On published fees, Ko-fi is the cheapest of the three for one-off tips, because its Free mode charges no service fee on them according to Ko-fi's fee article, while Patreon's standard plan takes 10% of each payment plus processing and Buy Me a Coffee's charges page lists a 5% platform fee plus Stripe costs. Which one leaves you more depends on how your month splits between tips, memberships and sales, where your supporters live, and whether you have noticed Ko-fi's default setting that applies its 5% fee to tips as well.
This page owns the head-to-head fee math for these three tip and membership tools. Instead of a sample creator with made-up earnings, it gives you a worksheet: enter your own figures and each platform's published rates turn them into a fee total. Every rate below was read from the platform's own pages on 1 October 2026. For a deeper look at Patreon alone, our guide to Patreon fees for creators breaks down every legacy plan.
The three fee stacks at a glance
The headline percentages hide different structures. Patreon holds your balance and charges on the way in and the way out, Ko-fi never touches the money, and Buy Me a Coffee sits in between by routing everything through Stripe.
| Layer | Patreon (standard plan) | Ko-fi | Buy Me a Coffee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | None | None on Free or Standard; Ko-fi Gold costs $12 a month | None | Ko-fi Gold article; platform fee pages |
| Platform or service fee | 10% for pages published after 4 August 2025; legacy pages keep 5%, 8% or 11% | 0% or 5% depending on mode and payment type; 0% on Gold | 5% per transaction | Patreon fees overview; Ko-fi fee article; Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Card processing | 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment with a USD payout; other rates by currency and PayPal location | Charged by your own PayPal or Stripe account, which Ko-fi says is usually around 3% + $0.30 | Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction | Patreon fees overview; Ko-fi fee article; Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Extra percentages | 2.5% currency conversion when a member pays in another currency | Conversion, if any, is added by PayPal or Stripe | 0.5% payout processing, plus 1% on transactions from outside the US and 0.5% on subscription payments | Patreon fees overview; Ko-fi fee article; Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Fee to get your money out | Per payout, for example $0.25 by US direct deposit or 1% via PayPal (minimum $0.25, capped at $20) | No Ko-fi payout fee; payments land in your PayPal or Stripe account | Covered by the 0.5% payout processing line above | Patreon fees overview; Ko-fi payment article; Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Purchases inside an iPhone app | Apple's 30% App Store fee on eligible iOS purchases replaces Patreon processing; the platform fee still applies | Not described in the pages we read | Not described in the pages we read | Patreon fees overview |
Fee math worksheet: run your own month
Start by writing down six inputs from your current or planned month. Use what supporters pay before any fees, and leave sales tax out, because Patreon calculates its platform fee on the payment amount excluding sales tax.
- R: total monthly revenue through the platform.
- n: the number of separate payments behind R, counting every membership charge, tip and sale.
- T: the part of R that arrives as one-off tips (Ko-fi treats these differently from monthly tips).
- I: the part of R paid by supporters outside the US.
- S: the part of R that is recurring membership or subscription payments.
- C and P: the part of R paid in a currency other than your payout currency, and the number of payouts you take each month.
Patreon worksheet (standard plan, USD payout, card payments)
| Patreon line | Formula | Your figure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | 0.10 × R | ________ | Patreon creator fees overview |
| Processing on card payments | 0.029 × R + 0.30 × n | ________ | Patreon creator fees overview |
| Currency conversion | 0.025 × C | ________ | Patreon creator fees overview |
| Payout fee, US direct deposit | 0.25 × P | ________ | Patreon creator fees overview |
| Patreon total | Sum of the lines above | ________ | Your arithmetic |
Swap in your own rows if you are paid in AUD, GBP or EUR, or through PayPal or Payoneer, because Patreon publishes a separate processing rate and payout fee for each. Our Patreon net income worksheet goes further, with tax on fees and iOS purchases included.
Ko-fi worksheet (pick the column for your mode)
| Ko-fi line | Free mode | Standard mode | Gold | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | 0 | 0 | 12 | Ko-fi Gold article |
| Service fee on one-off tips | 0 | 0.05 × T | 0 | Ko-fi fee article |
| Service fee on everything else (memberships, monthly tips, shop, commissions) | 0.05 × (R − T) | 0.05 × (R − T) | 0, except Stripe memberships that began before you joined Gold, which keep 5% | Ko-fi fee article; Ko-fi Gold article |
| PayPal or Stripe processing | Your own processor's rate; Ko-fi's estimate is around 0.03 × R + 0.30 × n | Ko-fi fee article | ||
| Ko-fi total | ________ | ________ | ________ | Your arithmetic |
Crowdfunding goals follow the one-off tip column: 0% on Free and 5% on Standard, per the same fee article. Gold only pays for itself when the 5% it removes is worth more than its subscription, so compare 0.05 × (the revenue Gold would exempt) with 12 before you sign up. The fee article adds a trap: if “Get all of Ko-fi” is still switched on when you join Gold, you have to opt out of it separately or the service fee keeps applying.
Buy Me a Coffee worksheet
| Buy Me a Coffee line | Formula | Your figure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | 0.05 × R | ________ | Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Stripe processing | 0.029 × R + 0.30 × n | ________ | Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Payout processing | 0.005 × R | ________ | Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Supporters outside the US | 0.01 × I | ________ | Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Membership and subscription payments | 0.005 × S | ________ | Buy Me a Coffee charges page |
| Buy Me a Coffee total | Sum of the lines above | ________ | Your arithmetic |
Buy Me a Coffee also lets you ask supporters to cover the card fee, which moves the Stripe line from your side of the ledger to theirs. Net revenue on any of the three is simply R minus that platform's total.
Which inputs swing the answer
Once you have filled in the three totals, the gaps between them usually trace back to four inputs.
- Payment count. All three charge a fixed amount per card payment on top of a percentage, so a month built from many small payments loses a bigger share than the same revenue from fewer, larger ones. Look at n before you look at the headline rate.
- Tips versus everything else. Ko-fi's advantage sits almost entirely in one-off tips, and only if Free mode is switched on. A creator whose income is mostly memberships sees Ko-fi's 5% service fee against Patreon's 10% instead.
- Where supporters live. Buy Me a Coffee adds a percentage for non-US transactions, while Patreon charges conversion when the currency differs and a higher PayPal rate for members outside the US. An Australian or British audience paying in local currency changes both worksheets.
- Plan history. A Patreon page published on or before 4 August 2025 may still sit on a legacy plan, and the fees overview warns that unpublishing the page moves you to the standard plan when you republish.
Where the money sits and when you can use it
Ko-fi is a direct payments service. Its payment article says each payment goes straight into your connected PayPal or Stripe account, with no balance held on Ko-fi and no minimum. That is quick, but not instant cash: Ko-fi's Stripe article notes that Stripe's own bank payouts usually start 7 to 14 days after your first successful payment. Because Ko-fi never holds the money, refunds are yours to handle too: its refund guidance says you can issue full refunds on Ko-fi for up to 180 days, while partial refunds go through PayPal or Stripe.
Buy Me a Coffee's overview says your account is reviewed once it reaches $10, after which payouts move to your Stripe account every Wednesday and Stripe then pays your bank, usually within 2 to 7 business days. Payouts are only possible in countries Stripe supports, which Buy Me a Coffee lists on its payout countries page.
Patreon is the only one of the three that keeps a balance for you. Fees come off before the money reaches that balance, the payout fee comes off when you withdraw, and each method has its own minimum; our explainer on how Patreon pays creators covers timing and methods.
Feature matrix
Fees are only half the decision. This matrix covers the features creators most often switch platforms over, limited to what each platform's own pages state.
| Feature | Patreon | Ko-fi | Buy Me a Coffee |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-off support | One-time purchases of digital products, posts and collections, charged at membership rates | One-off tips, fee-free in Free mode | One-time “coffees” with no supporter account required |
| Recurring support | Paid memberships at the core of the platform | Membership tiers billed monthly, or simple monthly tips without a tier | Unlimited tiers billed monthly or yearly, plus one lifetime level, discount codes and free trials |
| Selling products | Digital products listed free of charge | Shop for digital and physical items, plus commissions | Shop for digital and physical items with instant download links |
| Supporter-only posts | A core membership feature; see our Patreon setup checklist | Needs Standard mode or Gold | Posts can be public, supporter-only or member-exclusive |
| Supporter data | Member list and emails exportable as CSV from the Relationship Manager | Member info downloadable as CSV | Supporter contact details exportable at any time |
| Live-stream extras | Not covered in the pages we read | Stream alerts for Twitch, YouTube and more | On-screen alerts through OBS, Streamlabs or StreamElements |
| Adult or 18+ work | Allowed only within Patreon's 18+ rules (see below) | An NSFW tag exists, but a list of adult content and services is prohibited | Not allowed, including sexualised lingerie or bikini shoots; artistic nudity presented as art is permitted |
Sources for the matrix: Patreon's fees overview and its audience export article; Ko-fi's memberships guide, pricing page and content guidelines; and Buy Me a Coffee's overview and restricted content list. Ko-fi's guidelines also say it may act on external links that are sexually explicit, so a link elsewhere is not a way around its rules. Patreon's 18+ policy has its own guide: Patreon adult content rules.
Where the official pages disagree
Ko-fi's own pages describe its fees three ways. The pricing page leads with “$0 /month + 5% service fee” for tips, which is the Standard mode new creators start in, and further down describes a Free option with 0% on tips. The fee article calls the two modes Free and Standard and says new creators start with everything unlocked, while the Contributor status article describes the same 5% share of tips under a different name, Contributor. All three agree once you know the default: unless you switch off “Get all of Ko-fi” under Settings, Payment, tips carry the 5% fee.
Buy Me a Coffee's overview promises no hidden costs and says you keep 95%, but its charges page adds payout processing, an international surcharge and a subscription surcharge on top of the 5% platform fee and Stripe's card rate. The charges page is the more detailed one, so the worksheet above uses it.
Patreon's pages are consistent with each other, but several third-party comparisons we checked still quote plan names and rates Patreon no longer offers. The current fees overview lists a standard 10% plan for pages published after 4 August 2025, and only three legacy plans (Founders, Pro, and Pro + Merch), all closed to new creators.
A quick fit check
- Ko-fi fits if most of your income is one-off tips or commissions, you already use PayPal or Stripe, and you are happy to handle refunds and payment disputes yourself.
- Patreon fits if memberships are the core of the offer, you want the platform to hold the balance and manage billing, and you can live with a percentage that is higher than the other two once processing is added.
- Buy Me a Coffee fits if you want a simple page with one-time support, memberships and a shop in one place, your audience is mostly in the US, and you live in a Stripe payout country.
- Look elsewhere if your work is adult or 18+ and you are not within Patreon's specific rules; neither Ko-fi nor Buy Me a Coffee is built for it. If you are weighing subscription platforms with paid messaging instead, our comparison of Passes, Patreon and Fanfix covers that choice.
Limitations of this comparison
The worksheet uses each platform's published rates as of 1 October 2026, and all three can change them. Processor rates in particular vary by account type, country and currency: Ko-fi's figure for PayPal and Stripe is its own approximate estimate, not a quote, so check your processor dashboard for the real numbers. The worksheet also leaves out sales tax, VAT or GST that platforms add to their own fees where the law requires it, chargeback and dispute costs, and currency conversion by PayPal or Stripe, all of which can move the totals.
Fees also say nothing about how much you will earn on each platform; that depends on your audience and offer, not on the fee schedule. Income from any of these tools is usually taxable, so ask a registered tax agent or accountant in your country how to report it and whether you can claim the fees as expenses.