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7 Patreon Alternatives to Keep Your Crowdfunding Income Secure

 & Michael Muchmore Contributor

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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The news around one of the internet’s top financial subscription support sites, Patreon, hasn't been good at all of late, with the company reportedly laying off its entire security staff. So if you’re a Patreon creator, you might be shopping around for alternatives that offer you and your subscribers a more secure experience.

The good news is, you have several options outside of Patreon. Here we've gathered the top seven competitors you should consider:

Buy Me a Coffee

Buy me a coffee allows video creators, artists, writers, musicians, developers, gamers, and podcasters to raise funds either through one-time tips or subscriptions. As with most similar services, subscribers can choose from different support levels to get access to more content. One nice thing about this platform is that supporters can pay you without signing up for an account, unlike most other similar services. Creators pay nothing for all the site’s features, but there’s a 5% transaction fee.

Kickstarter

4.5 Outstanding

Though it doesn’t use Patreon’s subscription model, if you’re just looking for one-time donations from a large audience, Kickstarter is a good fit. The site has high name-brand recognition, so your donors are likely not to scratch their heads about putting their payment info into some unknown entity. It’s a good fit for getting start-up funding for works of art, comics, illustrations, technology products, films, food, crafts, games, music, and books. Some large tech companies even use it as a launchpad for their new products. Kickstarter has a 5% fee on funds raised, as well as a payment processing fee of 3% plus 20 cents per pledge.

Kickstarter review

Ko-Fi

Ko-Fi combines features of Patreon, Kickstarter, and Podia. With it, you build your own website and can collect subscriptions, sell products (both digital and physical), offer services for commissions, and receive tips or donations. Ko-Fi sites are super simple to create, and you automatically get Gallery, Posts, and About pages. You can set a goal (as in Kickstarter) or create membership tiers (as on Patreon). Free Ko-Fi accounts pay the service 5% on sales and membership revenue, but a Gold account ($8 monthly or $6 per month with annual commitment) removes those fees.

Memberful

Memberful styles itself as “the best way to sell memberships.” It’s more of a bespoke monetization web platform than a social feed of individual creators to their followers. Memberful is clearly more business-targeted, but it does have a free account level that lets you offer two plans and sell private podcasts. Integrations with WordPress, a custom domain, tax collecting, and lots of analytics are strengths, and you can sell digital goods as well as subscriptions.

Meta Subscriptions

Meta’s subscription offering lets you charge monthly payments for access to exclusive content on eligible Facebook Pages, though you need 10,000 followers or 250-plus return viewers. I have a test Facebook page with nowhere near those numbers, but the platform indicated that I could still create paid online events or earn money from branded partner content. The Creator Studio, where you set up your paid options, lets you manage posts for both Facebook and Instagram, see insights on your traffic and how to get more followers, and message them. Going with the maker of Facebook and Instagram has one big benefit: It’s a service with huge name recognition, a built-in audience, and strong promotional potential. One the downside, some potential subscribers might refuse to join nefarious social networks. Note that Instagram doesn’t offer paid subscriptions (though it offers other monetization options), so you need a Facebook page.

OnlyFans

Though many if not most people associate OnlyFans with adult content, the site bills itself as a social platform for “artists and content creators from all genres.” It has its own Twitter-like social media component where creators and supporters can post updates to one another. Followers and creators can send direct messages, and just as on Twitter, a bell icon alerts you when you have new messages. Creators can set up their page as a free subscription or a paid one for $4.99 to $50 per month. They can also receive one-time tips. OnlyFans creator accounts are free, but the company takes a sizable 20% of your revenue, more than any other service included here.

Podia

Podia is a website builder service with which you build a membership-focused site and invite subscription-paying as well as nonpaying members. So unlike most entries in this roundup, it’s not a central site or app where you post your content, but your own membership-focused website. In addition to subscription memberships, you can offer digital goods for sale on your Podia site, including ebooks, webinars, and online courses. Free accounts get a full website, email marketing, live chat, and let you build drafts for webinars and courses. Though you can set up such a site for free there’s a catch: The transaction fee for nonpaying host accounts are 8%, but paying $39 per month for a Mover account removes that surcharge. Podia may not have the name recognition of Patreon or some other services listed here, but it could be a good fit for the right type of entrepreneur.

About Our Expert

Michael Muchmore

Michael Muchmore

Contributor

My Experience

I've been testing PC and mobile software for more than 20 years, focusing on photo and video editing, operating systems, and web browsers. Prior to my current role, I covered software and apps for ExtremeTech and headed up PCMag’s enterprise software team. I’ve attended trade shows for Microsoft, Google, and Apple and written about all of them and their products.

I still get a kick out of seeing what's new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine, the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft misstep and win, up to the latest Windows 11.

I’m an avid bird photographer and traveler—I’ve been to 40 countries, many with great birds! Because I’m also a classical music fan and former performer, I’ve reviewed streaming services that emphasize classical music.

Technology I Use

For everyday work, I use a good-old Dell tower with 16GB of RAM, a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, and an Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti GPU that runs on Windows 11. I pair it with a 4K Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-10 monitor and a Logitech MX Vertical mouse. For offsite work, I use a 2024 Microsoft Surface Laptop with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor. Camera-wise, I moved to mirrorless from a Canon EOS 80D with a Canon 70-300mm IS USM lens. I now have a Canon EOS R7 with a 100-400mm lens, but I miss my DSLR for several reasons.

In order of usage, the software I turn to most frequently is the Edge web browser, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365, Firefox, Brave, and WhatsApp. I use the Windows Phone link app to see everything on my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra phone, which has excellent telephoto capability.

For fitness monitoring, I have a Fitbit Charge 6 and use an Anker Smart Scale P1. I’m also a streaming fan, so I subscribe to both Amazon Music Unlimited (especially for its Dolby Atmos content) and Qobuz (for its high-res sound quality and classical catalog). I recently added a Vizio 5.1 Soundbar SE, which sounds surprisingly good given its low price. To holler commands instead of using a remote control, I have the Amazon Fire TV Cube in the living room, which lets me verbally tell the TV what I want to watch. It hooks up to an LG B4 OLED TV. I have a Sonos One speaker in my kitchen that also ties in with Alexa, as does the Echo Dot 2 With Clock in my bedroom. For serious listening, I have B&W 601 speakers plugged into a Conrad-Johnson Sonographe amp and preamp, with a Cambridge Audio AXN10 streamer as source. For reading, I also have a Nook GlowLight 3.

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