Patreon vs Ko-fi vs Ghost: which one keeps the most of your money?

I looked at all three before I built xVoid. Here's the honest maths on what each one costs, what you actually own, and where the take-rate hides.

I looked at all three before I built xVoid. Patreon was the obvious one. Ko-fi was the unexpectedly good one. Ghost on its own had the writing experience I wanted, but it stopped at memberships. Here's how the maths and the trade-offs actually play out.

Patreon

Patreon used to have three plans. Lite at 5%, Pro at 8%, Premium at 12%. In August 2025 they rolled the lot up. New creators now sit on a flat 10% standard plan. Existing creators on legacy plans (5%, 8%, 11%) get to keep them. If you signed up after August 4 last year, you're paying 10%.

Then there's payment processing. Stripe and PayPal take their cut on top. That's another 3% or so on most transactions. So the realistic take is 13% before you've netted a penny.

The thing nobody talks about is the iOS tax. If a fan pays you through the Patreon app on their iPhone, Apple takes 30% before Patreon even sees it. Patreon's own help docs flag this. Most creators discover it the first time they reconcile a month's payouts and the numbers don't match.

You also don't own the relationship. Patreon owns the URL. Patreon owns the email list (you can export it, but the daily relationship lives there). Patreon owns the comments, the posts, the tier configuration. If they change the rules, your business changes with them.

Ko-fi

Ko-fi is the platform I was most surprised by. The free tier is genuinely free. 0% on tips. 5% on shop and membership sales. The Gold subscription is $6 a month and that 5% drops to 0%. Stripe still takes its cut on top, but Ko-fi's own platform fee disappears entirely.

If your business is selling stickers and taking the occasional tip, Ko-fi Gold is genuinely well-priced. $72 a year. Hard to beat.

The catch is what you can't do. There's no native shipping zones with weight bands. No print-on-demand. No real product variants past the basics. No custom checkout domain. No proper tax handling for inclusive-VAT regions like the UK. The shop pages live on ko-fi.com/yourname, not on your own site, so every sale is also a marketing opportunity for Ko-fi.

It's a brilliant tool for what it is. It just doesn't grow with you past a certain point.

Ghost on its own

Ghost has memberships and Stripe baked in. If your business is paid newsletters and nothing else, Ghost native is hard to beat. You own the domain. You own the email list. You own the editor. The 0% take-rate on memberships is real (you pay Stripe's processing fees, that's it).

What you don't get: a shop. The official docs send you to Snipcart or an embedded Gumroad button for anything physical. Both work. Both also feel like duct tape.

Ghost plus xVoid

This is what we actually built. Ghost handles the writing, the memberships, the email, and the audience. xVoid sits on top as the shop layer. $15 a month flat. No percentage. Your own domain. Your own Stripe. Real shipping rules, real tax handling, real digital downloads, real print-on-demand through Printful, real reviews from verified buyers.

The honest version of the pitch: if you only sell memberships, Ghost on its own is enough. If you only sell tips and a few digital products and don't mind your shop living on someone else's domain, Ko-fi Gold is fine. If you're doing more than that (or you might in the next two years), Ghost plus xVoid stops being the more expensive option pretty fast.

The maths at scale

Take a creator pulling £2,000 a month from paid subscribers and £500 a month from a small shop:

Patreon (new creator): 10% of £2,500 is £250 a month. Plus Stripe. Plus the Apple cut on iOS sign-ups. About £320 effective.
Ko-fi Gold: $6 a month flat (~£5). Plus Stripe. About £80 effective. The shop lives on ko-fi.com though, and the membership feature is light.
Ghost on its own: 0% on the £2,000 memberships. Stripe takes its cut. Roughly £60 effective. But you can't sell the shop products without bolting something on.
Ghost plus xVoid: $15 (~£12) a month flat plus Ghost's own hosting fee plus Stripe. About £75 effective, with the shop on your domain and full ecommerce features.

At £2,500 a month combined revenue, Patreon costs you four times what Ghost plus xVoid does. The gap widens with every month you grow.

What to actually pick

Patreon if you want the audience discovery and don't mind paying for it. Ko-fi if your business is small and you don't want to think about it. Ghost on its own if memberships are your entire product. Ghost plus xVoid if you want the writing experience of Ghost and the shop your business will eventually need.

I went with the last one because I wanted to write on my own domain, sell on my own domain, and stop subsidising platforms that grow with my income. There's a 7-day free trial if you want to see whether the maths works for you.