What is Patreon
Patreon is a US-based platform launched in 2013 that allows media makers to earn a sustainable income directly from their fans, or "patrons." It’s popular among a wide range of media makers including podcasters, YouTubers, musicians, and artists. Patreon offers a subscription-based model where fans can support media makes on a recurring basis in exchange for exclusive content, community access, and more.
The bottom line:
Patreon is great for media makers who want a straightforward way to monetize their fanbase through memberships and build a community of dedicated supporters.
What is Steady
Founded in 2016, Steady is a Berlin-based membership platform that’s popular with European media makers who want to build communities across multiple channels. Like Patreon, it’s easy to start a membership program and offer exclusive content. However, Steady is particularly strong for media makers who publish different kinds of media, need to integrate memberships tools on their own website, or have an audience across more than one channel (e.g., a podcast on Spotify and a newsletter on Mailchimp).
The bottom line:
Steady is ideal for EU-based media makers who publish across multiple channels and want a direct relationship with their membership community.
Free newsletter tool
Publish articles as newsletters
Personalised audio RSS feed for
members-only content
Spotify integration for subscription content
Collect payments directly on your website
Paywall integration on your website to attract
paying members
Adblock detection
overlay feature to promote your project when a site visitor is using an ad blocker
Drip Campaigns
automated Email Marketing for abandoned carts, unsubscribes and more
Option to create unlimited paid tiers for members
VAT calculated and managed automatically
Annual plans
Membership analytics
Comment and reaction features on posts
Support with growing your membership
Comparing revenue fees
Which platform gives you the highest payout? While both Steady and Patreon keep a fixed fee on your earnings, the ultimate cost of using them may vary depending on your chosen level of service and the location of your audience. Let’s see how.
Steady charges a 10% commission on your membership earnings, no matter which features you use. Patreon charges 8% for users of Patreon Pro and 12% for users of Patreon Premium. Additional payment fees vary. To illustrate how this stacks up in the real world, here’s a quick example of how much money a media maker will keep after commission and transaction fees, depending on which membership platform they choose.
Let’s imagine Sandra is a writer who lives in Italy and starts a membership programme for her newsletter. A quarter of her members are in the UK, and the rest are in Italy. Say she earns 2,492.27 EUR (gross) from 686 membership payments in one month. How much will Steady and Patreon take in transaction fees and commission?
We’ve crunched the numbers below. Sandra would take home about €14 more by using Steady instead of Patreon Pro (8% commission). The difference goes up to €113.26 under Patreon Premium’s pricing (12%).
Fees
What else...
Integrations and add-ons
Patreon is a closed system designed as a stand-alone membership platform. It does offer some external integrations (eg. Spotify and Discord). However, Patreon’s appeal is a seamless user experience where media makers can focus on creating. If you’re building an independent media business or looking for a solution that integrates with other tools you use, there are better options out there.
Steady is almost the opposite in that it’s designed to connect with your existing ecosystem. In fact, Steady integrates with several lead-gen and productivity tools – from WordPress to MailChimp, Spotify and more. Think of Steady as one CRM for everything.
The winner:
Steady. Although, how important integrations are to you will obviously depend on the other tools you use to run your business.
Migrating to
Steady or Patreon
Patreon’s official website doesn’t provide any information regarding the migration of free members. However, it is easy to migrate your non-paying members on Steady from popular platforms like Mailchimp, Behiiv, Ghost, Wordpress, Medium and others. The migration process is fully GDPR compliant, and you will maintain full ownership of your contacts.
The winner:
Steady. Based on available information, it seems that migration services may not be available on Patreon.
THE VERDICT