Comparison · 2026-05-30
A Whop alternative: KeepTier
Whop built its name on Discord-community paywalls and has
grown into a marketplace for community access, software
licenses, and courses. The pricing is simple: no monthly
fee, just 3% of every
transaction, plus Stripe processing on top. Below
~$300/mo in recurring revenue
that free-entry percentage is genuinely cheaper than
KeepTier's flat $9/mo. Above it,
the math reverses — at $4,200/mo
the delta is $1,404/yr in
KeepTier's favor. And the fee math isn't the only
difference: KeepTier is a dedicated membership page at
support.yourbrand.com, not a profile on the
Whop marketplace.
Why people search for a Whop alternative
- The 3% take scales with revenue. At $4,200/mo in memberships, Whop's 3% costs $126/mo on top of Stripe processing. That's $1,512/yr to a platform fee that doesn't exist on a flat plan above the inflection point.
- Your page is at whop.com/yourname, not your domain. Every link you share, every mention in a podcast, every "join my channel" CTA sends fans to a Whop URL. Your brand identity lives on someone else's domain. KeepTier defaults to
support.yourbrand.comfrom day one. - Your membership competes on a storefront with software, courses, and other communities. Whop's product grid shows everything a creator sells alongside everything everyone else sells. A fan landing on your Whop profile may be browsing twenty other communities. For creators whose offer is purely "support me, get Discord access," the multi-product storefront framing diffuses the pitch.
- Discovery via the Whop marketplace brings Whop-native fans, not your fans. Members who join through the marketplace associate with the Whop ecosystem first. For creators migrating an existing Patreon audience, the marketplace doesn't route anyone new — and you're still paying the 3% for distribution your own audience already handles.
- The percentage compounds with every new subscriber. A flat plan is the same $9 at $1,000/mo as at $8,500/mo. Whop's 3% is $30/mo at the first band and $255/mo at the second. Each subscriber you add costs you a little more on a percentage model; it costs you nothing extra on a flat one.
How KeepTier is different
KeepTier is a single-purpose membership page —
nothing else. support.yourbrand.com, two
tiers, Stripe Checkout, and a webhook that drops the
new member into a Discord role or sends a Telegram
channel invite the moment payment clears. There is no
marketplace, no software-license grid, no Whop
chrome on the page. The price is
$9/mo flat regardless of
revenue — 0% platform take,
you pay Stripe their normal
2.9% + $0.30 and that's it.
Above ~$300/mo the flat plan
wins on take-home, and the margin widens with every
subscriber.
Feature comparison
| Whop | KeepTier | |
|---|---|---|
| Base price | $0/mo | $9/mo |
| Platform take | 3% per transaction | 0% |
| Stripe processing | 2.9% + $0.30 (on top) | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| Apple in-app fee | None — web | None — web |
| Page lives at | whop.com/yourname | support.yourbrand.com |
| Page is dedicated to memberships | No (memberships + software + courses + communities) | Yes |
| Discord role on payment | Native flow | Native flow |
| Telegram invite on payment | Requires setup | Native flow |
| Marketplace discovery | Yes — Whop marketplace | No |
| Best for | Multi-product community storefronts | Memberships as the actual product |
The same $4,200/mo show, two paths
Whop
KeepTier
The delta is $117/mo — $1,404/yr — at this band. Unlike the Gumroad or Buy Me a Coffee comparisons where the take-home gap is driven by a double-digit percentage, Whop's 3% is relatively modest — the inflection point sits at only ~$300/mo. Below that, the free entry wins. Above it, the flat plan wins, and the gap grows by exactly $0.03 for every gross dollar added. At $8,500/mo the difference is $246/mo.
When Whop is still the right answer
- You're under ~$300/mo on memberships. Below the inflection point, Whop's 3% costs less than KeepTier's $9 flat — at $200/mo, Whop keeps you $3/mo ahead. Free entry is the right starter for new or small shows.
- You sell multiple things alongside memberships. Software licenses, online courses, cohorts, digital downloads — Whop's product grid handles all of them from one storefront. KeepTier is memberships-only; a creator with three products would run the non-recurring ones somewhere else.
- Whop marketplace discovery is part of your acquisition. The marketplace routes real, intent-driven traffic to community-access creators. If a meaningful share of your members find you through Whop's browse/search pages rather than through your own channels, that distribution is worth the 3%.
- Discord-paywall is the product and Whop is already your platform. If your entire community lives on Discord and you already use Whop for the paywall, migrating to a custom-domain page is churn on your existing members' bookmarks. Migration cost is real.
When KeepTier is the right answer
- Your monthly recurring is above ~$300/mo. The 3% grows with every subscriber added; the $9 flat doesn't. Above the inflection point every new member costs you $0.03 less per gross dollar on KeepTier than on Whop.
- You want your own domain and brand.
support.yourbrand.comsignals ownership. Links from a podcast, a YouTube description, a newsletter — they should resolve to your domain, not to a marketplace profile. Long-term brand equity accrues to the URL you control. - Memberships are the actual product, not one item on a storefront. A dedicated page converts the "support me" intent cleanly. Visitors land on one headline, two tiers, and a single CTA — nothing else competing for the click.
- You're migrating an existing Patreon audience. Your current supporters won't browse Whop marketplace to find you. They'll follow a link you send them. Discovery isn't doing work for you at migration time; the custom domain framing is.
- Predictability matters. A flat $9 is the same cost in month one and month thirty. A 3% that doesn't show up on your P&L as a fixed line is easy to undercount — it's there every month, just blended into revenue.
YOUR DELTA, NOT THE BASELINE'S
Whop's 3% fee is free to start and cheaper below ~$300/mo. Above that, the flat plan compounds in your favor. Run your real numbers through the calculator — it shows the Patreon-Apple-tax line too if you arrived from there.
Open the calculator →Related reading
- Whop vs KeepTier — head-to-head decision frame — same numbers, restructured for "which one" intent.
- A Memberful alternative: KeepTier — closest paid-SaaS peer on the membership-only page axis; Memberful is $25/mo + 4.9%, KeepTier is $9/mo flat.
- A Ko-fi alternative: KeepTier — closest "free to start with percentage" shape; Ko-fi Gold is $8/mo with 0% take, similar inflection math.
- Eight Patreon alternatives compared — Whop, Memberful, Ko-fi, BMC, Gumroad, Substack, and KeepTier all in the eight-platform ledger with worked receipts.
Receipts use the standard KeepTier baseline: $4,200/mo in gross subscription revenue, fifty active subscribers, US creator with USD audience, Stripe at the standard 2.9% + $0.30 US card-present rate. Whop 3% platform fee (Stripe processing separate and on top) per whop.com/pricing. Numbers as of 2026-05-30.