When Memberful Costs Less Than Patreon

For a new US creator collecting monthly memberships in USD by domestic card, Memberful leaves more after modeled fees once gross sales exceed about $961 a month; below that, Patreon leaves more. Patreon’s creator-fee schedule sets a 10% platform charge for pages published after August 4, 2025, and a 2.9% plus $0.30 processing charge for USD card payments.

Memberful’s Standard plan costs $49 a month plus 4.9% per transaction, with card processing added. Once the lower percentage covers the monthly charge, Memberful’s fee advantage grows with sales. Patreon supplies a hosted membership destination, while Memberful lets creators build a branded site around their own Stripe account.

The fee equation depends on revenue, not member count

Stripe’s US standard pricing lists 2.9% plus $0.30 per successful domestic-card payment. Using that rate for Memberful and Patreon’s identical published USD card rate makes the processing charges equal. If R is monthly gross membership revenue and N is the number of successful payments, modeled Memberful charges are $49 + 7.8% of R + $0.30N; modeled Patreon standard charges are 12.9% of R + $0.30N.

Subtracting the two totals leaves $49 minus 5.1% of R. The exact break-even is about $960.78 in monthly gross sales, with Memberful cheaper above that figure. At a $29 monthly tier, 33 paying members bring in $957 and leave Patreon marginally ahead; 34 bring in $986 and put Memberful ahead. A cheaper tier needs more members to reach the same revenue threshold, while a higher-priced tier needs fewer. That is why a single subscriber-count crossover can mislead.

Three monthly US membership scenarios

Memberful and Patreon retained revenue across three monthly US membership sizes, showing the change in fee advantage as sales grow.

These are editorial calculations from published prices checked November 9, 2026. Each illustrative case assumes one successful domestic-card charge per member per month, USD prices and no sales tax, refunds, chargebacks, currency conversion, payout fees or optional add-ons. “Kept” means gross sales minus the plan, platform and modeled card charges, before other business expenses. The MemberMath calculator uses the same full-price US-card method and publishes the same retained amounts for the larger case.

Small membership: At 20 members paying $10 monthly, gross sales are $200. Memberful charges total $70.60, leaving $129.40; Patreon charges total $31.80, leaving $168.20. Patreon leaves $38.80 more.
Near the crossover: At 50 members paying $19 monthly, gross sales are $950. Memberful charges total $138.10, leaving $811.90; Patreon charges total $137.55, leaving $812.45. Patreon leaves $0.55 more.
Larger membership: At 200 members paying $29 monthly, gross sales are $5,800. Memberful charges total $561.40, leaving $5,238.60; Patreon charges total $808.20, leaving $4,991.80. Memberful leaves $246.80 more.

The fixed $49 is a large part of the small membership’s cost but a much smaller part of the large one’s. The larger case also incurs $228.20 in card fees on either service. Two creators with the same gross sales but different numbers of payments would keep different amounts because each payment incurs another $0.30, although the platform crossover would remain at the same gross revenue. Individual transaction rounding may also move an actual payout slightly.

Legacy Patreon pricing changes the result

The standard-plan threshold does not apply to every existing Patreon creator. Eligible pages that have stayed published can retain a legacy Pro platform rate of 8% or a Founders rate of 5%. A page that is unpublished and later republished moves to the standard plan. The rate shown in an existing creator’s account therefore matters before comparing the cost of a move.

For legacy Pro memberships above Patreon’s micropayment tier, USD card processing is also 2.9% plus $0.30. Under the same domestic-card assumption, Memberful saves only 3.1 percentage points in variable fees, so its $49 monthly charge is recovered only once gross sales exceed about $1,580.65. At $29 per member, that means 55 paying members rather than 34. For payments of $3 or less, Pro’s published micropayment processing rate is different, so the same calculation cannot be carried over unchanged.

Founders has a different USD credit-card processing rate: 1.6% plus $0.30 for an eligible account, alongside its 5% platform fee. That totals 6.6% of gross revenue plus $0.30 per payment, compared with Memberful’s modeled 7.8% plus $0.30 per payment and $49 monthly. With those assumptions, Memberful never overtakes Founders on fees alone. A Founders creator who changed payout currency may retain the platform percentage while paying a different processing rate.

What changes in the member experience

A paid podcast illustrates the choice between Memberful’s creator-controlled membership setup and Patreon’s hosted member experience.

Memberful offers more control over the branded path into a membership. Its membership product description specifies checkout and member accounts on the creator’s domain, a connected Stripe account, a WordPress plugin for an existing site and a website builder for a new one. A creator does not need a finished website to start, although using the builder means relying on Memberful to run that part of the experience.

Website and checkout: Patreon gives members a hosted creator page and checkout in its own environment. Memberful can keep signup and account pages under the creator’s domain. That matters to a publisher whose readers already arrive through a site or newsletter and who wants the membership journey to carry the same brand.
Payments and member relationship: Memberful connects the creator’s own Stripe account, making the payment setup part of a creator-managed stack. Patreon handles membership payments inside its hosted system. This distinction can matter even when the modeled monthly fee gap is small.
Community and content: Patreon’s standard package includes chats, polls, comments and video hosting alongside memberships. Memberful includes newsletters, podcasts, courses, downloads and integrated comments, with integrations such as Discord and WordPress. A creator seeking one destination for members to watch, discuss and subscribe may value Patreon’s bundled experience; one already publishing across channels may value Memberful’s connections.

A creator already running a website and community can connect membership to those channels. Someone using Patreon as the sole destination for paid content would need to build and maintain that path after a move. The work and any separate site or community costs sit outside the fee calculation.