Patreon review

How much does Patreon take?

Patreon takes 10% of earnings from any creator who published a page after August 4, 2025, plus payment processing. US card payments cost 2.9% + $0.30 to process, so a $10 membership leaves you about $8.41 before payout fees.

Scale that up and the cut is real. At $1,000 a month in $10 memberships, Patreon's fee is $100 and processing about $59, which leaves about $841. On Ko-fi the same members would leave about $891.

The 10% is calculated on the payment before sales tax, and it applies to one-time purchases too. Non-US PayPal payments cost 3.9% + $0.30. A 2.5% currency conversion fee applies when a member pays in a different currency from your payout currency.

Payout fees are small. US direct deposit costs $0.25 per payout. PayPal takes 1%, with a $0.25 minimum and a $20 cap. Payoneer costs $1 per payout. Our fee table shows what that leaves you at different revenue levels.

Do older creators pay less?

Yes. Creators whose pages were published on or before August 4, 2025 keep their legacy rate. Patreon's help center lists the Founders plan at 5% and the Pro plan at 8%, plus processing.

That rate is easy to lose. If you unpublish your page, even briefly, or Patreon unpublishes it for any reason, you move to the 10% plan when you republish. Patreon tells legacy creators to use the pause tool instead.

Patreon is also moving every creator still on per-creation or first-of-the-month billing to subscription billing by November 1, 2026. If you do nothing, Patreon switches you itself and pauses billing until you set your new prices.

What do you get for 10%?

You get the widest feature set of any membership platform we cover. The standard plan includes a hosted creator page, monthly and annual memberships, digital product sales, video hosting up to 100 hours a month for creators with paying fans, chats, polls, comments, and audience insights.

Fans read, watch, and chat inside Patreon's own app, so you do not need a website. Free memberships and free trials give you a way to convert followers without asking for money on day one.

If you mostly want a tip jar with a few perks, this is more than you need. Ko-fi handles tips, memberships, and a shop for half the platform fee.

Can you move your patrons off Patreon?

You can take their emails, not their payments. Patreon's Relationship Manager exports a CSV of your members, and you can filter it by paid, free, active, or canceled.

Card details stay with Patreon. Memberful's own migration guide says it cannot move cards from Patreon, so imported members have to add a payment method again. Every member who has to re-enter a card is a member you might lose.

This is the real price of Patreon. If you expect to outgrow it, start on a platform that bills through your own Stripe account, such as Memberful.

How and when does Patreon pay you?

You can withdraw whenever you like, or turn on automatic payouts on the 5th of each month. US creators can use direct deposit through Stripe or PayPal. Creators outside the US can use PayPal, Payoneer, or a local bank transfer through Payoneer.

Transfers usually arrive in 1 to 5 days. Adding or changing a payout method puts a 5-day hold on your balance. Digital product sales stay pending for up to 7 days, and iOS in-app purchases for up to 75 days while Apple settles them.

Apple's App Store fee applies to purchases made in Patreon's iOS app. It is 30% at first and 15% once a member has been billed for a year straight, with 25% and 12% for members in China. By default Patreon raises iOS prices about 43% so you earn what you would on the web, or you can keep prices equal and absorb the fee. US fans can skip Apple through mobile web checkout.