Patreon is an online crowdfunding platform that enables patrons or fans to support works content creators and artists. Founded by Jack Conte, the platform allows creators to earn income from their creative works. The platform provides various tools to creators for managing their paying supporters.
What’s Patreon?
On Patreon, you can let your fans become active participants in the work they love by offering them a monthly membership. You give them access to exclusive content, community, and insight into your creative process. In exchange, you get the freedom to do your best work, and the stability you need to build an independent creative career.
Features Of Patreon
Develop a recurring income stream: Stop rolling the dice of ad revenue and per-stream payouts. Get recurring income through monthly payments from your patrons.
Take back creative control: Create what you want and what your audience loves. You don’t have to conform to popular taste or the constraints of ad-based monetization models.
Build a direct, meaningful connection with your audience: No ads, no trolls, no algorithms. Enjoy direct access and deeper conversations with the people who matter the most.
Who uses Patreon?: If you’re ready to take your work to the next level and willing to open your heart to your audience, Patreon is for you.
10 Best Patreon Alternatives
Most bloggers, journalists, artists consider Patreon as the best platform for monetizing their audience. However, there are many crowdfunding platforms that provide opportunities to all types of creators to get a stable income source. Here’re the 10 best Best Patreon Alternatives.
1. Kickstarter
Kickstarter campaigns make ideas into reality. It’s where creators share new visions for creative work with the communities that will come together to fund them. No matter what, creators always control how the work comes together—no 100-page grant applications, no donors demanding you modify your message, no last-minute edits from investors. When backers chip in funding and help spread the word, they too become part of these independent works.
2. Podia
With everything on a single platform, you don’t have to choose just one type of digital product. Host unlimited files and videos, offer payment plans, upsells, quizzes, drip content, and student comments.
Sell one-off downloads like eBooks, audiobooks, PDFs, cheat sheets, checklists, and presets.
Earn recurring revenue by launching a membership with unlimited plans, posts, and files.
3. Buy Me a Coffee
Buy Me a Coffee is a simple, meaningful way to fund your creative work. Without stitching together a bunch of apps like Patreon, Mailchimp, and a donate button — you can accept support, memberships, and build a direct relationship with your fans.
Buy Me a Coffee makes supporting fun and easy. In just a couple of taps, your fans can make the payment (buy you a coffee) and leave a message. They don’t even have to create an account.
Earn a recurring income by accepting monthly or yearly membership. Share exclusive content, or just give them a way to support your work on an ongoing basis.
4. SubscribeStar
You are in control here. The revenue will depend on the number of subscribers you have and on the subscription price you set.
Artists, entertainers, bloggers and vloggers, musicians and political commentators, DIYers and educators –
all are welcomed at SubscribeStar.
Post text, images, videos, audio, documents. Create polls. Apply rich formatting to refine the look.
When enough funds collected, request a payout and receive your money in almost any country.
With free profile on SubscribeStar every content creator gets a set of tools to help making the everyday publishing routine a pleasure.
5. Ko-Fi
The free, friendly way to accept donations, memberships and sales directly from fans. While other platforms take a fee on each donation, it doesn’t. Keep more of your money with Ko-fi.
Create your Ko-fi page and start accepting donations in just 60 seconds. Grow your income by opening your free Ko-fi Shop, offering memberships or selling commissions and services.
6. Heights Platform
Build and sell brilliant Online Courses and Digital Products. Monetize your knowledge and help your audience achieve results. Heights Platform is designed to impart a sense of discovery that enables your students to translate their new knowledge into action.
Heights has everything you need to launch a brilliant online course. Landing page creation and payment processing are all built-in.
7. Memberful
Best-in-class membership software for independent creators, publishers, educators, podcasters, and more. Your most passionate followers are able to support your work in minutes, using membership software that takes care of the hard stuff. It’s that simple.
- Create any kind of subscription plan
- Optimized checkout
- Dashboard analytics
- Easy member management
- Choose what you pay, one-time payments
8. Liberapay
Liberapay’s recurrent donations system is designed to provide a stable crowdfunded basic income to creators, enabling them to keep doing great work that benefits everyone.
1. Set up a donation: Find someone you want to give money to, then choose an amount, a period (weekly, monthly, or yearly), and a renewal method (manual or automatic).
2. Fund your donation: On Liberapay, donations are funded in advance. You have control over when and how much you pay. Sending more money at once usually results in a lower percentage of transaction fees.
3. Keep your donation funded: We will notify you whenever a donation needs to be renewed. If you’ve opted for automatic renewals, then we will attempt to debit your card or bank account as agreed.
9. Steady
Thousands of strong voices use Steady to publish their work and secure a reliable income for their project.
STEP 1: Publish
Start a new publication or integrate Steady into your website. Publish posts, host podcasts and send newsletters all from our one-stop publishing shop.
STEP 2: Grow
Collect email addresses, send direct messages and strengthen your relationship with your community using our practical tools.
STEP 3: Monetise
Turn loyal fans into members who support you financially. Contacts and content are yours – always. Steady costs nothing until you start earning money.
10. Indiegogo
Indiegogo is where early adopters and innovation seekers find lively, imaginative tech before it hits the mainstream. With both live crowdfunding campaigns and innovative products shipping now, there’s no better place to start the hunt for cool and clever innovations that surprise and delight. Indiegogo is where new launches.
Indiegogo’s crowdfunding campaigns are where new and groundbreaking products take flight, sometimes long before they hit mainstream availability. With thousands of campaigns launching every week, there’s great tech, design, and much more around every corner — often with limited-time perks and pricing for the earliest backers. Before it’s everywhere, it’s on Indiegogo.
Are you looking for Membership Management Software for your business? Find MCP’s list of the Best Membership Management Software.
The Team Compare BizTech is made up of people from marketing backgrounds, digital marketing & content marketing backgrounds, each with unique experiences and nuggets of wisdom to share with you. The team is passionate about creating unique, accurate, and engaging content.