Podia vs. Patreon: Which is right for me?
Both Podia and Patreon are platforms for connecting with your audience. Both help you get paid for sharing your work and knowledge, and both give you a place to build relationships with your supporters outside of social media.
But the type of business you can build with each is different. Patreon lets you accept recurring donations in exchange for exclusive content. Podia helps you build a full-fledged business with your website, email list, landing pages, blog, and products.
If Patreon is your online tip jar, then Podia is the platform that empowers you to be an entrepreneur. But the right choice for you depends on what you want your business to do, so here are some things to know as you decide.
Podia vs. Patreon pricing
Podia pricing:
Podia has a 30-day free trial with all features so you can test everything out before you pay anything. Podia has three plans: Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker. All Podia plans come with your website, digital products, community, and unlimited members and sales.
- Mover: $49/month and 5% transaction fee ($42/month when paid annually): Includes your community, website builder, blog, landing pages, digital products, and courses, with 50 products and 25 community spaces.
- Shaker: $99/month and 0% transaction fee ($84/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Mover, plus affiliate marketing, upsells, 1 assistant seat, and integrations with PayPal, Zoom, and Zapier, with 150 products and 100 community spaces.
- Earthquaker: $179/month and 0% transaction fee ($150/month when paid annually): Includes everything in Shaker, with unlimited products, unlimited assistant seats, unlimited video storage, and unlimited community spaces.
All Podia plans include email marketing features like automations, newsletters, email templates, segmentation, tagging, and campaigns. Mover includes up to 100 subscribers, Shaker includes up to 500 subscribers, and Earthquaker includes up to 1,000 subscribers. You can also pay for more subscribers on any plan as your list grows.
Podia also includes a free migration service on paid plans. The team will move your products and customers over from another platform so you can get set up faster without extra work. Learn more about how migrations work here (https://help.podia.com/en/articles/11370439-migrating-your-products-to-podia).
Patreon pricing:
Patreon is free to use, and you won’t pay a flat monthly fee. Instead, you’ll pay transaction fees on every sale you make, which could become prohibitively expensive as your business grows.
Patreon pricing:
- 10% transaction fee on all sales made on the platform.
- 30% additional transaction fee on all sales made through the Patreon iOS app
(Note: If a customer subscribes through the Patreon iOS app, Apple's purchase system takes 30% on top of Patreon's 10% platform fee.)
Here’s an example of how each of these pricing systems could work in your business.
Let’s say you’re earning $2,000 per month in your online business.
On Patreon, you’ll pay $200 per month in transaction fees ($2,000 x 10% transaction fee = $200).
On Podia, you’ll only pay:
- $149/month on Mover ($49/month + $100 transaction fees)
- $99/month on Shaker ($99/month + zero transaction fees)
- $179/month on Earthquaker ($179/month + zero transaction fees)
No matter what plan you choose, you’ll pay less than Patreon, and you’ll also get email tools, a website, blogging, and the ability to sell courses, downloads, events, and coaching.
And this gap only widens as you earn more. The big takeaway: as your business grows, Podia quickly becomes the more affordable option and gives you a bigger toolbelt.
Podia has your website, blog, and landing pages. Patreon has a basic storefront and product pages.
One of the tools in that tool belt is your website.
Podia includes a full website builder with unlimited pages and customization options on all plans. You can add images, text sections, grids, featured products, bio sections, FAQ sections, email sign-up forms, testimonials, and pretty much anything else you can think of, all in just a few clicks.
Podia also lets you set your own color palette and choose your fonts, and you can even customize the spacing and padding of the content on your website. You can make custom sales pages and landing pages to promote your products and newsletter, and you can start a blog to connect with your fan base. You can also opt to turn off Podia branding in the website footer if you like.
Patreon gives you a creator page where you can share your profile image, a cover photo, and a description of your Patreon program. You can also display a preview of the content inside.
There isn’t a way to turn off Patreon’s branding, and you don’t have many customizations with the layout. You can pick one brand color to use on your buttons, but otherwise, there’s not a ton you can do to make your Patreon look like you.
Patreon’s creator page works fine as a place for patrons to see membership tiers and sign up, but it probably won’t cut it as a website. You would also need to use (and potentially pay for) other tools to get blogging and landing pages.
Build a community around your work
Both Podia and Patreon come with community features, so you can create a space for your fans to gather. You can share posts with exclusive content, chat with your members, and send updates right to your audience’s inboxes with notifications. You can also charge subscriptions for different plans, and offer monthly or annual pricing to give your followers more options.
Sell digital products, courses, events, and coaching
If you want to branch out beyond community memberships, Podia and Patreon take a different approach.
Podia allows you to create and sell different product types, including online courses, digital downloads, events, product bundles, and coaching. You can accept payments through Stripe (including Google Pay, Apple Pay, iDeal, Stripe Link) and PayPal, and you can also combine any of your products with access to your community.
Patreon has a storefront feature where you can sell digital files and accept one-time payments for content, but you’ll need to use a separate tool for your events, courses, coaching, and other digital offers. Members can pay by credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Venmo.
If you’re certain you’ll only ever need a crowdfunding and membership platform with basic digital product types, Patreon works just fine. But for most content creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs, there’s no telling what you’ll want to make in the future.
Tacking on extra ecommerce or online course platforms is frustrating, costly, and time-consuming, but by going with an all-in-one option now, you can confidently create whatever products you want down the road.
Podia has built-in email marketing
Email can be a goldmine for keeping in touch with your followers. On Patreon, the platform will automatically email patrons when you share a new post, but you don’t have many email features beyond that.
Podia includes a full-featured email marketing tool on all plans. You get all email features (including automations, segmentation, filtering, campaigns, newsletters, and email templates) on all plans. Mover has space for 100 email subscribers, Shaker has space for 500 email subscribers, and Earthquaker has space for 1000 email subscribers. After that, you have the option to upgrade your email plan as your list grows.
Because everything is connected, it’s easy to make your emails match your branding and website. (For example, when you set your global colors in the Podia website builder, they’ll automatically show up in the Podia email builder too, so everything looks cohesive.
There are beautiful pre-made email templates that you can customize, or you can create your own template to use again and again. You can also pull in blog posts and featured products right into your emails to share your work.
And if you prefer to run things on autopilot, Podia lets you automatically send email campaigns based on custom entrance and exit conditions.
Podia also has features for growing your list, like lead magnets and email sign-up forms. This way, you can message people who are already interested in your brand to build connections, tell them about products they might like, and invite them into your community even if they haven’t signed up for anything yet.
An all-in-one home for connecting with your people
If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform that makes running your online business simple and affordable, whether you’re just starting or growing fast, we built Podia just for you.
You can set up a community for your followers, earn money with subscriptions and digital products, create a beautiful website, and stay in touch with email marketing, all under one roof. And as you grow, you can choose a plan without transaction fees to keep your expenses stable.
Start your 30-day free trial of Podia today. We can’t wait to see what you make.