Pro.
For a $10 membership, those Ko-fi service charges and Patreon plan rates produce approximately $8.91, $8.41, and $8.61, respectively.
For a $25 membership, the same 2.9% plus $0.30 processing assumption and the platforms’ published percentage fees leave approximately $22.73 on Ko-fi, $21.48 on standard Patreon, and $21.98 on legacy Patreon Pro.

Because the assumed processing charge is identical, the gap between Ko-fi and standard Patreon equals five percentage points of each payment in this scenario. On 100 standard Patreon payments of $10 compared with Ko-fi’s 5% membership fee, the conditional difference is about $50 before payout costs.

Which platform is cheaper for one-off tips?

Ko-fi Free is the lower-cost choice for voluntary one-off support at the platform layer. With Contributor disabled, Ko-fi charges 0% on one-time tips, although PayPal or Stripe still deducts its applicable processing charge.

For example, a $2 Ko-fi tip would leave approximately $1.64 under Stripe’s 2.9% plus $0.30 domestic-card rate. With Contributor active, the same payment would leave approximately $1.54 after Ko-fi’s additional 5% service fee on tips.

Patreon’s closest one-off option is a sale rather than an unrestricted tip. Its Shop instructions allow prices from $3 to $5,000 for posts, digital products, and collections. If supporters primarily want to send small amounts without buying access or starting a recurring membership, Ko-fi fits that payment behavior more directly.

How shop-sale fees compare

Ko-fi also has the lower advertised platform rate for ordinary shop transactions. The Ko-fi schedule charges 5% on shop sales under both Free and Contributor, with processing handled separately through the connected payment account.

Patreon applies its plan-based fees to successfully processed digital-product sales. Its commerce fee table lists a standard 10% platform fee plus processing, taxes on fees where applicable, and a payout charge; creators who started selling before the pricing change may have a legacy rate determined by their plan settings.

Under the same domestic USD card assumptions, a conditional $25 digital sale leaves approximately $22.73 through Ko-fi and $21.48 through standard Patreon, using Ko-fi’s 5% shop fee and Patreon’s 10% standard sales fee. Taxes, refunds, disputes, fulfillment, currency conversion, and optional processor services are excluded.

Why legacy Patreon status changes the result

An old Patreon account is not automatically entitled to legacy pricing. Patreon says the page must have been published on or before August 4, 2025 and remained continuously published; if either the creator or Patreon unpublishes it, republishing moves the page to the standard 10% plan.

A qualifying Pro page still carries an 8% platform fee, compared with Ko-fi’s 5% charge for memberships and shop sales. A qualifying Founders account is different: Patreon lists a 5% platform fee and a 1.6% plus $0.30 USD card-processing rate when its Founders-specific conditions remain intact.

With those Founders rates, the estimated take-home is approximately $4.37 from $5, $9.04 from $10, and $23.05 from $25, as calculated from Patreon’s published fee schedule. That narrow configuration beats the Ko-fi membership examples, but it is unavailable to new creators, and changing payout currency can replace the special Founders processing rate with standard processing.

Payout timing and currency can outweigh the headline fee

Ko-fi and Patreon payment flows differ in payout timing, currency conversion risk, and withdrawal charges.

Ko-fi does not accumulate creator earnings for a scheduled platform payout. Its payment guide says each payment goes directly to the connected PayPal or Stripe account, without a Ko-fi minimum balance or waiting period; the processor then controls access to the funds and any onward transfer.

Patreon places earnings in a creator balance after processing payments and applicable fees. According to Patreon’s payout instructions, available funds can be withdrawn manually, retained in the balance, or paid automatically on the fifth of the month, while deposits typically arrive within 10 days.

Timing also varies by purchase route. Patreon says web and Android product-sale funds may remain pending for up to 7 days, while iOS purchases may remain pending for up to 75 days. Its fee overview also states that eligible Patreon iOS transactions can carry an Apple App Store fee of 30%, so the card-based examples above should not be applied to those purchases.

Patreon deducts a transaction charge when earnings leave the platform balance. For a US creator receiving USD, Patreon lists $0.25 per direct-deposit payout or 1% for PayPal, with a $0.25 minimum and $20 cap. Consolidating withdrawals can spread the fixed direct-deposit fee across more revenue.

Currency mismatch adds another variable. Patreon charges 2.5% when a member pays in a currency different from the creator’s payout currency, calculated on the processed amount including tax. Ko-fi publishes no single conversion rate because Stripe or PayPal performs the conversion; its currency guidance recommends matching the page currency to the currency received most often.

Build a model around your actual payments

Calculate fees transaction by transaction rather than applying one percentage to monthly gross revenue. For each payment, subtract the applicable platform percentage, processor percentage, fixed processing charge, and conversion cost; apply payout charges only after grouping the payments included in a withdrawal.

Open Patreon’s Plan details page and confirm whether the account is standard, Pro, Founders, or another legacy configuration.
Check whether Ko-fi Contributor is active and identify recurring Stripe payments that may retain earlier fee treatment.
Group a representative month by transaction amount, payment method, supporter location, currency, and checkout route.
Apply the correct fee schedule to each group, including the fixed processor charge for every separate transaction.
Add withdrawal costs and compare the result with the features and payment methods your audience actually needs.

Price distribution matters. A creator receiving many small tips loses more to fixed processing charges than one receiving the same gross revenue through fewer larger sales, while a membership business repeatedly incurs the platform percentage during each billing cycle.

Choose the cheaper route for your revenue mix

Choose Ko-fi Free when one-off tips are central and Contributor features are optional. Ko-fi is also usually cheaper at the platform layer for new membership and shop businesses, provided its payment methods and delivery tools fit your audience.

Preserve an eligible legacy Patreon page until you have checked the financial effect of unpublishing or changing its configuration. A Founders page may produce a better result than Ko-fi under qualifying USD conditions, while a new Patreon page should be forecast with the standard plan rather than another creator’s legacy rate.

Before migrating, run a representative month through the model and weigh the expected fee difference against subscriber friction, feature requirements, payment-method coverage, and payout timing. The useful comparison is total cost for your real transactions, not the smallest percentage shown on a pricing page.

Patreon vs Ko-fi: Which Platform Costs Creators Less?