- beehiiv Blog
- Posts
- Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Which Membership Platform Is the Best?
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Which Membership Platform Is the Best?
A Detailed Comparison of Patreon, SubscribeStar, and beehiiv’s Features, Pricing, and Pros & Cons
Kawusara Salley
March 9th, 2025
If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, you’ve probably heard creators talk about Patreon while SubscribeStar, though newer and less popular, is gaining traction among creators with specific needs (we’ll see why in a bit).
But at their core, Patreon and SubscribeStar are membership platforms that let you earn monthly financial support from your audience through membership tiers. These tiers could range from simple shoutouts to exclusive perks like behind-the-scenes content and one-on-one chats.
While this model works well when you’re just starting out with monetization and looking for short-term income, it can become unstable and difficult to scale as you grow.
Why?
Because it relies on your superfans, who according to Patreon, typically make up 0.5% to 2.5% of your audience. On top of that, Patreon creators report losing at least 20% of their members over time.
This is where beehiiv comes in.
It’s a growth and monetization newsletter platform that lets you capture and make money from both free and paid subscribers by simply delivering helpful newsletter content straight to their inboxes.
This article takes a deeper dive into Patreon versus SubscribeStar versus beehiiv’s user experience, feature set, and pricing, so you can decide which is the best fit for your business’s current growth stage.
Why Trust Me?
Kawusara has 5 years of experience using email marketing tools to run her side projects. She also loves researching, testing, and writing about software. This allows her to write comprehensively about this topic and share her unique insights.
Table of Contents
TL;DR — Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv
Patreon is ideal for authors, artists, and musicians who want to earn by sharing exclusive content and selling digital products to their audience.
SubscribeStar is better suited for creators who need more freedom in the type of content they share, including adult or controversial content, while benefiting from lower commission fees.
Meanwhile, beehiiv is perfect for creators focused on building long-term, sustainable income streams with helpful newsletter content and promotional emails.
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Overview of Platforms
What Is Patreon?
Jack Conte and Sam Yam built Patreon in 2013 to connect content creators with fans (aka Patrons) who wanted to support their work. This way, creators had more time and resources to focus on their craft and produce high-quality content.
With Patreon, you can post updates, embed livestreams, share files, chat with members, and even sell digital products—all without any upfront costs. You only pay commission fees when you start earning. And because Patreon is very popular, there’s a good chance your fans already have an account, making it so much easier for them to contribute.
Patreon is a solid choice if you want to explore paid memberships and digital product sales while building a stronger connection with your biggest fans. Just keep in mind that the platform has strict content guidelines and its commission fees can add up quickly as your revenue grows.
What Is SubscribeStar?
SubscribeStar was launched in 2017 by Russian founder, Mikhail Zadvornyy. His goal was to provide creators with a platform that promotes freedom of speech while allowing them to earn from their content.
On SubscribeStar, you can create multiple membership tiers, share text, audio, or video content for specific or all tiers, visualize your analytics, and chat with your supporters. All of these features are free to use—you’ll only pay a 5% commission when you start earning. Plus, thanks to SubscribeStar’s partnership with Dropp, you can accept one-time payments for fans who may not be ready to commit to a monthly subscription.
These make SubscribeStar great if you’re looking to avoid content censorship while keeping more of your earnings. However, because it isn’t very popular, it might be harder to convert your social media followers into subscribers.
What Is beehiiv?
After growing Morning Brew to over 4 million subscribers and one of the most profitable newsletters, ex-Morning Brew employees, Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, and Jake Hurd wanted to make the same growth and monetization tools accessible to creators worldwide. So, they launched beehiiv in 2021.
beehiiv is a newsletter platform that helps you grow your audience and monetize your newsletter content. Its clean interface makes it easy to publish text, audio, and video posts.
Thanks to its built-in growth tools, you can reach new subscribers beyond social media and monetize via paid memberships, ads, and boosts. You can also set up automated emails to promote digital products. Best of all, beehiiv takes 0% commission, so you keep everything you earn.
This makes beehiiv a great fit for creators who want to convert more of their followers into subscribers, reach new audiences, and build scalable passive income streams directly from their newsletter content.
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Features Comparison
User Interface and Experience
When you first sign up for Patreon, there is a very simple onboarding process to help you set up your account.
Its dashboard is also simple and easy to navigate—you can easily find all the tools you need in the left navigation panel.
That said, it might take a bit of time to get familiar with all the features. But once you customize it to your liking, you can start accepting subscriptions and publishing content right away.
SubscribeStar also has a straightforward setup process. The interface has a very basic, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) structure, so you can easily navigate it without watching any tutorials.
That said, the design feels outdated and there’s one big catch: your profile needs to be approved by the SubscribeStar team before you can start accepting subscribers and publishing content.
This approval process can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Some creators even report that they had to wait for months. Others have had better luck speeding things up by repeatedly reaching out to the SubscribeStar team.
Like Patreon, beehiiv has a simple and modern interface. Once you sign up, you can start publishing newsletters and collecting subscribers right away—no waiting for approvals.
To help you feel comfortable with beehiiv’s interface, you get an onboarding tour to show you around and an onboarding checklist that tracks your progress with customizing your account and publishing your first post.
Completing all the items in the checklist means you’ve officially passed the stage of being a beehiiv newbie.
Content Creation Tools
Patreon lets you write and share posts with your Patrons. You can embed these posts with images, videos, audio, polls, YouTube or Crowdcast livestreams, and downloadable files.
Before publishing or scheduling a post, you can choose who can see and interact with it: the public (anyone in and outside your Patreon membership), all Patreon members (both free and paying members), paid members only, or members in specific tiers.
SubscribeStar has the key content publishing, scheduling, and access control features in Patreon, however, its writing interface feels clunky and dated.
Where SubscribeStar stands out is its approach to content moderation. Like Patreon, it permits adult and NSFW (not safe for work) content. However, Patreon has a reputation for banning creators without warning, while SubscribeStar is more consistent in following its rules, making it a safer choice for creators worried about censorship.
That said, SubscribeStar still has its limits—anything involving copyrighted material, personal info, or illegal activities is strictly off the table.
Meanwhile, beehiiv’s newsletter platform is a great space to share content that helps your audience solve specific problems, explore your unique insights on news and social issues, or tell personal stories and lessons.
beehiiv’s newsletter editor makes writing easy and fun. You can start typing directly into the editor without buttons cluttering the interface.
Need to add media?
Just hit the slash key (“/”) to bring up the menu, where you can embed images, videos, audio, buttons, links, file attachments, and social media content.
There’s also a built-in AI assistant that helps with drafting and editing your content, translating it to different languages, and generating unique images.
Plus, beehiiv’s editor comes with scheduling and content access features but it takes it a step further. It lets you publish newsletters at the times when your subscribers are most likely to engage.
Community Engagement
With beehiiv, you can choose to publish specific newsletter posts simultaneously to the web.
This way, new or existing subscribers can like them, add their thoughts or ask questions in the comments, or share them with their friends via email, text messaging, and social media.
This turns your newsletter into a conversation hub while expanding its reach.
Patreon and SubscribeStar have the same community engagement features as beehiiv but also let you send direct 1-on-1 messages to your members.
In addition, Patreon steps this up with its unique community chats feature, which works similarly to “channels” inside Slack and Discord. You can set up multiple chats and decide which membership tiers have access.
This is a great space to host AMA (ask me anything) sessions with your community or spark discussions around specific topics, where everyone can share their thoughts and opinions.
Audience Growth Tools
With SubscribeStar, you can grow your audience by sharing your landing page with your social media followers so they subscribe.
The platform also has a recommendation system that suggests other creators to visitors on your page—and your page might show up on theirs too.
The downside is you have no control over which creators are recommended on your page or where your page is shown. This can result in supporting creators you don’t align with and slower growth for your newsletter, as the recommendations may not always reach your target audience.
Like SubscribeStar, you can share your Patreon page with your social media followers to bring in subscribers. However, Patreon gives you control over its recommendation engine.
You can handpick specific creators to recommend to your fans. When you do, those creators are notified and can choose to return the favor by promoting your page to their audience. The same applies when others recommend your page—you’ll be notified and can decide whether to recommend them back.
If you prefer not to recommend anyone, you’re free to turn this feature off.
beehiiv’s landing page works similarly to Patreon and SubscribeStar, making it easy to convert your social media followers and website visitors into subscribers.
But beehiiv stands out with its extensive growth tools.
First, it has an internal recommendation system for cross-promoting your newsletter with other beehiiv creators, similar to how Patreon does it.
beehiiv also has a referral program to reward your current subscribers for bringing in new ones. You can offer things like ebooks, templates, courses, merch, or discount codes…whatever makes sense for your audience.
And if you’ve got the money to invest, you can set a budget for as low as $50 to reward beehiiv creators who bring new subscribers your way.
Monetization Options
On SubscribeStar, you can set up subscription tiers with different benefits for your supporters. Thanks to its integration with Dropp, you can also accept one-time payments, which is helpful for fans who don’t want to commit to a monthly subscription.
One unique feature of SubscribeStar is its custom goals. This tool lets you set multiple funding targets, like raising money for new equipment, music releases, or special events. As supporters contribute, the goal’s progress bar fills up in real-time, which helps them stay motivated to help you hit your goals.
When you’ve made at least $150 on the platform, you can withdraw earnings via your US bank, non-US bank, Wise, or Payoneer accounts. SubscribeStar doesn't support Stripe or PayPal, which could be a downside if you rely on these platforms.
Patreon also allows you to monetize with subscription tiers, but unlike SubscribeStar, it doesn’t support one-time tips.
Instead, Patreon lets you sell downloadable digital products directly through the platform, such as video or podcast episodes, ebooks, templates, and designs.
You can also sell physical merchandise and collect shipping details at checkout, so you can send items to the buyer’s address.
With Patreon, you can withdraw your earnings via Stripe, PayPal, and Payoneer.
beehiiv offers subscription tiers like Patreon and SubscribeStar but goes further with three additional ways to monetize:
Ad Network: Partner with top brands like Babbel, BetterHelp, and Aura to display ads inside your newsletters—think of it like Google Ads but for email.
Boosts marketplace: Promote other newsletters that your audience might like, and get paid for every new subscriber you refer.
Automated email sequences: Use beehiiv’s visual automation builder to set up multiple email series that promote affiliate products or your own products (hosted on your website or other external platform), so you can make sales on autopilot.
You can withdraw your earnings on the beehiiv platform (via premium subscriptions, ads, and boosts) via your connected Stripe account.
Analytics
Patreon’s Insights page gives you a broad overview of how your community’s health and performance.
You can track traffic to your page, membership growth, post performance, subscription earnings, and digital product sales in one place.
The dashboard also lets you filter these insights by specific date ranges, which makes it easier to spot trends. For example, if you launched a new tier or tried a different content strategy, you can see how it affected your community’s growth, engagement, and earnings over time.
Unlike Patreon, SubscribeStar provides more detailed insights into your subscriber activity and earnings.
You can see daily stats for new subscribers, returning subscribers, and cancellations. The earnings section breaks down your revenue growth, shows how much each membership tier is bringing in, and includes a map highlighting the locations that make you the most money.
However, SubscribeStar doesn’t track page traffic or show data on post impressions and engagement.
beehiiv’s analytics give you a breakdown of where your subscribers are coming from and a visual overview of the channels driving the most sign-ups.
It also highlights which channels bring in the most engaged readers, based on open rates and click-through rates.
This helps you decide which channels are worth focusing on as you grow your audience.
The post performance report shows key data like total delivered emails, open rates, and click-through rates.
You can also see a list of your top-performing emails and identify which links get the most clicks.
This makes it easier to spot the topics, subject lines, and content formats that resonate best with your audience, so you can optimize future newsletters for higher engagement.
That’s not all.
Each monetization method—ads, boosts, and subscriptions—has its own dashboard, so you can track how much money each one brings in.
Integrations
SubscribeStar has two major integrations—Discord for syncing your subscribers to private channels in your Discord server and Google Analytics for tracking traffic and other key insights on your SubscribeStar page. You can also connect to custom apps using its API and webhooks.
Meanwhile, Patreon is connected to 47 external apps including Discord, Google Analytics, Tubebuddy, WordPress, and Zapier. If you need to connect to other tools, Patreon’s API lets you do that.
Then there’s beehiiv which has 12 integrations with website builder, e-commerce, and communication platforms like WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Shopify, Discord, and Slack. It also works with Zapier, APIs, and webhooks, so you can connect it to apps that aren’t natively supported.
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Pricing
Patreon offers two main plans: Pro and Premium. Both are free to get started, but Patreon takes a cut of your earnings.
Pro Plan: This is the most popular option for creators and includes all the core features. Patreon charges an 8% service fee on your monthly earnings, plus payment processing and payout fees.
Premium Plan: This is for established creators with at least 100K Patrons and earning $5,000+ monthly. It unlocks perks like a dedicated account manager and the merch for memberships feature. Besides the payment processing and payout fees, Patreon takes 12% of your earnings.
If you host and sell digital products on Patreon, there’s an extra 5% fee on each sale.
SubscribeStar has a single subscription tier, which lets you get started for free. However, the platform charges a 5% service fee on your monthly earnings, in addition to standard payment processing and payout fees.
If you choose to accept one-time payments via Dropp, you’ll pay an extra 7% to 10% processing fee per transaction.
beehiiv’s pricing is structured differently from Patreon and SubscribeStar—it’s in tiers, with free and paid plans:
The free plan is perfect for starters. It lets you send unlimited emails to up to 2,500 subscribers across three different newsletter publications. Each newsletter publication is basically its own separate newsletter with unique branding, audience, and content. This is great if you want to manage multiple newsletters under one account without extra costs.
When you’re ready to unlock all of beehiiv’s growth and monetization tools, you can get the Scale plan, which starts at $39/month for 1,000 subscribers. Unlike Patreon and SubscribeStar, beehiiv takes 0% of your earnings—you only have to pay Stripe’s payment processing fees.
beehiiv’s Max and Enterprise plans, starting at $99/month for 1,000 subscribers. These plans are for businesses that want to remove beehiiv branding, manage up to 10 newsletter publications, and access perks like the Newsletter XP course, onboarding support, and priority customer service.
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Pros and Cons
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Making Your Choice
As we’ve seen, Patreon and SubscribeStar are designed for creators looking to get financial support from their superfans in exchange for exclusive content, however, each appeals to completely different creators:
Go with Patreon if your content is safe for large audiences. It’s also a great fit if you want to leverage Patreon’s established brand to attract more paying members and sell digital products directly on the platform.
Meanwhile, SubscribeStar is a better fit if you want to share adult or controversial content without the pressure of taking it down or the worry of getting banned. It’s also a good choice if you want to avoid high transaction fees.
But if you want to build sustainable, long-term income for your online business, beehiiv is the best option. It makes it easy to set up your newsletter, grow your audience, and monetize your content. Plus, you can get started for free—no credit card required.
Ready?
Patreon vs. SubscribeStar vs. beehiiv: Frequently Asked Questions
Where is SubscribeStar from?
While SubscribeStar was launched in 2017 by Russian founder, Mikhail Zadvornyy, it is registered and operates out of Sheridan, Wyoming, in the United States.
Does SubscribeStar take prepaid cards?
Yes, SubscribeStar allows subscribers to pay using credit, debit, or prepaid cards to support your work.
Why does SubscribeStar not use PayPal?
SubscribeStar stopped using PayPal in 2019 after PayPal banned the platform due to its strict content policies. According to SubscribeStar, they have no plans to work with PayPal again in the near future.
What percentage does Patreon take?
Patreon takes 8% of your earnings as service free on the Pro plan and 12% on the Premium plan, plus payment processing and payout fees.
Is Patreon still worth it?
Yes, Patreon is still worth it if you’re a new creator looking for a simple way to monetize your work and start earning right away. But if you’re looking to build a more scalable and sustainable income stream, beehiiv’s newsletter platform might be a better option.
Reply