Patreon vs Ko-fi fees for memberships
This page can show one side of the comparison. It works out Patreon's published platform fee on payments from 5 to 2,000 US dollars, says plainly why it publishes no Ko-fi figure, and gives you a calculator for the rate your own Ko-fi account shows.
What this page can and cannot tell you.
- Ko-fi: no figure. On 2026-10-06 the automated reader behind this site tried Ko-fi's fee help article, its pricing page and three more Ko-fi pages. None could be read, so no Ko-fi fee is published here and none was taken from memory or from another site. Use the calculator on this page with the rate shown on your own Ko-fi account.
- Patreon: platform fee only. Patreon's pricing page states a 10% platform fee and adds: "Plus payment processing, currency conversion, and payout fees, and applicable taxes." Those fees are real but carry no number on the page read, so every Patreon row below understates what Patreon deducts.
Patreon's published platform fee, worked out
Membership payments are usually small, so the table starts at 5 US dollars. Each row is one payment.
| Platform and rate | Member pays | Fee | Effective % | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $5.00 | $0.50 | 10.00% | $4.50 |
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $10.00 | $1.00 | 10.00% | $9.00 |
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $25.00 | $2.50 | 10.00% | $22.50 |
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $100.00 | $10.00 | 10.00% | $90.00 |
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $500.00 | $50.00 | 10.00% | $450.00 |
| Patreon platform fee, 10% (partial) | $2,000.00 | $200.00 | 10.00% | $1,800.00 |
Source: Patreon Pricing Plans — Patreon (www.patreon.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
What the Patreon rows leave out
- Payment processing. Patreon's Terms of Use (dated May 27, 2026) describe the payment processing fee as a percentage plus a flat fee per successfully processed payment, without stating the numbers. A flat fee per payment matters most on small pledges, which is exactly where the table above is least complete.
- Payout fee. Stated to exist and to vary by payout method; no rate could be read.
- Currency conversion. Stated on the pricing page without a number.
- Older creator plans. Only the 10% platform fee shown on the pricing page is used here.
The rates are published in Patreon's Help Center, which refused automated reading (HTTP 403) on 2026-10-06. Your own Patreon dashboard shows what was actually deducted from each payment.
Source: Patreon Pricing Plans — Patreon (www.patreon.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Calculator for the rate on your own account
For Ko-fi, type the percentage and any fixed fee per payment that your own Ko-fi account or its payment processor shows. For Patreon, you can type the 10% platform fee plus the processing percentage your dashboard shows, and the flat fee per payment. The figures you type are yours; this site does not publish or confirm them.
For scale: two other creator platforms at the same amounts
Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy are the other creator platforms whose fee could be read. Their published fee is charged per sale, and Patreon's rows are partial, so this is a sense of scale, not a like-for-like comparison. Both charge a fixed fee on every payment, which is why their share of a 5 US dollar payment is so much higher than their share of 100.
| Platform and rate | Buyer pays | Fee | Effective % | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gumroad direct sale, 10% + $0.50 (partial) | $5.00 | $1.00 | 20.00% | $4.00 |
| Gumroad direct sale, 10% + $0.50 (partial) | $25.00 | $3.00 | 12.00% | $22.00 |
| Gumroad direct sale, 10% + $0.50 (partial) | $100.00 | $10.50 | 10.50% | $89.50 |
| Lemon Squeezy, 5% + $0.50 | $5.00 | $0.75 | 15.00% | $4.25 |
| Lemon Squeezy, 5% + $0.50 | $25.00 | $1.75 | 7.00% | $23.25 |
| Lemon Squeezy, 5% + $0.50 | $100.00 | $5.50 | 5.50% | $94.50 |
Source: Pricing (gumroad.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Source: Pricing • Lemon Squeezy (www.lemonsqueezy.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
The Gumroad rows are partial too: whether a separate payment processing fee is added could not be read on a Gumroad page. Lemon Squeezy publishes an extra 0.5% when the payment belongs to a subscription, which is not in the rows above.
Source: Fees • Lemon Squeezy (docs.lemonsqueezy.com), fees last verified 2026-10-06
Use the calculator for any other amount. The three-way page with Gumroad's Discover rate is the Gumroad vs Patreon vs Ko-fi page, and the full list of pages that could not be read is on the methodology page.