Patreon vs Memberful
Rent an audience-friendly platform for 10%, or pay $49 a month and own the relationship outright.
VERIFIED 2026-07-28
The verdict
It is arithmetic plus one question about ownership. Patreon's 10% costs nothing at zero revenue and $500 a month at $5,000. Memberful's $49 plus 4.9% costs more below roughly $900 a month in revenue and less above it. The ownership difference is larger than the money: Memberful subscriptions live in your own Stripe account, so leaving does not mean asking every member to re-subscribe. Patreon's do not, and that migration cost is real.
Choose Patreon if
- You are starting from nothing and need zero fixed cost
- Your audience already expects to support you on Patreon
- You want the apps and the tier conventions handled for you
Choose Memberful if
- You are past roughly $900 a month in membership revenue
- You want subscribers in a Stripe account you control
- You already have a site to put the content on
Cost at three real sizes
Cheapest plan that holds the member count, including each platform's own cut and payment processing.
| Scenario | Patreon | Memberful |
|---|---|---|
| 50 members at $20$1,000 monthly revenue | $144Patreon | $142Standard |
| 200 members at $25$5,000 monthly revenue | $705Patreon | $499Standard |
| 500 members at $30$15,000 monthly revenue | $2,085Patreon | $1,369Standard |
Feature by feature
| Capability | Patreon | Memberful |
|---|---|---|
| Community features | Partially supported | Third-party integration |
| Courses | Not supported | Not supported |
| Coaching and live events | Partially supported | Not supported |
| Video hosting | Supported | Not supported |
| Livestreaming | Supported | Not supported |
| Newsletter and publishing | Partially supported | Supported |
| Private podcast support | Supported | Supported |
| Payments and monetization | Supported | Supported |
| Branding and customization | Partially supported | Supported |
| Branded mobile app | Not supported | Not supported |
| Audience discovery | Partially supported | Not supported |
| Email and marketing | Not supported | Third-party integration |
| Integrations and API | Supported | Supported |
| Migration support | Partially supported | Supported |
| Customer and data ownership | Partially supported | Supported |
Best case across each platform’s full range. Individual plans gate some of these; the platform pages show which.