Memberful becomes cheaper than Patreon once you earn more than about $956 a month. Below that, Patreon’s 10% costs less than Memberful’s $49 monthly fee plus 4.9%. At $1,000 a month they are level, with $841 left on Patreon and $843 on Memberful from 100 US card payments of $10. The bigger difference is ownership. Memberful puts members, cards and checkout on your own Stripe account and domain, and Patreon keeps them. Memberful is a Patreon company, so this is really a choice between two products from the same owner.
How much do Patreon and Memberful take?
Patreon takes 10% from creators who published after August 4, 2025 and charges no monthly fee. Memberful charges $49 a month plus a 4.9% transaction fee once you go live, and both pass on card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 per US payment.
The fixed $49 decides which is cheaper. The table is arithmetic on published fees as of October 2026, for $10 payments from US cards, with one $0.25 Patreon bank payout a month.
| Monthly revenue | Patreon keeps | Memberful keeps | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $420 | $397 | $23 more on Patreon |
| $1,000 | $841 | $843 | $2 more on Memberful |
| $5,000 | $4,205 | $4,411 | $206 more on Memberful |
| $10,000 | $8,410 | $8,871 | $461 more on Memberful |
The lines cross at about $956 a month, where Memberful’s fee rate, 5.1 percentage points lower, covers its $49 plan. Above that, every extra $1,000 in revenue saves you about $51 on Memberful.
Older Patreon pages change the math. Creators who published before August 4, 2025 keep legacy rates of 5%, 8% or 11% for as long as the page stays published. On the same arithmetic, Patreon’s 5% Founders plan stays cheaper up to about $48,750 a month, and its 8% Pro plan up to about $1,570 a month.
Who owns the audience on Patreon and Memberful?
Memberful gives you nearly full ownership, and we score it 9 out of 10 against Patreon’s 5. Members pay into your own Stripe account, checkout and account pages can run on your own domain, and you can export members, orders, subscriptions and cancellations as CSV files.
Patreon processes payments itself, so members’ cards stay with Patreon. You can export member emails, paid and free, as a CSV, but Memberful’s own docs say it cannot migrate saved cards out of Patreon. Moving later means asking every member to add a card again, so the platform you start on matters.
Cards on Memberful stay portable. If you change Stripe accounts, Stripe’s migration tool copies the cards and Memberful resyncs your members.
Which platform helps fans find you?
Neither will build an audience for you, but Patreon does slightly more. We score Patreon 4 for discovery and Memberful 1, the bottom of our scale.
Patreon lists discovery among its features, and many fans already hold a Patreon login and saved card, which shortens checkout. Memberful has no discovery at all. Its docs point creators who want it toward Patreon. Every Memberful member arrives from your own site, newsletter, podcast or social accounts.
What features differ between Patreon and Memberful?
Patreon is a hosted page with everything built in. Memberful is billing and access control that plugs into a site you already run.
Patreon’s 10% covers:
- Free memberships that need only a name and email
- Video hosting, up to 100 hours of uploads a month once you have a paying fan
- A shop for digital products and single posts priced from $3 to $5,000
- Ticketed livestreams
- An iOS app, where Apple takes 30% of in-app purchases and holds the money for up to 75 days
Memberful’s fee buys delivery to your own channels:
- A WordPress plugin that protects posts on your site
- Private podcast feeds that members add to their usual podcast app
- A hosted newsletter and Discord roles assigned by plan
- Syncing to Kit or Mailchimp, and checkout links for Squarespace, Webflow, Wix and Weebly
- Group plans, gift purchases, coupons, a referral program and free registration
Payouts work differently. Memberful never holds your money, and Stripe deposits to your bank on a daily, weekly, monthly or manual schedule, with no Memberful fee or minimum. Patreon holds your balance and lets you withdraw once every 24 hours, with a $0.25 fee per US bank transfer, or pays automatically on the 5th of each month.
Memberful has limits of its own. Stripe is its only processor, so there is no PayPal, and it cannot serve businesses in Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico or Thailand. It calculates and collects sales tax, VAT or GST at checkout but leaves filing to you.
Which should you choose?
Start on Patreon if you earn under about $1,000 a month or have no website. Move to Memberful once revenue is steady above that and you have a site to sell from, but know that Patreon’s saved cards will not follow you. Our best membership platforms list ranks both, and podcasters should see best platforms for podcasters.
- Pick Patreon if you are starting out and want to earn without a monthly bill or a website.
- Pick Patreon if free members, video hosting and an app matter more to you than owning billing.
- Pick Patreon if you are on a legacy 5% plan and earn less than about $48,750 a month, or on 8% and earn less than about $1,570 a month.
- Pick Memberful if you earn more than about $1,000 a month and already run a WordPress or other site.
- Pick Memberful if you want members’ cards in your own Stripe account and checkout on your own domain.
- Pick Memberful if you run a paid podcast and want private feeds in members’ usual apps.