A membership platform lets you charge a recurring price for access to content, a community, or both. The 14 below are the ones people actually weigh against each other, and what separates them is not the feature list: it is what each one takes from every member payment, which varies far more than the monthly price does.
Disclosure: we make Drry, one of the platforms in this market, and we cover it honestly at the end. Every figure below is quoted from that platform’s own pricing page and carries the date we last checked it.
Which membership platforms are worth comparing?
These 14 platforms all let you charge for ongoing access, and they split into three shapes that are not substitutes for each other: community-first platforms, course platforms with a membership tab, and paywalls you attach to something you already run. Pick the shape first and the shortlist usually drops to two or three.
- Skool. No free plan. Both tiers are paid. Hobby plan: 10% + $0.30 per member payment. Verified July 2026 against skool.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Circle. No free plan. 14-day trial on paid plans. Professional: 2% of member payments. Verified July 2026 against circle.so/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Mighty Networks. No free plan. 14-day trial, no card required. Launch: 2% of member payments. Verified July 2026 against mightynetworks.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Patreon. Free to start. The cost is the percentage, not a subscription. Platform fee (new creators): 10% of memberships and one-off purchases. Verified July 2026 against Patreon's help center. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Memberful. No free plan. Nothing is charged until you go live with payments. Standard: 4.9% transaction fee. Verified September 2026 against memberful.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Whop. Free to start. There is no subscription at all; the cost is per transaction. Platform fee: 3% on products using an access app (Discord, Telegram, TradingView). Verified July 2026 against whop.com/network/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Kajabi. No free plan. Free trial only. With Kajabi Payments: Marketed 0%, but subscriptions carry a 0.7% recurring-payment fee. Verified July 2026 against kajabi.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Podia. No free plan. The free tier was removed in October 2024. 30-day trial, no card required. Mover: 5% of every paid sale. Verified July 2026 against podia.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Teachable. No free plan. The free tier was discontinued in June 2025. 7-day trial. Starter: 7.5% of every paid sale. Verified July 2026 against teachable.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Thinkific. No free plan. A 30-day free trial on the paid plans. Using Thinkific Payments: will not incur a third-party payment gateway fee, at 2.9% to process the card. Verified September 2026 against thinkific.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Substack. Yes. Publishing is free at any size, and the 10% starts only when you turn on paid subscriptions. Paid subscriptions: 10% of your subscription revenue. Verified September 2026 against Substack's help center. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Gumroad. There is no plan to be on. Gumroad costs nothing until you sell something, then takes a cut of each sale for as long as you sell. Sold through your own link: 10% + $0.50 per sale. Verified September 2026 against gumroad.com/pricing. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Stan Store. No free plan. 14-day trial. Platform fee: 0% on both plans. Verified July 2026 against Stan's pricing post. Full pricing and how it compares.
- Discord. Yes, running a server is free. Charging for access at all requires Server Subscriptions, which in practice need a US bank account and US identification; we could not read Discord's own eligibility pages to cite them, so that restriction rests on third-party reporting rather than on a page we can link, and it has moved before. Server Subscriptions: a Platform Fee, plus a Payment Processing Fee and a Transaction Fee as applicable. Verified September 2026 against Discord's Monetization Terms. Full pricing and how it compares.
Why do the fees vary so much more than the prices?
Because a percentage and a subscription are two different business models, and most platforms here run one or the other. The ones that charge no monthly fee are paid out of your revenue instead, so their cost scales with your success and has no ceiling. The ones that charge a monthly price are betting you would rather know the number in advance.
One more thing to check per platform, because this list quotes it both ways: whether the rate already contains card processing, or sits on top of it. A quoted rate that already contains processing is a far smaller cut than the same number quoted separately, and comparing the two as though they were the same figure is the most common mistake in this market.
Where does Drry fit?
Drry is a flat-priced membership platform that takes 0% of member payments on every plan, including the free one. The free plan holds up to 100 members with no card required, paid plans start at $29 a month, and the money lands in your own Stripe account rather than ours. Community, courses, guides, audio, events and email are in the same place rather than sold as add-ons.
That is the trade stated plainly: you pay a predictable subscription instead of a share of everything you earn. If your revenue is small and unpredictable, a percentage platform genuinely costs you less. If it is growing, the flat price stops moving while the percentage does not.
Questions coaches ask
What is the best membership platform?
There is no single answer, and a roundup that gives you one is ranking products that do different jobs. A community-first platform, a course platform with a membership tab, and a paywall you bolt onto a site you already own all appear on the same lists and are not substitutes. Decide which of those three you are building, then compare what each one charges: of the 14 platforms priced here, the fee on member payments varies more than the monthly price does.
Which membership platforms have a free plan?
Several start free, and "free" means two different things that fail in opposite directions. Free until you earn charges a percentage of every payment instead of a subscription, so it is genuinely free while you are building and the most expensive option once you are not. Free at a size is a real free tier with a member or storage limit on it. Drry is the second kind: free up to 100 members, and 0% of member payments on every plan including that one.
Do membership platforms take a cut of my revenue?
Most do, and the rate is the number that decides your bill rather than the monthly price. A platform charging a percentage costs more every time you grow and it never stops, while a flat subscription is the same whether you earn nothing or a great deal. Read each platform's fee row rather than its headline plan price, and check whether the quoted rate already contains card processing or sits on top of it, because the two are quoted both ways across this list.
Can I move my members from one membership platform to another?
Yes, and expect to rebuild rather than transfer, because there is no importer between any two platforms in this category, ours included. Your member list exports as a CSV from essentially all of them. What does not move is the recurring billing: subscriptions have to be re-established wherever you land, which is the part to plan before you announce a move rather than after it.