Comparison
Unlockable vs Patreon
Built for recurring membership, not one-off sales.
What each one costs
Unlockable
20% total
20% of your list price. The buyer pays a 10% privacy & security fee on top, and card processing is covered by us, so £40 of content pays you £36.
- Platform fee
- 10% creator-side + 10% buyer-side
- Card processing
- Covered by Unlockable
Patreon
10% + processing
A 10% platform fee on the standard plan, with payment processing on top, plus Apple’s app-store cut on iOS sign-ups and purchases.
- Platform fee
- 10% (standard plan)
- Card processing
- Additional
On Unlockable a £40.00 sale pays you £36.00: the buyer covers the privacy & security fee, and card processing comes out of our share. Platform fee and processing are shown separately for Patreon because a percentage that excludes processing is not comparable to one that includes it.
When Patreon is the better choice
Patreon is the category leader for a reason. Memberships, tiers, community posts, Discord integration and a fan base that already expects to pay creators monthly are all first-class. If your income model is “support me every month”, Patreon is built for exactly that and we are not. Its 10% platform fee is also lower than our 20% before processing is counted.
When Unlockable is the better choice
The real question is whether your audience wants a subscription. If they do, Patreon is the better product — we do not offer memberships at all. If what you actually want is to sell one thing to one person for one price, a membership platform asks you to build a whole ongoing content commitment to do it. That is the gap we exist to fill.
- You keep £36.00 on a £40.00 sale — processing is our cost, not yours
- The buyer pays the fee, so your listed price is what you intended to charge
- No monthly fee and no membership: nothing is charged until something sells
- Expiring links, view caps and unlock caps, for a drop rather than a download
- A voice note on the link, so a sale arrives with a person attached
Where the two actually differ
Only the rows with a different answer. Everything else is the same on both.
Voice notes
- Unlockable
- Yes
- Patreon
- No
Limited or expiring content
- Unlockable
- Yes
- Patreon
- Partly
Recurring memberships
- Unlockable
- No
- Patreon
- Yes
Courses
- Unlockable
- No
- Patreon
- Partly
Coaching / calls
- Unlockable
- No
- Patreon
- Partly
Community features
- Unlockable
- No
- Patreon
- Yes
yes · partly · no
The link goes wherever you already post
You send it yourself — we do not connect to these accounts or post on your behalf, and your buyer does not need an account to pay.
- TikTok
- X
- Telegram
- Discord
- Bluesky
- YouTube
Where these figures come from
Patreon’s fees were read from www.patreon.com/pricing on 26 September 2026. Pricing changes without notice, so check the source before making a decision on it. Unlockable’s own figures are our published 10% creator-side and 10% buyer-side fee, and Stripe’s UK card rate.
Try it on one piece of content
No monthly fee, no membership. Upload something, set a price, share one link.