Migrating from Patreon to Ko-fi. Migh need some info and what is your experience?

[Lunar-Turtle]

Hello guys, I want to ask you something.

You see, for some time now I am using Patreon to let people donate to me on monthly basis and offer them rewards in return. It works, but over time I was noticing all the stupid things Patreon is doing. I tried to ignore it as long as I could, but yesterday I learned they may be pushing another stupid idea.

You see, right now they charge all patrons on the site on the 1st of every month and it works. It’s organized, you can see how much you make in one day and it’s comfortable for patrons. But recently they dropped news they want to change it to annual billing. So you won’t be charged on the 1st, but the date you subscribed. This means total chaos. Imagine you have 100 patrons and you have to keep track all month if everyone paid and how much you make. Or imagine being a patron for 10 people and being charged ten times in one month. No one likes it and everyone is freaking out. People are scared it might scare patrons away and some people are saying they will leave. this however is not the only downside of Patreon. I started to think about it and I’m not sure if the site is worth it anymore. They used to much better, we all know that. In previous years, you could use all functions on default. Now you need to choose a pro program, which means the price of tiers goes up. There are also taxes. And who pays all of that? Patrons. People want to support the artist, but in the end, artists don’t even get the full donation, and patrons keep feeding this horrible system. I know every site has to live off something, but this is ridiculous. They are trying got pull in as much money as they can and make the life of people on the side worse. And we should not also forget they like to be very hypocritical and ban people, just because of their opinions. Amazing.

So I started to think about migrating to ko-fi and start monthly donations there. However, I don’t know enough about ko-fi and it’s a monthly system. I’m not even sure if there are active tiers and how things work. Before migrating I would like to know as much as possible, so I would be thankful if you can fill me in. Ko-fi takes 0% fees, so people who donate there don’t feed the site, but only creators. The only paid thin is the gold program.

So please if you have some useful info on ko-fi please tell me. Also, what are your experiences? Do you prefer Patreon or ko-fi? Maybe something else? And how do you feel about Patreon’s recent behavior?

Here is my ko-fi page. I want to update it so if you have any ideas, you can tell me

Buy Lunar-Turtle a Coffee. ko-fi.com/lunar_turtle

[KoreanTacos]

Dude dont, your shotty attitude is enough reason for me to not even give you a chance.

[Lunar-Turtle]

Excuse me if I am wrong, I hate to accuse people of things they didn’t do, but weren’t you the one accusing me of shady tactics when I started my comic? I saw you quite often being jealous of other people having success.

I would repair that to step 1) Have good manners

I am telling people about quite important events, that may affect many creators and also asking for help. Asking people and talking about your work is not flexing and no one should be ashamed to ask other people for their opinion and presenting own work.

Maybe you should start to think about your own behavior first. this isn’t the first time I see you do such stuff.

[KoreanTacos]

No youre being a blatant piece of shit and thats all that shows

[arpeggiomax87]

well, i guess the ends dont justify the means.

[KoreanTacos]

Sorry @Lunar-Turtle hope you have a better day

[Lunar-Turtle]

You know, I feel sorry for you. You are triyng to play a victim here, but that doesn't work. The community isn't elitist, but you can't expect peopel to accept you if you act liek this. I believe you that you tried to be nice, but you can't be mad when people don't agree with you. Most of the time people think everyone is against them, just because they say no, and do theings their way. I don't know what happened to you, but it is never excuse to act like this. I was through some shit in my life, but that's not reason to be a jerk and being like: everyone hates me. People don't hate you, it's just in your mind and you make yourself think that. Maybe you shoudl just stop and things will change.

[Lunar-Turtle]

Nah, that's ok. Not definitely what I expected, but you know, things like this happen and this is really nothing to stress about. I just hope I also get some replies to the theme of the thread, lol.

[Lunar-Turtle]

You don't look like you are too happy with what you do. Maybe that's the problem. Most of the time the problem lays in our own heads. You can't expect people to like what you do if you are visibly unhappy with it. People are drawn to those that radiate happiness and joy, not those who complain about their own stuff not being popular and liked. But it can be fixed only by yourself, no one else. Even if you would get 5 000 subs over night and kept this mindset, it would not help. Are you really here just to complain? If you are an artist, you should be here to make art, communicate with others and feel joy from it. nothing good comes from hate and complaints. I know it because I was the same. And it never brought me any good. And I had to help myself, no one did it for me and as you can see, I am happier now and my work is also much better received. I'm sure you started to make art not to feel bad about it, but because you liked it.

[arpeggiomax87]

So essentially I'm supposed to have hibbity jibbity joy drawing to an audience of 0?

[Kaydreamer]

I'm not overly familiar with either of them, but a number of my friends use both. The points of difference I do know are thus:

• Patreon uses a percentage fee-based model, whereas Ko-fi is a fixed rate for a Gold account. (Which is the type you would want, having analogous features to Patreon.) This may work out cheaper in the long run if you have a lot of supporters.
• The audience on Ko-fi is much smaller, and far fewer people are aware of the site or follow many creators there. This will potentially turn away supporters who may have otherwise subscribed on the platform they're more familiar with. (This being Patreon.)
• Ko-fi has a commissions feature which apparently works quite well.
• WEBTOON provides a direct link to a creator's Patreon.

I hope this helps!

[Lunar-Turtle]

Everyone starts with 0, everyone. Even big names like George Lucas, James Cameron started with 0. I started with 0 and hadn't any luck for years, many years. the success comes after many failures, no one gets success on the first try. And success is not for everyone, because many people leave before they can achieve it. it's the never-ending game of pushing forward and there is no way to cheat it. you can give up, it's your choice, but then you can't complain you never achieved anything. And you can't blame other people for your own misery. I used to think there was some curse over me, because no matter what I did, it never succeeded, failure after failure. Then I changed the way of thinking and focused on my work, not on others being better than me. That' when things change. Yes, in the beginning, you start with 0 and are no one, but if you dedicate your life to your work and be confident with it, you may succeed.

[Lunar-Turtle]

Yes, that definitely helps. I also came to the conclusion that ko-fi may be cheaper in the long run, since it has fixed price and patreon is practically more expensive with every dollar and patron. Practically the higher amoutn of people and prices, the more expensive it gets, it multiplies. While ko-fi has a set price.

An yeah, good point on that, there is not that big of a community. I was thinking about this and hwo to solve it. Considering the supporters come from the comic itself maybe it cen be fixed with telling them abotu the site. At least I hope so :,D

[Llyrel]

I'm not much of a Ko-Fi expert... I considered making an account on there, but I really, really don't like how it links people to PayPal which then reveals your legal name. Yes, you could make a PayPal Business account for free, which lets you choose a nickname and whatever, but my country has extremely silly/backwards laws about gaining any kind of money online and basically if you're not a registered seller you can't have a PayPal Business account, period. So in short, for me it's either "get fined over the PayPal business account and risk losing your job" or "put yourself at risk of being doxxed for a $3 donation". I don't like either, so I decided to stick with Patreon, which, as far as I know, does not reveal your personal data unless you want it to. And I'm afraid that, until either PayPal or my country fix their crap, things won't change .__.

That said, Ko-Fi does look like very interesting: I like how people can just give you one-time donations instead of subscribing for life and I know that people have been using it to post rewards for donators. I think the subscription-based model is only available if you have Ko-Fi gold, though? °°

[Lunar-Turtle]

That is actually very interesting and important info. People should knwo about this. I can totally see your point.

And yes, monthly donations are only in gold program, but considering how much extra money people pay on Patreon with fees, I think it may be still more worth it and cheaper for people to pay. Because it has fixed amount to pay.

[VibrantFox]

Well with regards to op I've only ever used Ko-fi so I can't provide a comparison and haven't made use of Ko-fi Gold so unfortunately no feedback as to how that works either.

However I have made use of the sites generally available tools for the past couple of years though and within that time I can say my experiences have been pretty pleasant. The only issues that I have seen come up have usually been with PayPal specifically and not Ko-fi itself. So I'd imagine it's useful to also have Stripe or at least have your PayPal linked with a bank account to avoid money holding issues (which makes for a whole other thread really)

I tend to use Ko-fi as a tip jar with various goals set based on whatever needs/wants (my current one is/was for a new laptop). I also use the commissions feature which has been really great for streamlining my commission progress as well as keeping things orderly (specifically in regard to properly sorting commission details and references cause I'm not a fan of disorder)

As for what I post it's usually comic or art WIPs, finished illustrations in higher resolution, finished Ko-fi commissions or requests as well as any other bonus art I feel like tossing up.

I know for a fact that Ko-fi is also consistently adding new features to the site or at the least making features that in the past were exclusive to Ko-fi Gold more widely available (which is nice for us "normies"). The most recent update I think was a direct messaging feature and all the details about that were here

Ko-fi's also pretty good in providing fairly robust info as to how to set up your page and how to utilize all of the site features so whatever seems hard to understand can be found at either of these pages

Ko-fi

https://help.ko-fi.com/hc/en-us

You can also just follow Ko-fi's ko-fi here (which i think is one of the defaults when you make a page) but it's got all their updates in the posts section

View Ko-fi's Ko-fi Posts

I will echo on what @Llyrel mentioned about how unless your PayPal is set up as a Business Acct you more than likely will have to deal with your legal name exposed so as I'd mentioned earlier Stripe may be worth looking into. Of course country laws vary and my only experience is that of someone in the US so def recommend asking around ;;;

Overall though there's a lot of different approaches people have for using Ko-fi so it also doesn't hurt to see how other folks are using the platform and see what works for you personally

[Lunar-Turtle]

Well, that's a long one. Thanks a lot for such a detailed overview. I have ko-fi for some time now, but till now I didn't mean to use it as an alternative for Patreon. So I am familiar with some things you say, but it's very nice you put in your personal experience

[frgmnt]

...Wait, I thought that the way Ko-fi works is specifically made so people don't see your paypal with your legal name? Wasn't it a "paypal wrapper" or something like it? Did something change recently?
Anyway my country is also like this (are we from the same country? because damn, that's exactly how it is here), so... this is a big problem... I was seriously considering making a ko-fi

[ble]

I'm trying both, but i'm also not familiar with Kofi. I made my Kofi account like 2 years ago, but forgot to promote or do anything with it lol

I want to be more active with Kofi, but don't know where to start.

What i heard is that with Kofi is that you can set commissions. But, that's something outside of the work of making the comics, so idk.

[Llyrel]

Ko-Fi does not show your legal name... but PayPal does. So basically if people are donating through PayPal, they will be able to see your legal name unless you have a Business account. I've seen Stripe being suggested as an alternative to PayPal Business, but then again... my country requires you to be a registered seller for that, so Stripe is a nope for me too ;__; I'm from Italy, btw!