Ko-fi vs Patreon in 2026: 0-5% against 10%
Ko-fi takes 0-5% and never holds your money. Patreon takes 10% and hosts video, podcasts and annual plans. Plus the Telegram third option.
Start earning from your channel
Connect a channelTL;DR. Ko-fi charges 0% on one-off tips on its Free plan and 5% on memberships, shop sales and commissions; Standard — the default for new creators — is 5% on everything; Gold is $12 a month for 0%. Ko-fi never touches the money: supporters pay straight into your own PayPal or Stripe. Patreon charges 10% of the income you earn on Patreon, plus processing, conversion and payout fees it does not publish a rate for, and sells a heavier product in return: native video and livestreaming, podcasts with RSS and Spotify, annual subscriptions, free trials, tiers. On price it is not close — Ko-fi wins. On what you can build, Patreon does. A paid Telegram channel is neither, and costs more than both.
These two are usually framed as the same product at different prices. They are not. One is a payment layer with a page attached; the other is a media platform with a membership business inside it. The fee gap follows from that, and so does the right answer.
The fee, precisely
Ko-fi. The pricing page states it in one line: 0-5% service fees. Underneath, three positions. Ko-fi Free takes nothing on one-off tips and 5% on memberships, shop sales and commissions, with no advanced features. Standard is the default for new creators and takes 5% on every payment type — tips, memberships, commissions and shop sales — in exchange for supporter-only content, scheduled posts, a shorter page name and more. Gold is $12 a month and 0% on everything. Normal card processing fees apply in every case, and Ko-fi is explicit that there are no buyer fees, payout fees or marketing fees beyond that.
Gold is a pure break-even calculation: $12 against 5% means it starts paying for itself somewhere above $240 a month in payments that would otherwise carry the percentage. Ko-fi’s own Gold page now opens with “You no longer need Ko-fi Gold” while confirming new creators can still join it for a fixed monthly cost.
Patreon. One number, published plainly: 10% of the income you earn on Patreon, and it is free to start — you pay when you start earning. Then “payment processing, currency conversion, and payout fees, and applicable taxes”, with no rate given for any of them on the pricing page. Patreon’s support centre returned HTTP 403 to our requests, so this page prints no processing figure for Patreon at all.
On a $10 monthly membership: Ko-fi Standard leaves $9.50 before your own processor’s fee. Patreon leaves $9.00 before processing, conversion and payout. The gap is real but modest — the interesting difference is that one of those numbers is final in your own account and the other is not knowable in advance.
Who each one is built for
Ko-fi is built for the creator who wants the money to arrive without a platform in the middle. It does not process payments; you connect PayPal or Stripe, set your own prices and terms, and manage your own supporters. A new member’s first payment lands instantly, then monthly, directly in your account. Around that sits a broad kit for one page: one-off and monthly tips, membership tiers, a shop for digital or physical items, art commissions, stream alerts with overlays and chat bots, Discord roles, funding goals, polls, discount codes, and widgets for your own site. Supporters can pay by PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, Cash App, card or a popular local method, and your supporter data is downloadable whenever you want.
Patreon is built for the creator whose work needs hosting. Its pricing page sells membership tiers, monthly and annual subscriptions, one-time payments, native video and livestreaming, email newsletters, chats, DMs and comments, member analytics and insights, free trials, discounts and sales, and creator-first discovery. Podcasters get importing and syncing, multiple shows, Spotify integration and RSS distribution. Payment methods run from PayPal and Apple Pay to Venmo and Sofort, across 16+ currencies for pay-ins and payouts.
Put crudely: Ko-fi is where the money goes; Patreon is where the work goes.
Side by side
| Ko-fi | Patreon | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee on tips and one-offs | 0% on Free, 5% on Standard, 0% on Gold | 10% of the income you earn |
| Fee on memberships, shop, commissions | 5%, or 0% on Gold at $12/month | 10% of the income you earn |
| The rest of the stack | Your own PayPal or Stripe fee; no buyer, payout or marketing fees | Processing, conversion, payout, taxes — rates not published |
| Kept on a $10 member | $9.50 before your processor’s fee | $9.00 before unpublished fees |
| Who holds the money | Nobody — it lands in your own account, first payment instantly | Patreon collects and pays out |
| Recurring options | Monthly membership tiers | Monthly and annual, plus free trials, discounts and sales |
| Selling things | Shop for digital and physical items, art commissions | Digital products and one-time payments |
| Video, livestream, podcast | Stream alerts and overlays for streams hosted elsewhere | Native video and livestreaming, podcast import, RSS, Spotify |
| Community tools | Discord roles, direct messages, polls, gallery, posts | Chats, DMs and comments, member analytics |
| Supporter data | Download your data anytime | Exportable email lists |
Where Ko-fi wins
- Price, at every level. 0% on tips for a Free account, a 5% ceiling everywhere else, and a $12 escape hatch above $240 a month. Nothing on Patreon’s page competes with that.
- You keep the payment relationship. Money never sits on a platform balance. That removes payout schedules, payout fees and a whole category of “when do I get paid” anxiety.
- Commissions and a real shop. Custom art commissions and physical items are first-class here, and Patreon’s pricing page advertises neither.
- Streamers are properly served. Alerts, overlays and chat bots for Twitch and YouTube, plus Discord roles, in the same product as the tip jar.
Where Patreon wins
- It hosts the work. Native video and livestreaming, podcast importing with RSS and Spotify, newsletters. On Ko-fi your video lives somewhere else and Ko-fi points at it.
- Annual billing. A year collected up front is a different business from month-to-month, and Ko-fi’s membership page describes monthly pricing only.
- Free trials, discounts and sales are listed features, which is a funnel Ko-fi does not advertise.
- Discovery. Creator-first discovery and automated growth tools mean some members can arrive without you sending them. A Ko-fi page waits for traffic you bring.
The third option: doing it inside Telegram
Both platforms above assume a destination: a browser, a link, a checkout. If your supporters already read you in a Telegram channel, that trip can be skipped by selling inside the chat. A donation goal carries its own target, running total and button label. A single post can be unlocked with one payment. Channel access can be sold as a 30-day subscription, created by a bot that is an administrator in the channel; from there Telegram bills, renews, cancels and removes lapsed members. Donations, paywalled posts, subscriptions and digital downloads credit one balance, not three accounts.
We take 0% of your sales and the free plan runs a channel indefinitely — and that is the smaller half of the truth. A buyer pays $19.99 per 1,000 Stars as a store pack or $14.10 at Telegram’s sell rate; Telegram’s developer terms put the payout at $0.013. About 65 cents on the dollar spent through a store pack reaches you (92 at Telegram’s own rate), against 95 cents on Ko-fi Standard before processing. The 1,000-Star withdrawal floor and the 21-day hold are explained in what withdrawing Stars actually pays.
Who should not choose it: anyone whose supporters arrive through search, a video description or a newsletter — there is no page on the open web and no embeddable button. Anyone who takes commissions or streams on Twitch. Anyone who needs the money in their own processor account. And anyone whose supporters will not buy Stars: Telegram policy puts digital delivery on Stars exclusively, and there is no card option to switch on.
If… then…
| If… | Then… |
|---|---|
| You are choosing on price | Ko-fi — 0% on tips, 5% ceiling, and Gold above $240 a month |
| Your work is video, livestream or a podcast | Patreon hosts all three; Ko-fi points at them |
| You want supporters to pay for a year up front | Patreon — Ko-fi’s membership page prices tiers monthly |
| You take art commissions or sell physical items | Ko-fi, which builds for both |
| You want money in your own PayPal or Stripe today | Ko-fi never holds it |
| You want members to arrive without you sending them | Patreon advertises discovery; a Ko-fi page waits for your traffic |
| Your supporters are already in your Telegram channel | The in-chat button removes the trip, at about 65 cents on a store-pack dollar |
| Supporters will not buy Telegram Stars | That decides it — no card option exists for digital delivery |
Where to start
If the question is only “which takes less”, it is answered: Ko-fi, at every volume, with the money landing in an account you already control. Patreon earns its extra five points when it is hosting something — video, a livestream, a podcast feed — or when annual billing and free trials are load-bearing in your funnel.
Add the Telegram version only where it is additive. Keep the page you have, put a donation goal or one paywalled post in the channel your audience already reads, and after a month compare what came through the link out against what came from the button inside the post — after the spread, not before it.
The long-form ledger against each platform: Patreon alternatives and Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-fi alternatives. The two biggest platforms head to head: Patreon vs Substack; the newsletter version of the same choice: Substack alternatives. Setting up the third option: how to create a paid Telegram channel, or the channel page. The Telegram Stars calculator converts a tier price into what a supporter spends and what reaches you.
Ko-fi plans, the 0-5% service fees, the Standard default, processor arrangement and payment methods: ko-fi.com/pricing, checked September 2026. Gold pricing and status: ko-fi.com/gold, checked September 2026. Membership tiers, monthly charging, instant first payment and supporter-data download: ko-fi.com/memberships, checked September 2026. All three were read in a browser after WebFetch received HTTP 403 from Ko-fi. Patreon’s 10%, earning methods, formats, currencies and free-to-start policy: patreon.com/pricing, checked September 2026; Patreon’s support centre returned HTTP 403, so no processing, conversion or payout rate is printed here. Star payout rate: Telegram’s terms for bot developers, section 6.2.4.
What people usually ask
- What does Ko-fi actually charge in 2026?
- Three positions, and new creators land on the middle one. Ko-fi Free takes 0% on one-off tips and 5% on memberships, shop sales and commissions, with no advanced features. Standard, the default for new creators, takes 5% on every payment type and unlocks supporter-only content, scheduled posts and more. Gold costs 12 dollars a month for 0% service fee on everything. Your own payment processor's fee applies on top in all three cases.
- Is Ko-fi Gold worth 12 dollars a month?
- It is arithmetic, not opinion. Gold replaces a 5% service fee with a fixed 12 dollars, so it pays for itself once you are taking more than about 240 dollars a month in payments that would otherwise carry that 5%. Below that the percentage is cheaper. Ko-fi's own Gold page now opens by saying you no longer need Ko-fi Gold, while confirming new creators can still join it.
- Which keeps more of a 10 dollar monthly membership?
- Ko-fi. On Standard the 5% service fee leaves 9.50 dollars before your own PayPal or Stripe fee. On Patreon the 10% leaves 9.00 dollars, and then payment processing, currency conversion and payout fees come off that. Patreon does not publish rates for those on its pricing page, so its final figure cannot be calculated in advance.
- Does Ko-fi hold my money the way a platform normally does?
- No, and this is the structural difference between the two. Ko-fi does not process payments at all. You connect your own PayPal or Stripe account and supporters pay into it directly, which is why Ko-fi says it never holds your money. A new member's first payment arrives instantly, then monthly. Patreon collects and pays out on its own terms, with payout fees listed among its charges.
- Can supporters pay me yearly on Ko-fi?
- Ko-fi's own membership page describes tiers with a monthly price and members charged monthly, and says nothing about an annual option. Patreon lists monthly and annual subscriptions among its earning methods, along with free trials, discounts and sales. If a year of revenue collected up front matters to your plan, that is a point for Patreon.
- Is collecting the same money in Telegram Stars cheaper than either?
- No. We take 0% of your sales, but the Stars rail keeps about 35% of a store-pack dollar: a buyer pays 19.99 dollars per 1,000 Stars as a store pack or 14.10 at Telegram's sell rate and Telegram's developer terms put the payout at 0.013, so around 65 cents of every dollar spent through a store pack reaches you (92 cents at Telegram's own rate). Ko-fi at 0-5% and Patreon at 10% both leave you more money. What a Telegram channel removes is the trip out of the chat, not the fee.