I think I have too many ways for people to give me patronage and I'm considering cutting down.
Right now, my sources of patronage income are Patreon, Ko-fi, Discord, and Twitch. I'm interested in switching to Comradery or Buttondown, but I don't feel like anyone is familiar with these options, which may make it harder for people to realize or bother with giving me money there.
I think a comparison chart is in order:
| Name | Type | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Buttondown | Private | Payment Processor Fees + $90/year |
| Comradery | Co-op | Payment Processor Fees + 4.5% |
| Discord | Private 1 | Payment Processor Fees + 10% 2 |
| Ko-fi | Private | Payment Processor Fees + 5% |
| Liberapay | Non-profit | Payment Processor Fees 3 |
| Patreon | Private 4 | Payment Processor Fees + 5% |
| Twitch | Public | 50% |
| YouTube | Public | 30% 5 |
Buttondown is interesting; they only charge a monthly (or yearly) fee based on the number of people on your newsletter, and nothing after payment processor fees on subscriptions. Indeed, they only facilitate the user making a subscription directly with the creator, so if I ever decide to go somewhere else I get to keep the subscriptions. Right now I'm on the free tier. If I ever want to charge for subscriptions or have more than 100 active users on my mailing list, I'd have to start paying. I fully intend to run a newsletter anyway, so I'll probably end up paying this cost at some point.
Discord is actually more expensive than it seems; they also require you to use them as the payment processor, and they charge 6%. This is more than PayPal's 5% and Stripe's 3%.
Liberapay was designed for funding the development and maintenance of common resources, so I'm not allowed to "sell" or reward patrons with anything. I probably can't use them.
Patreon actually charges 10% now, but I have a legacy account so I still get the 5% rate. If I ever stop using Patreon and try to start using it again, they'll charge me the new rate.
I'm reluctant to use private or public company, especially those funded by VCs since I'm concerned about the platform eventually enshittifying. This isn't as much of a problem with Buttondown though, since they give me all the tools to migrate away if I choose to do so. My memberships and newsletter subscriptions are not made captive with them.