What the Platform Keeps
Two platforms, two cuts: how Patreon and Substack divide creator revenue
Dates on this page
- Patreon entry tier
- Patreon mid tier
- Patreon top tier
- Substack
The Terms Each Platform Set
Patreon launched in 2013, founded by musician Jack Conte and developer Sam Yam, with a straightforward proposition: fans pay creators directly, and Patreon takes a percentage. The platform has operated on a tiered structure — 5 percent at the entry level, rising to 8 and 12 percent at higher service tiers — as set out in Patreon's own published fee schedules. Payment-processing costs run additionally, typically 2–3 percent per transaction. A creator clearing $2,000 a month on the mid-tier plan surrenders close to $160 before a dollar reaches a bank account.
Substack arrived in 2017 with a simpler and more uniform cut: 10 percent of subscription revenue, plus Stripe's standard payment-processing fee of around 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction. That single rate applies regardless of audience size or income. The model favours writers who can build large paid subscriber bases quickly; for a newsletter clearing $5,000 a month, Substack's share is $500, every month, permanently.
What the Assessments Found
The Knight Foundation's 2019 survey of creator-funding models noted that platform fees were rarely the primary barrier to sustainability — audience scale was — but flagged that percentage-based models compound as income grows, making the effective cost of staying on a platform higher for successful creators than for struggling ones. The Institute for Nonprofit News, which tracks membership among nonprofit and independent journalism outlets, recorded member organisations using both platforms, with Substack more prevalent among individual writers and Patreon more common among news nonprofits running membership tiers with rewards.
The structural difference matters beyond arithmetic. Patreon's tiered pricing gave it flexibility to court podcasters, visual artists and videographers alongside writers. Substack built its entire architecture around the newsletter and the inbox, which concentrated its appeal — and its market — in text-first journalism. Both platforms retain ownership of the billing relationship with subscribers, meaning a creator who leaves may find that moving subscribers and their payment arrangements is harder than moving content, with the details depending on each platform's terms and tools.
The platform keeps its cut. What it also keeps, quietly, is the list.
