Patreon has become the go-to membership platform for many creators to monetize their content. However, issues around censorship, high fees, and lack of control have led some to look for alternatives.
Fortunately, there are a number of great options to choose from. In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explore the top 8 Patreon competitors and help you find the best platform for your needs as a creator.
Overview of the Top 8 Patreon Alternatives
Here‘s a quick overview of our top picks for the best Patreon alternatives:
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Podia – Best overall Patreon alternative. Build your own membership site, sell courses, memberships, downloads and more, all with 0% fees. Unparalleled control and customization.
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Memberful – Feature-rich WordPress membership plugin. Very customizable, great for bloggers looking to offer memberships on their existing site.
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Buy Me a Coffee – Simple, fee-light way to collect donations and tips. Great for getting started quickly.
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Ko-fi – Popular donation platform and community. Completely free to use with no hidden fees.
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Gumroad – Leading platform for selling digital products, perfect for creators with an engaged following.
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Teachable – Robust platform for building and selling online courses. Marketplace helps with visibility and promotion.
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Thinkific – Also a superb course marketplace but with more customization options for your course site.
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Circle – A unique take on memberships centered around small online communities and group messaging.
Now let‘s take a deeper look at each platform and explore the key features, pros and cons, pricing, and ideal user base.
1. Podia – Best Overall Patreon Alternative
Podia is our #1 recommendation for creators looking for an alternative to Patreon. It gives you complete control, flexibility and ownership over your membership business and comes packed with features.
With Podia, you can build your own custom membership website, gate content, offer tiered membership levels, and sell other digital products – everything happens on your own domain that you own and control. There are no third-party branding issues or unexpected censorship.
It manages to combine the rich feature set of a dedicated membership platform with the flexibility of an ecommerce platform optimized for selling digital downloads, courses, webinars and the like.
Key Features
- Membership site builder – Create a custom membership site on your own domain with gated content areas, member profiles, discussion forums, messaging and more
- eCommerce – Sell digital downloads, courses, even services. Accept one-time purchases and subscriptions
- Tiers – Set up unlimited membership levels with custom pricing, benefits and gated content for each
- Coupons and bundles – Create discounts, bundled product offerings and single-use promo codes
- Zero fees – 0% transaction fees and 0% platform fees on paid Podia plans
- Free plan – A forever-free plan is offered allowing you to get started at no cost
For creators already using WordPress, Podia also offers a WordPress membership plugin for adding memberships functionality to your existing site although some features like Course sales are missing currently.
Pros
- Complete ownership and control
- Very customizable membership site
- Packed with features usually only seen in standalone platforms
- 0% fees is hard to beat
Cons
- Steeper learning curve than simpler alternatives
- Must have some technical confidence
Pricing
Free Plan
- Unlimited products
- 500MB storage
- 8% transaction fee
Creator Plan
- $39/month
- Unlimited products
- 1GB storage
- 0% fees
Business Plan
- $79/month
- Unlimited everything
- 0% fees
- More advanced features like member messaging, certificates and Zapier integration
Enterprise Plan
- Custom pricing
- Dedicated account manager
- High-volume features
Overall, Podia is the best bet for most creators wanting complete control and flexibility over their membership business and community. The freedom and ownership it provides makes it superior to more locked-down alternatives like Patreon.
2. Memberful – Feature-Rich WordPress Membership Plugin
Memberful is a flexible WordPress membership plugin that helps you accept memberships and recurring payments on your existing WordPress site.
It comes packed with features that rival standalone membership platforms, allowing you to offer:
- Multiple membership levels
- Member profiles and member directories
- Gated, members-only content
- Discussion forums
- Drip content scheduling
- Coupon codes
And more.
Memberful fully integrates into your WordPress dashboard making the process of managing members seamless.
You can even use it alongside other WordPress plugins like LearnDash to sell courses that are restricted to members only.
It‘s an excellent choice for bloggers on WordPress looking to add advanced membership functionality without migrating to a new platform.
Pros
- Very rich feature set
- Deep WordPress integration
- More customizable than off-the-shelf platforms
- Allows hybrid model mixing memberships and courses
Cons
- WordPress-only
- Requires comfort with WordPress dashboard
Pricing
Memberful uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model with no fixed monthly fees. Instead, you pay a small transaction fee on each new membership charge processed.
There are volume discounts available if you earn over $2,000/month in recurring revenue.
For a typical blog monetizing $500-1000 in monthly memberships, expect to pay around $25-50/month total in Memberful fees.
3. Buy Me a Coffee – Simple Tipping Platform
Buy Me A Coffee (also referred to as BMAC) is a neat, minimal platform for accepting donations and tips from fans.
It provides an easy alternative to Patreon for creators who aren‘t ready to set up a full membership site but still want to generate some income.
With BMAC, you get a slick profile page on the buymeacoffee.com subdomain. Fans can visit it to "buy you a coffee", essentially tipping you any amount they want in support of your work.
BMAC now also allows you to offer paid "Extras" for access to gated content, bonus materials, exclusive chats or calls and more.
However, it lacks more advanced membership site features you‘d find in dedicated platforms like discussion forums and deep membership management functionality.
So while basic, BMAC removes all friction for creators to start monetizing their work through donations and tips. For many, this lightweight approach is perfect and BMAC‘s minimal 5% platform fee makes it very appealing.
Key Features
- Custom profile page
- One-click donations
- Tiered extras
- 5% platform fee
- Instant payouts via Stripe
Pros
- Very quick and easy setup
- Generous free plan with full features
- Minimal platform fee
- Fast payouts
Cons
- Very basic features
- Lacks advanced membership tools
Pricing
Buy Me a Coffee is free to use. You only pay a 5% platform fee on earnings.
For example, if you generate $100 in sales, you would pay $5 to Buy Me a Coffee, receiving $95.
4. Ko-fi – Community-Focused Donations
Ko-fi is another donation platform, highly focused on building community between creators and their supporters.
The premise is simple: fans can visit your Ko-fi page and "buy you a coffee" to show their support and leave you words of encouragement.
It also allows you to sell digital products like ebooks/downloads and offer exclusive content to paying supporters only.
However, Ko-fi still lacks more advanced membership site functionality you‘d find in paid platforms. So it occupies the same quick donations/tipping niche as Buy Me a Coffee.
What sets Ko-fi apart is its passionate community, especially among smaller and up-and-coming creators. Supporters can obtain "badges" on their profile for being top supporters which incentivizes engagement on the platform.
And impressively, Ko-fi doesn‘t charge any fees or take a cut of your earnings on its free plan. So if you just want a basic but warm-and-fuzzy tipping page, Ko-fi is a superb choice.
Key Features
- Custom profile page
- Badges for top supporters
- Tips & digital product sales
- Passionate community
- Completely free
Pros
- Zero fees on free plan
- Very supportive community
- Engaged userbase
Cons
- Light on membership features
- Need paid plan ($6+/month) for gated content
Pricing
Ko-fi Free Plan
- Free forever
- 0% fee on earnings
- Basic profile page
- Tipping & donations
Ko-fi Gold Plan
- $6+/month
- 5% fee
- Gated content for subscribers
- Advanced features like custom URLs
Their free plan is extremely competitive, basically on par with platforms charging 4-5% fees already.
So if you just want a basic but zero-fee way to receive donations/tips from your fanbase, Ko-fi is a superb choice.
5. Gumroad – Selling Digital Downloads
Gumroad is an ecommerce platform focused specifically on helping creators sell digital products directly to their audience.
While Gumroad now supports subscription products, its bread and butter is digital downloads like:
- eBooks
- Online courses
- Stock media
- Sound packs, graphics packs
- 3D print files
- Software/apps
- And more
It makes it incredibly easy to get started selling downloads with premade templates, drag and drop page builders, and customizable checkout options.
Gumroad is a top choice for creators who already have an engaged audience they can promote new product launches to. The platform does very little to help you find new customers organically.
But if you have a following on platforms like YouTube, Twitter or are selling to an email list, Gumroad provides a fantastic sales funnel to monetize digital goods.
It can also fully replace Patreon by utilizing its recurring payments feature – you can create paid subscriptions for ongoing access to gated content areas.
Key Features
- Premade product templates
- Drag and drop checkout/sales pages
- customizable payment options
- Subscriptions/membership tiers
- Promotion/affiliate tools
- 8.5% + $0.30 fee per transaction
Pros
- Very quick & easy setup
- Many product configuration options
- Great payouts via Stripe
- Can fully replace Patreon
Cons
- Very limited native marketing
- Must bring your own audience
- Support for physical products lacking
Pricing
Gumroad charges 8.5% + $0.30 for each transaction processed.
All features are available to use no matter your sales volume.
At under 10% in total fees, Gumroad offers a cost-efficient way to sell digital goods at scale. And with the ability to create subscription products, it can directly replace platforms like Patreon as well.
6. Teachable – Robust Course Platform
Teachable is one of the leading platforms for creators looking to sell online courses at scale.
It offers a full-featured course builder allowing you to create polished, professional courses equipped with:
- Multimedia lessons
- Quizzes
- Gradebook
- Certificates
- Offline viewing
And more.
Courses can then be sold on your Teachable-hosted site or embedded via iframes across the web.
There‘s also a centralized Teachable marketplace where all courses get exposure to help fill up your classes with students.
For instructors looking specifically to create and sell premium online courses, Teachable is a prime choice.
It doesn‘t cater as much to membership sites, though advanced features like drip-content scheduling and discussion forums help bridge the gap.
Ultimately, if courses are your focus and community-building is secondary, Teachable outshines competitors. But if community and flexibility are bigger priorities, consider alternatives like Thinkific instead.
Key Features
- Robust course creation tools
- Built-in course marketing
- Coupons and bundles
- Detailed sales analytics
- Native mobile apps
Pros
- Amazing course design features
- Helps fill your classes
- Offline viewing support
Cons
- Locked into Teachable ecosystem
- Less flexible membership features
Pricing
Basic Plan
- $39/month
- 0% platform fees
- Can remove Teachable branding
Pro Plan
- $99/month
- 0% platform fees
- More advanced features like custom domains and discussion forums
Business Plan
- $399/month
- Dedicated account manager for support
For all paid plans, you pay a 2.9% + $0.30 fee per transaction to Stripe for payment processing.
So with 0% platform fees across the board, Teachable offers a transparent pricing structure perfect for running a lucrative online course business.
7. Thinkific – Emphasis on Customization
Thinkific offers another robust course creation platform great for bypassing Patreon.
It competes heavily with Teachable, sporting a similar feature set – but with an added emphasis on customization and flexibility.
Thinkific allows course creators more control over the look/feel/branding of your course site. It also supports building freemium community sites funded by paid premium courses.
This flexibility makes it equally adept for course businesses as well as paid membership sites – essentially a hybrid option between Teachable and dedicated membership platforms.
It‘s an excellent choice specifically if you want to leverage premium courses to fund a broader free community.
Key Features
- Custom domains
- Memberships and communities
- Drip content delivery
- Course bundles/coupons
- Native mobile app
- Affiliate management
Pros
- Very customizable sites
- Community membership model
- Helpful one-on-one support
Cons
- Steeper learning curve than Teachable
- Less focused on selling courses
Pricing
Basic Plan
- $99/month
- Standard features
- Full white-label
Pro Plan
- $399/month
- Advanced features
- High-volume discounts
Credit card processing fees also apply at roughly 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Thinkific offers reliable support, transparent pricing and no hidden charges which makes it an Editors‘ Choice winning platform.
8. Circle – Unique Community-First Approach
Circle provides a unique spin on memberships, positioning itself first as an online community platform powered by small, private circles focused on shared interests and meaningful conversations.
You can create circles based around yourself as a creator, or any niche topic and carefully curate members accepted into your circles.
Participating in circles then becomes the exclusive "membership" program fans pay for monthly to gain access, interact with you, etc.
The community-first approach helps foster extremely engaged user bases and cuts down on trolls/spam since everyone is vetted before joining.
Circle is free to use initially and only charges platform fees (% of revenue) once you upgrade to unlocking commerce features like collect member dues, offer paid events/workshops and sell digital goods.
It provides a novel way to incubate highly engaged communities from day one before later monetizing your most passionate followers when the time is right.
Key Features
- Create private, intimate circles
- Curate circle members
- Share audio, video and chat
- Paid member dues
- Digital goods
- Events
Pros
- Small, private communities
- Very engaged members
- Freedom to use free until ready to monetize
Cons
- Limited membership tools
- Unproven long-term monetization
Pricing
Circle‘s basic plan is completely free with the ability to create circles and incentivize signups.
To unlock commerce features, you upgrade into revenue share tiers:
- Pro Tier – 15% revenue share fee
- Premium Tier – 10% revenue share fee
So after covering credit card processing fees, you keep ~85-90% of all earnings generated.
The unique community-focused approach combined with free access initially makes Circle an intriguing platform to try.
Hopefully this breakdown has helped illuminate the top Patreon alternatives available and provided some guidance on which solution best aligns with your needs as a creator.
As you can see, there is no universal "best" platform. Choosing comes down to your specific goals and priorities.
For the best balance across all areas like fees, features and control – Podia is likely the best bet for most creators.
But category leaders also exist if you need specific functionality:
- Building online courses at scale → Teachable
- WordPress membership sites → Memberful
- Quickly getting started with donations → Buy Me a Coffee
No matter which platform you choose, the future looks bright for creators looking to ditch Patreon and truly own their membership businesses!
