Patreon vs Ko-fi Creator Take-Home Calculator
Compare creator take-home on Patreon, Ko-fi, and other in USD
Creator calculator FAQs
Do I need exact platform and payment splits?
No. This page uses a single total fee percent plus a fixed fee per pledge for each platform. You can add platform and payment percentages together into one number to keep things simple.
How do I handle multiple tiers?
Enter an average pledge across all paid tiers. If you have a few very different tiers, you can run the calculator multiple times and roughly weight the results by how many members sit in each tier.
Why do members needed show as infinity?
If fees plus absorbed tax eat the entire pledge, net per member becomes zero or negative. In that case, there is no realistic member count that reaches your target and the tool shows an infinite result instead.
Patreon vs Ko-fi take-home guide
This Patreon vs Ko-fi Creator Take-Home Calculator is meant to answer a single question: “Where do I actually keep more per supporter?” Instead of scrolling fee tables, you plug in your own membership numbers and see how much lands in your pocket under different setups. The inputs stay lean on purpose: members, average pledge, churn, basic tax handling, a single fee percent per platform, and one fixed fee. The output is a simple side-by-side comparison for Patreon, Ko-fi, and a custom “other” option, all in USD.
1. Start with a realistic average pledge and churn
Begin by entering your current member count and an average monthly pledge. If you have several tiers, a quick weighted average is good enough. Add your typical monthly churn so the calculator works from members who are likely to bill this month instead of your headline follower count. That gives you a more honest base for planning.
2. Combine fee lines into one simple percent
Live fee tables often show separate platform and payment percentages. Here you group them into a single total fee percent per platform and add a flat per-pledge fee. For example, a 5% platform fee plus 3% payment fee becomes 8%. A 0.30 USD fixed fee stays as-is. The calculator uses that stack to estimate how much of each pledged dollar you keep after fees.
3. Use tax handling to see the impact of absorbing VAT
If you absorb VAT or sales tax, the taxed share of pledges is reduced by the average rate before any fees are applied. That lowers both fees and your net. When you mark tax as pass-through, the pledge is kept intact and tax is added on top for the buyer, which usually improves creator take-home. Toggling between these options shows how much absorbing tax really costs you each month.
4. Plan with members needed, not just total revenue
The “members needed” line is designed for planning. It tells you how many total members you would need at the current pledge level to reach your monthly target on each platform. If that number is only slightly above your churn-adjusted base, you may be one campaign away from your goal. If it is far higher, you might look at nudging your average pledge, trimming fees, or shifting part of your audience to a more efficient setup.
How the take-home math is approximated
Let m be current members and c the monthly churn fraction (for example, 0.06 for 6%). Adjusted members are m′ = m × (1 − c). Let p be the average pledge in USD, s the taxed member share as a fraction, and t the tax rate as a fraction. If tax is absorbed, effective pledge is p′ = p × [1 − (s × t)]. If tax is passed through, we set p′ = p.
For each platform, let γ be the combined fee percent as a fraction and f the fixed fee per pledge in USD. Fee per member is p′γ + f, and net per member is n = p′ − (p′γ + f). Monthly take-home is T = m′ × n. If you choose a target take-home Z, the members needed to reach it at that net per member is approximated as ceil(Z / n) when n > 0; if n ≤ 0 the model reports no finite solution. All values are rounded for display and intended as planning estimates, not exact payout guarantees.
Reference: Patreon Pricing · Ko-fi Pricing.