Whop vs Patreon
Two ways to charge for access.
Whop and Patreon both let creators charge for access without a monthly subscription of their own, funding themselves from a cut of what you earn instead. Patreon is the membership incumbent, built around recurring patron tiers and a creator feed. Whop is the newer marketplace-and-checkout layer, strong on digital products and access-gated communities. Disclosure: we make Drry, a flat-priced alternative, and we cover it honestly at the end. This page is about which of these two fee models fits what you sell.
The honest recommendation.
Pick Whop
Pick Whop if you sell digital products or access-gated communities and want fast, flexible checkout with no fixed monthly cost. It suits sellers who value its marketplace exposure and integrations, particularly around access apps, and who would rather pay per transaction than per month.
Pick Patreon
Pick Patreon if your model is recurring membership and you want the most recognized name in creator patronage, with a familiar feed and tier structure your audience already understands. It suits creators whose fans expect a Patreon and who value the built-in behaviors of the platform.
Where Drry fits.
Both fund themselves by taking a percentage of everything you earn, forever, which quietly scales your cost with your success. If you would rather pay a flat, predictable price and keep 100% of your member payments, that is the whole idea behind Drry.
- Keep 100% of member payments. Only Stripe's standard processing fee applies, we take nothing on top.
- Payments run through your own Stripe account, so your customers and subscriptions belong to you, not the platform. No payment lock-in.
- Funnels built in: fast landing pages on your domain with views, joins, and revenue attributed per page. Standalone funnel tools charge $49 to $97 a month for less.
- A genuinely free tier: 100 members, 5 GB storage, unlimited courses, and the community feed, with no card required.
- Courses, a community feed, members, and payments in one branded space you own.
- Your own address like grace.drry.com out of the box, with custom domain and site white label on paid tiers, and white-label email from your own domain on Growth.
- Member analytics on the $29 Creator plan: who is showing up, what is landing, and who is quietly drifting away. The kind of insight other platforms save for their priciest plans.
- Get paid for 1:1s and packages: send a client a one-time or installment link with an agreement they sign before paying. Built in, free on every plan, and no platform fee. Other platforms make you bolt on a separate contract tool, and most never reach 0%.
- Email your whole community, built in on every plan, even free (100 sends a month free, unlimited on paid), no add-on and no second tool to wire up. Creator adds email automations: welcome journeys, lead-magnet delivery, and win-backs that run on their own. And on Growth, Spark drafts your emails AND your funnel pages for you, pulling from your own courses and writing in your voice, so you start from a finished draft instead of a blank page. Tweak it and send.
Whop vs Patreon, common questions
Does Whop or Patreon take a bigger cut?
It depends on what you sell and how, since the two structure their fees differently: Patreon takes a platform percentage of membership income, while Whop's cut depends on the product and the access apps attached to it, on top of processing. The two fact boxes above show each platform's current fee structure so you can map it to your own sales.
Is Whop or Patreon better for a membership community?
Patreon is purpose-built for recurring memberships and its audience already understands the model, which lowers friction. Whop can run an access-gated community too and is stronger on digital-product checkout and flexibility. If recurring patron tiers are the whole model, Patreon fits naturally; if you sell a mix of products and access, Whop is more flexible.
Do Whop and Patreon have monthly fees?
Neither charges a fixed monthly subscription; both make their money by taking a percentage of what you earn. That looks free to start, but the percentage means your cost rises in lockstep with your revenue, with no ceiling. The fact boxes above break down the per-transaction and platform fees that replace a monthly bill.
Can I keep 100% of what my members pay?
Not on either of these; both take a percentage of your earnings by design, separate from standard payment processing. Keeping 100% of member payments requires a platform that charges a flat price instead of a revenue share. That is exactly the trade a flat-priced tool like Drry makes: a predictable fee instead of a cut of everything.
Try Drry free. Bring your people.
Courses and community together in your own branded space, and you keep 100% of what your members pay you.