It’s tempting to pick a platform because someone you follow uses it. That works until the fees grow or you want to leave and can’t take your fans with you. Four questions settle most choices, and the first one does most of the work.
What do you sell?
What you sell decides the category, and the category decides your shortlist. Start in the ranking that matches the product that earns you the most.
| What you sell | Ranking to read | Top two in our scores |
|---|---|---|
| Memberships, tips and fan support | Membership platforms | Ko-fi 7.9, Fourthwall 6.8 |
| A paid newsletter | Newsletter platforms | Kit 7.9, Ghost 7.8 |
| Downloads, templates and guides | Digital product platforms | Beacons 7.7, Payhip 7.6 |
| Courses or a paid community | Course and community platforms | Podia 6.6, Teachable 6.6 |
| Sponsored posts and UGC | Creator marketplaces | Passionfroot 7.0, Billo 6.6 |
Some products have a platform built around them. Ko-fi fits tips and commissions, since one-time tips cost 0% in Ko-fi fees on its Free plan. Stan fits coaching calls and courses sold to an Instagram or TikTok following, and Skool fits a paid community where members also take your course.
If you sell two things, pick for the bigger one. Fourthwall is the exception worth a look if merch is part of the plan. It runs merch, memberships and digital downloads on one site and takes no platform fee on merch or tips.
Who pays you, fans or brands?
Fans pay through membership, newsletter, product and course platforms. Brands pay through creator marketplaces, and those split fees in a different way.
On the fan side, the platform takes its cut from each payment. On the brand side, the fee can land on the brand, on you or on both. TikTok One, YouTube Creator Partnerships and Meta Creator Marketing Hub take 0% from creators. TikTok One also holds the brand’s money until your video is approved, while YouTube and Meta leave invoicing and late payers to you.
Independent marketplaces vary more. Collabstr takes 15% of each sale from your payout and also charges the brand a 10% or 5% hiring fee. Passionfroot charges you nothing on deals you bring in, but takes 15% on deals its network finds for you.
You can earn from both sides at once. Beacons is built for that mix, putting a store and a media kit behind one link.
How much do you make each month?
Your monthly revenue decides whether a percentage fee or a flat plan costs less. Below a few hundred dollars, the two are close, and past $1,000 a month flat plans pull ahead fast.
Our fee math shows how wide the gap gets. At $300 a month, Patreon costs $57 and Stan’s $29 Creator plan costs $56, close to a tie. At $20,000 a month, Patreon costs $2,700 and Stan costs $729. Stan’s price never moved, and Patreon’s 10% did all the damage.
Kajabi shows the opposite problem. Its Basic plan is $179 a month billed monthly, so at $300 in sales you keep $94. At $20,000 it costs $879, far less than Patreon, which makes Kajabi a platform to grow into rather than start on.
Small prices hurt on every platform. A $3 Patreon tier loses about 23% to the platform fee and processing combined, and the fixed 30¢ card charge alone is 10% of it. Run your own average price through the fee calculator before you commit.
Do you need to own the customer relationship?
If you want a business that can outlive one platform, yes. Look for an email export and payments that run through your own Stripe or PayPal account.
Memberful, Ghost, beehiiv, Ko-fi, Payhip, Podia and Circle all connect to a payment account you own, and Substack does for web subscribers. Memberful and Ghost score 9 out of 10 on ownership, the highest in our data. Memberful adds custom domains and branded checkout, so members never see a marketplace.
Other platforms hold the billing. Stan creates and manages a Stripe account for you and won’t connect an existing one. Skool runs payments on its own merchant account, and Gumroad no longer lets new sellers connect their own Stripe, except in Brazil.
YouTube channel memberships score 2 out of 10 on ownership. Members exist only inside YouTube, so losing the channel means losing the membership. Ownership has a price too. Memberful costs $49 a month plus 4.9%, which is a lot to pay for an exit door on a small membership.
What should you check before you sign up?
Check payouts, country support and plan caps. They sit below the pricing headline, and each can rule a platform out.
- Fourthwall pays once a month with a $25 minimum, while Ko-fi payments land in your PayPal or Stripe account the moment a supporter pays.
- Gumroad needs a $100 balance for standard payouts and holds each sale at least 7 days.
- Buy Me a Coffee pays out only through Stripe in 49 countries, and Memberful can’t support businesses in Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico or Thailand.
- Kajabi Basic caps you at 5 products and 2,500 contacts, and Podia’s Mover plan includes only 100 email subscribers.
- Apple takes 30% of new memberships bought in Patreon’s iOS app, and Substack’s iOS payments can’t be switched off while payments are connected.
Which ranking should you read first?
Read the ranking for the product that makes most of your money, then compare the top two on your own numbers. Our methodology explains how fees, features, ease, ownership and payouts feed each score.
When two platforms come out close, take the one that lets you export emails. Prices move. Kit, Kajabi, Thinkific and beehiiv all raised prices between September 2025 and October 2026, and an export is what lets you respond.