Skool vs Patreon: Which Is Better for Creators?

Skool vs Patreon comes down to what your members are paying for. Patreon is built for creators whose fans pay for ongoing work: videos, podcasts, music, art and posts. Skool is built for a paid community where members talk to each other, climb a leaderboard and work through courses. Both run payments and sales tax for you, and neither takes payments through your own Stripe account. Below we compare fees, payouts, community tools, courses and discovery. Every fact comes from each company's own pricing and help pages, checked on 29 September 2026.

We run our own Skool community, so we know Skool from the owner's side. We have not run a Patreon page, so every Patreon fact below comes from Patreon's pricing page and its help centre, not from our own use.

Skool vs Patreon at a glance

Fees: what each one takes

Skool

Skool has two plans. Skool's pricing page lists Hobby at $9 a month with a "10% transaction fee" and Pro at $99 a month with a "2.9% transaction fee". Skool's payments FAQ gives the full rates: Hobby is "10% + 30c /transaction for all transactions", and Pro is "2.9% + 30c /transaction for transactions up to $899 USD" and "3.9% + 30c /transaction for transactions above $900 USD". Card processing is part of that fee, because "All payment processing happens on the Skools merchant". Skool says "Transaction fees are non-refundable."

On the pricing page, Hobby's card marks Custom URL and Affiliates as not included, and Pro's card includes them. Skool's help centre reserves more for Pro, including plugins such as AutoDM, Zapier and the cancellation video, and transferring group ownership. Both plans start with a 14-day free trial, and yearly billing gets "2 months free". Our Skool pricing guide covers the two plans in detail.

Patreon

Patreon's pricing page says "Patreon is free to start. You only pay when you start earning." The fee is "10% of the income you earn on Patreon", plus "payment processing, currency conversion, and payout fees, and applicable taxes."

Patreon changed its pricing for new creators. Patreon's creator fees overview says: "If you published your creator page after August 4, 2025, please note that you are on our standard 10% pricing plan." Creators who published earlier keep their old plan: Founders at 5%, Pro at 8% or Pro + Merch at 11%. That old plan is lost if the page is ever unpublished, by you or by Patreon. So if you sign up today, plan on 10%.

Card processing comes on top of the 10%. For a creator paid out in US dollars, Patreon lists 2.9% + $0.30 for cards and Apple Pay from anywhere, 2.9% + $0.30 for PayPal and Venmo in the US, and 3.9% + $0.30 for PayPal and Venmo outside the US. On the standard 10% plan these rates apply "to all payments, regardless of amount", so small tiers no longer get the old micropayment rate.

Three more costs can apply. A 2.5% currency conversion fee applies when a member pays in a different currency from your payout currency. Patreon collects VAT, GST or sales tax on its own fees where the law requires it. And each payout has a fee: $0.25 to a US bank, or 1% for PayPal (at least $0.25, capped at $20).

Patreon's 10% is before card processing. Skool's fee already includes it.

A worked example

We worked out the monthly cost from each company's listed rates. This assumes US cards, a US dollar payout, monthly billing, no refunds, no sales tax, no Skool Growth Boost members, and a new Patreon creator on the 10% plan. Patreon's figure leaves out its $0.25 payout fee.

Patreon is cheapest only while you are small. Its total cut is 12.9% + 30c per payment. Skool Hobby's is 10% + 30c plus $9 a month, so Hobby costs less once you sell more than about $310 a month. Skool Pro costs less than Patreon once you sell more than $990 a month. Skool Pro also beats Hobby above about $1,268 a month, and it has the Pro-only features. At $10,000 a month, Patreon costs $901 more than Skool Pro.

If Skool's model looks closer to what you need, you can try Skool free for 14 days (affiliate link).

Apple's cut on iPhone purchases

Patreon has one cost Skool's payments FAQ does not mention. When a fan buys inside the Patreon iOS app, Patreon says "Apple's in-app purchase system applies a 30% App Store fee." Patreon does not add its own processing fee on those, but the 10% platform fee still applies. By default, Patreon raises your iOS prices by about 43% so you earn the same as on the web. You can instead keep prices the same and absorb Apple's fee. Apple drops its fee to 15% once a member has paid for a year without a break. Fans in the US can also pay through Patreon's mobile website, which avoids Apple's fee.

Payouts

Skool pays out weekly. Skool's payments FAQ says "The available balance is paid out every Wednesday directly to your bank account." A US bank usually gets the money in 1 to 3 business days, and other countries in 3 to 5. The first payout "might take up to 14 days". Payouts arrive in your local currency.

Patreon pays out when you ask. Patreon's payouts guide says you can pay out all or part of your available balance, once every 24 hours, and it "typically takes 1-5 days" to arrive. You can also turn on automatic payouts, which run on the 5th of each month. Adding or editing a payout method places a 5-day hold on your balance, and sales made through Apple's in-app purchase stay pending for up to 75 days.

Tax, chargebacks and refunds

Both take the payments paperwork off your plate.

Skool says "Skool is a 'merchant of record'" and is "responsible for all sales tax collection, filing, and payments". For EU members, "We add the VAT rate on top of the price." On refunds, "Skool's policy is to let Creators offer refunds to Members at their discretion", and "In most cases, Skool will not refund on behalf of Creators." When a member's card fails, Skool retries the charge, marks the member "Declined", asks them to update their card, and lets you retry by hand.

Patreon describes itself the same way: "Patreon manages the actual exchange, thus making us the merchant." Its pricing page says "We handle chargebacks, disputes, and fraud" and "We take care of most applicable tax collections and remittance for you". Its VAT article says Patreon calculates and collects VAT "In jurisdictions where Patreon has an obligation to collect tax on customer sales". Declined cards get retried through the month, and the fan gets an email.

Refunds work differently. On Patreon, fans can ask for a refund from their billing history within 60 days. Outside that window, a fan can go to Patreon support, and Patreon decides the claim "at Patreon's sole discretion". If it sides with the fan, the refund comes out of your balance. On Skool, refunds are your call.

Community and chat

This is where the two feel most different.

Skool puts the community first. Every group has one feed where members post, comment and like. On Skool, each like is a point for the author, members climb nine levels, and a leaderboard shows who is most active. You can lock a course until a member reaches a level. Members can also message each other in Skool Chat, and an owner can switch on a plugin that only unlocks chat at a set level, which Skool suggests for groups over 1,000 members to cut spam.

Patreon puts your content first, with the community around it. The 10% plan includes "chats, polls, comments". Patreon's chats FAQ says you can create up to 10 chat spaces and lock each one to certain tiers. There are limits. Members can share video links in chats but not video files, and the only way to remove someone from a chat is to block them, which also ends their membership. Patreon's feature list does not include points, levels or leaderboards.

Patreon also connects to Discord. Its Discord integration "syncs your Discord server roles with your Patreon tiers", so paying fans get into your server. Some creators use both. If Discord is on your list, read our Skool vs Discord comparison.

Courses and content

If you teach, Skool is the better fit. Skool's Classroom holds courses made of pages. You add video to turn pages into lessons, attach files and links, and add transcripts so videos are searchable. You can drip a lesson so it opens a set number of days after someone joins. You can also sell a single course as a one-time purchase inside a free or paid group. Skool's pricing page lists unlimited courses and videos. Patreon caps video at 100 hours of uploads and livestreams a month, once you have a paying fan.

If you publish, Patreon is the better fit. Its pricing page lists audio, images, native video and livestreaming, email newsletters and podcast tools with RSS distribution. You can sell single posts, collections and digital products to people who are not members. Patreon's pricing page lists no course builder. The closest tool is Collections, which group your posts in an order you choose, in their own tab on your page.

Live calls and events

Skool lets you go live "natively in the app or on the browser without needing any third-party streaming platforms". You can share your screen and record the call. The Calendar tab holds events, which can repeat, and defaults to a Skool Call, with Zoom, Meet or an in-person address as other options.

Patreon Live lets you stream on Patreon, with a chat alongside. It is open to creators whose page is published, "Safe for All Audiences" and in good standing, and it is not yet open to Adult/18+ creators. Patreon is also testing ticketed livestreams in beta.

Discovery: who brings you members

Both have a way for new people to find you, and they work in different ways.

Skool has Discovery, a search page for groups. Skool's Discovery FAQ says a group needs a minimum number of members, posts and activity to show up, and ranks groups by growth, engagement and retention. With Growth Boost on, Skool also shows your group higher and runs its own ads. The catch: "You pay the 30% commission only when Skool gets you a member", and that cut applies to every renewal while the member stays. Growth Boost is on by default. You can switch it off in Settings, then Discovery.

Patreon has an Explore tab, personalized for each fan, plus short public posts called Quips and collaboration posts that show up in feeds. Patreon's discovery article says you cannot opt out of Explore, and you cannot pick your own category.

Your brand: URL and domain

Patreon wins this one. Its help centre says a custom domain "lets you replace your Patreon URL (patreon.com/yourname) with a branded link like yourname.com". It works on Patreon's new creator page, one domain at a time. Patreon's pricing page also lists "Exportable email lists".

On Skool, your group lives at an address on skool.com, like our own skool.com/consulting. Changing the URL is Pro only. The first change is free, and each change after that costs $100. Skool's help article on it does not mention connecting a domain you own.

Pick Skool if, pick Patreon if

Pick Skool if

• Members pay to learn, get help and talk to each other, not just to watch your work.
• You want courses with lessons, drip and level locks.
• You want points, levels and a leaderboard to keep members active.
• You expect to sell more than about $1,000 a month, where Skool Pro's fees come out lower.
• You would rather decide refunds yourself than have the platform decide them.

Pick Patreon if

• Fans pay for your ongoing videos, podcasts, music, art or writing.
• You are starting small and want no monthly bill at all.
• You want podcast feeds, newsletters and heavy video hosting in one place.
• You want your own domain.
• Your community already lives in Discord and you only need a way to charge for it.

For other options, see our Skool alternatives guide.

For most people weighing Skool vs Patreon, the question is whether you are running a community or publishing to fans. If it is a community, with courses and members who help each other, start a Skool community here (affiliate link) on the 14-day free trial.

FAQ

Is Skool cheaper than Patreon?

It depends on your sales. Patreon has no monthly fee but takes 10% plus card processing, about 12.9% + 30c per US card payment. Skool Hobby costs less than Patreon above about $310 a month in sales, and Skool Pro costs less above $990 a month. Below $310 a month, Patreon is the cheaper of the three.

What is Patreon's fee for new creators?

New creators pay 10%. Patreon's help centre says any creator who published their page after 4 August 2025 is on the standard 10% plan. On top of that come card processing (2.9% + 30c for most payments to a US dollar payout), a 2.5% currency conversion fee where it applies, and a payout fee.

Can you run courses on Patreon?

Not with a course builder. Patreon's pricing page lists no course feature. You can group posts into Collections, lock posts to tiers, and sell posts or collections one at a time. Skool has a Classroom built for courses, with lessons, video, drip timing and courses that unlock when a member reaches a set level.

Does Patreon handle sales tax and chargebacks?

Yes, mostly. Patreon's pricing page says it handles "chargebacks, disputes, and fraud" and takes care of "most applicable tax collections and remittance". Skool also handles this: it is the merchant of record and says it is responsible for all sales tax collection, filing and payments, including adding EU VAT on top of your price.

How often do Skool and Patreon pay out?

Skool pays out every Wednesday to your bank, and the first payout can take up to 14 days. Patreon lets you withdraw your available balance once every 24 hours, or set automatic payouts on the 5th of each month. Patreon payouts usually arrive in 1 to 5 days and carry a small fee.

Can I use Discord with Patreon or Skool?

Patreon has a built-in Discord integration that links your Discord roles to your Patreon tiers, so paying fans get into your server. Skool has its own feed, chat and live calls inside each group. A search of Skool's help centre for Discord returns no articles, so do not plan on a Discord link-up there.

We may earn a commission if you start a Skool community through a link on this page. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not change what we write.