Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee? Want to set up your own membership program but not sure which one is better? No worries, we've got you covered.
In this article, we are going to cover the following topics which help you make an informed decision regarding the tool you should use for your creator business:
- What is Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee?
- Tools to build relationship with your audience
- Processing fees and pricing
- Getting paid - payment cycle
Let's get started!
What is Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee?
Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee are membership platforms that make it easy for creators to get paid for the things they’re already creating, including but not limited to newsletters, webcomics, videos and songs. Your fans/audience pay a few bucks per month OR per post you release, and then creators get paid every month, or every time they release something new.
Patreon V.S. Buy Me a Coffee: Tools to build relationship with your audience
To summarise: both tools have all the necessary functions you need to engage with your audience, though Patreon offers a wider variety of post types.
Buy Me a Coffee's user interface for creators to publish content
Both tools share similar functions in terms of engaging with your audience. They enable you to publish contents to your audience to a selected membership tier(s). Here are the post types supported by both platforms:
| Post Type | Patreon | Buy Me a Coffee |
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Image / Album | Yes | Yes |
| Video | Yes | No |
| Livestream | Yes | No |
| Audio | Yes | No |
| Link | Yes | Yes |
| Polls | Yes | No |
Patreon's user interface for creators to publish content
Through both tools, you can view a list of your current members and their information, including their current status. Their tools help you segment the audience by status, tier level and pledges. You can also select individual member or a list of members and send them a message.
Your members can also leave comments on your posts, and you can reply to them. Those who have an active membership can send you a message using the system in the website, reaching out to you with questions, ideas, and feedback.
A detailed comparison between Patreon V.S. Buy Me a Coffee:
| Patreon | Buy Me a Coffee | |
| Membership | Monthly only | Monthly and Yearly |
| Donations / Tips | No | Yes |
| Sell Extras (e.g. sell digital download, book a zoom call etc.) | No | Yes |
| Audience experience | Patreon acccount required | 1-tap payment. No account required. |
| Accepted Payment methods | Credit card, Paypal | Credit card, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay |
| Analytics | Only for Pro plan | Yes |
| Customer Support - Live chat | No | 24/7 |
Buy Me a Coffee offers a better user experience for the audience - fans can subscribe without signing up and pay with a wider choice of payment methods.
Patreon V.S. Buy Me a Coffee: Processing fees and pricing
To summarize: Although it is totally free to get started on both platforms, they take a small percentage of the monthly income creators earn. Buy Me a Coffee is much cheaper than Patreon depsite both having similar functionality.
For instance, if you charge $20/month for your membership, how much of that $20 goes to you?
| Patreon | Buy Me a Coffee |
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For Buy Me a Coffee, you can let the payment processing fees be charged from the supporter's end.
Patreon V.S. Buy Me a Coffee - Getting paid
To summarize: Both Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee offer Paypal and Stripe as the payout options. Given both platforms share the same options, the processing time is more or less the same, though Buy Me a Coffee claims their payout is instant and their opponent Patreon might take up to 30 days.
Patreon - Direct deposit via Stripe, PayPal, and Payoneer
There are three methods you can use to get paid by Patreon - direct deposit via Stripe, PayPal, and Payoneer.
- Stripe: send money to your checking account
- PayPal: transfer the money to your bank. Alternatively, you can apply for a PayPal debit or credit card and use that to withdraw money at ATMs or make purchases online or at stores.
- Creators who live outside the United States: you can use Payoneer. It allows you to transfer money to your bank or use a Payoneer card to access your cash.
You can manually withdraw your balance or have Patreon do an automatic withdrawal on the 5th of the month. Deposits typically arrive within 1-5 business days, depending on your payout method.
Buy Me a Coffee - Direct deposit via Stripe, PayPal, and Bank Transfer
Similar to Patreon, payments are directly transferred to your PayPal, Stripe or bank account. There is no minimum to get paid.
Conclusion
Buy Me a Coffee offers similar features that Patreon does but at a lower price, not to mention the 24/7 live chat support it has. In our opinion, Buy Me a Coffee is overall a better option than Patreon in consideration of all factors.
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