What's the best Patreon alternative?

Sellfy is a great alternative for creators who are looking for a more customizable and affordable subscription-based model. With Sellfy, you can create your own subscription plans, set your own prices, and benefit from a more streamlined payment process. Also, Sellfy's user-friendly interface makes it easy to manage your subscribers and track your earnings.

What is Patreon's pricing?

Patreon offers three pricing tiers for creators: Lite, Pro, and Premium. Lite is free, but Patreon takes a 5% fee on each pledge. Pro costs $8 per month and includes a 5% fee on each pledge, while Premium costs $300 per month and includes a 2% fee on each pledge. Creators can also choose to offer different tiers of rewards to patrons at different pledge levels.

What is the difference between Patreon and Sellfy?

Sellfy is a more versatile platform than Patreon. While Patreon is focused solely on supporting creators through monthly payments, Sellfy allows you to sell your digital products and subscriptions all in one place. With a user-friendly interface and powerful marketing tools, Sellfy makes it easy to monetize your content and grow your audience. Plus, Sellfy doesn't take a cut of your earnings, so you keep more of what you make.

Top 10 Patreon Alternatives I Personally Tested in 2026

Patreon is one of the most widely known platforms for creators to build communities of fans and monetize their paywalled content. It allows fans to subscribe to creator-customized tiers of monthly memberships in return for exclusive content, chats, early access to videos, and other perks.

Patreon gained its initial popularity thanks to YouTubers after the infamous Adpocalypses of the twenty-teens, and strict video demonetization policies that made it very difficult to predict one’s payout. However, many creators struggle to grow past a certain point with Patreon, which makes them seek Patreon alternatives.

Luckily, there are plenty of Patreon competitors that cater to full-time creators of all specializations and address all of the issues they might face with this popular membership platform.

How did I test and review Patreon alternatives

While Patreon can be an option for a beginner creator, it’s limited and quickly outlives its usefulness for creators with a large following. Among the most common problems creators name stagnant growth, high fees, and “algorithm burnout” from the weekly necessity to come up with new exclusive content to keep patrons interested.

The paradox is that all of these downsides stem from what makes Patreon attractive to newbie creators initially:

High fees. The lack of fixed monthly fees is attractive: you only pay a 10% commission when you start earning. However, as revenue grows, these cuts grow to a hefty sum that does not translate into more features or convenience for the creator.
Algorithm burnout. Starting Patreon is quick and stress-free, but with minimal customization, you can’t create an exclusive experience for your audience and make your content evergreen with playlists, ratings, and personalized recommendations. Instead, Patreon’s chronological feed feels like a treadmill.
Limited appeal. Often, fans cannot afford to pay monthly subscriptions to all their favorite authors. Instead, they would rather support them occasionally with tips or by buying a one-off treat (a book or a piece of merch). Patreon doesn’t fully cater to this need.

Keeping it all in mind, I evaluated Patreon alternatives centering creators’ needs: memberships, community interaction, tipping, digital product sales, paid content distribution, and some niche-specific features like livestreaming or publishing.

Some of the platforms on this list are direct Patreon competitors. Others only partially overlap with its features but shine in areas where Patreon falls short – course creation, store-style catalogs, native video hosting, etc.

My goal was to assess how well each platform serves the daily workflow of a specific creator reliant on it as a main source of income, so I nominated Patreon alternatives according to creator types: streamers, musicians, podcasters, etc.

My selection criteria

To compare all these tools meaningfully, I zeroed in on the following:

Ease of use (how intuitive signing up, creating a membership or product page, publishing, etc.)
Membership features (how flexible custom tiers and adjustable associated perks are)
Community tools (DMs, community spaces, discussion groups, and other creator-fan relationship tools)
Sales and one-off tips (ability to sell digital downloads, merch, receive one-time donations, pay-what-you-want options, etc.)
Marketing tools (email, funnels, landings, SEO, social media integrations, automations)
Integrations (native apps vs. APIs, possibility of embeds, etc.)
Fees and total cost (entry-level plans and commissions for Patreon free alternatives)
Payouts and financial management (payout methods and speeds, currency support, VAT handling, invoicing, etc.)
Scalability (how far can creators grow without having to switch platforms again)

My testing process

To review each of the platforms listed here, I followed my usual method:

Signed up for a free plan or a trial period
Set up a simple tier structure
Created paywalled posts or other content drops
Added digital products (where available)
Created and customized available pages (shop, subscriptions, info)
Explored community features and messaging tools
Checked integrations
Connected payment processors
Published a demo page and viewed it as a supporter

Because live testing requires more time, I based some of my evaluations on my experience in the creator tools industry, publicly available data from the platforms, and verified feedback from long-term users.

Disclaimer: All pricing, features availability, integrations, and trial terms provided here are based on publicly available data and were accurate at the time of writing. Some details may have changed by the time you read this. Always double-check the platform’s website and consult customer support before making your final choice.

Alternatives to Patreon at a glance

Platform	Best for	Features	Pricing
	All creators (artists, creators, musicians, writers, etc.)	Full e-commerce solution + subscriptions, no fees, POD, digital delivery, flexibility, donations	From $22/mo
	Writers/bloggers	Newsletter with inbox-first delivery, audience discovery, free to start	Free (10% Substack commission + processing fees)
	Educators/coaches	Course builder, memberships, coaching, website builder	From $39/month
	Free alternative for beginners	One-time tips, memberships, commissions, and shop	5% transaction fee (0% for donations)
	Bands/Musicians	Branded app, fun club, merch, tickets, music streaming	From $44.99/month
	Podcasters	All-in-one podcast hosting + distribution, premium memberships, digital and physical sales	From $19/month +15% platform fees
	Streamers/Creators who want simple support	One-click tips, store, memberships, streaming alerts	5% fee on each transaction
	Digital and traditional artists	E-commerce with memberships, licensing tools, PDF stamping	Free: 5% $29/month: 2% $99/month: 0%
	Filmmakers/Video creators	Video hosting, memberships, paywalled collections, branded site	Free (5% fees) $15/month Pro
	Photographers/digital creators	Simple digital storefront + membership, tax tools, pay-what-you-want pricing	10% + $0.50 per sale (direct) → 30% per sale on Discover Marketplace

1. Sellfy: The best Patreon alternative for creators

Sellfy is a creator-first e-commerce platform that makes it easy for artists, designers, musicians, and other content makers to sell all the digital product staples and get supported by their fans. Minimal setup and no transaction fees from the platform make Sellfy an easy entry-level or great migration choice.

You can sell digital products, subscriptions, print-on-demand merch, or physical goods with more control over pricing, products, and storefront branding than Patreon can ever give. At the same time, Sellfy is just as user-friendly, intuitive, and streamlined as Patreon, but with many more features and creative freedom. Sellfy dashboard

Why I picked Sellfy

Sellfy bridges the gap between barebones membership/community platforms like Patreon and full-blown e-commerce systems like Shopify.

For creators who want to sell custom products (downloads, subscriptions, merch) instead of just memberships or fan support, Sellfy offers an affordable, low-friction way to launch a fully functional online store and create a branded, unique experience for their fans.

Sellfy themes

Patreon’s model is good for absolute newbies, but Sellfy removes Patreon’s limits and allows you to be flexible and scale up:

Instead of ever-growing commissions, you have a fixed monthly payment that doesn’t eat away at your earnings. When you can afford to spend more, you can upgrade your plan and unlock new advanced features.
Sellfy gives you full control over the presentation of your content: you can create curated playlists, bundles, courses, and downloadable products that are evergreen, removing the constant pressure to update. You can focus on quality instead of quantity.
Unlike on Patreon, where fans often wait until the creator accumulates more paywalled content, subscribe, binge, and cancel, because they cannot afford a monthly subscription to all their favorite artists. On Sellfy, they have an option for a one-off purchase. This flexibility benefits both creators and their fans with varying levels of disposable income.
If you aren’t ready to let go of Patreon just yet, you can keep both. Simply integrate your Patreon offerings into your Sellfy store.

Standout features

Fully functional e-commerce website with great potential for scaling and customization
Easy store setup: especially good for solo creators or small teams who don’t want to tinker with many apps or plugins
Unlimited products across all paid plans (digital downloads, physical, subscriptions/memberships)
Zero platform transaction fees
Transparent pricing and clear upgrade path when you hit sales thresholds
Instant payout: you receive funds directly with no platform holding periods
Built-in checkout, hosting, delivery of digital assets, and an option to embed “Buy” buttons or a full store on your existing site/blog
Built-in print-on-demand service
Marketing automation: discount codes, coupon mechanics, affiliate program (on Business/Premium tiers), upsells, and cart abandonment tools
E-mail marketing tool integrated into the platform, so you won’t need a separate app
Custom domain support, SSL, mobile-optimized checkout/UX out of the box

Sellfy

Products you can sell

Digital downloads, subscriptions, access to libraries, services, print-on-demand merch, and other physical products, bundles, and upsells, including “pay what you want” items.

Integrations

PayPal, Stripe, Google Analytics, Google Merchant Center, Facebook pixel, Twitter Ads, Zapier connectivity, +DIY integrations via webhooks, embeddable checkout/store widgets for blogs and social media.

Pricing

Starter Plan: Starter ($22 a month)

No platform fees
Up to $10,000 annual sales cap
Unlimited products, digital, physical, subscriptions
Unique domain
Email marketing
Store customization

Best Value Plan: Business ($59 a month)

Up to $50,000 annual sales cap

Everything from Starter, plus:

Enhanced email marketing

Advanced marketing tools (product upselling, cart abandonment, affiliate program)

Full customization (no “Sellfy” branding)
Store design migration

Pros	Cons
Very quick to launch a store, perfect for creators who want to sell with minimal technical setup<br />	Integration ecosystem is smaller than in some other e-commerce solutions, but built-in tools largely compensate for this
No accumulating transaction fees from the platform — you keep 100% of revenue minus payment processor fees	Services for physical shipping, logistics, and inventory management are limited in scale compared to enterprise e-commerce solutions
Holistic support for digital products, subscriptions/memberships, and print-on-demand in one unified environment	No free tier, only a 14-day trial period
Built-in marketing and sales tools reduce the need for many separate apps	Monthly payment model isn’t ideal for absolute newbies with fewer assets to sell
Streamlined, fully functional branded store (custom domain, SSL) without cumbersome e-commerce complexity
Transparent pricing with clear scales based on annual revenue, so you know when you’ll need to upgrade
You retain direct control over your customer base, products, and email list with less platform-dependency than membership-only models like Patreon

For a creator who wants to sell products rather than rely purely on patronage, Sellfy offers a full storefront, product flexibility, and great marketing tools, remaining lean and creator-friendly. It’s a balance of simplicity, brand control, and cost efficiency, perfect for solo creators and small teams focused on a unique experience for their fans.

Sellfy is a smart, affordable choice to own your store and brand, combining the best of both worlds: community-building, crowd-funding, and e-commerce.

Learn how to sell online the simple way

See how

2. Substack: Best Patreon alternative for writers

Substack is a newsletter-publishing platform designed specifically for authors, bloggers, and journalists who want to monetize their writing through subscriptions and build their readership. Its main feature is a paid newsletter delivered directly to the subscriber’s inbox, fostering more direct and candid relationships between writers and their fans.

Substack dashboard

Why I picked Substack

I chose Substack over other likely Patreon alternatives for writers because it’s a straightforward reader-facing solution. You don’t have to set up a full website and storefront: all its features cater to writers and bloggers and are streamlined for monetizing long-form content.