What are Ko-fi's fees?
·Founder, Stakk
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3 October 2026
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7 min read
Ko-fi costs nothing a month and, on its default Standard setup, takes a 5% service fee on every payment, with Stripe or PayPal processing on top. Two routes bring that down. Ko-fi Free takes 0% on tips but still 5% on shop sales, memberships and commissions, and Gold is $12 a month for 0% on every payment type. There are no payout fees and no buyer fees. Checked 30 September 2026.
That is the whole fee model on Ko-fi's own pricing page, and it is a fair one. What the pricing page leaves to you is the rest of the arithmetic: what a sale costs once the card network takes its share, when Gold pays for itself, and what the 5% does not buy.
What does Ko-fi charge on each payment?
A service fee on the payment, not a subscription, unless you choose Gold. Ko-fi's pricing page sets out three ways to be on it.
| Setup | Monthly | Service fee on tips | On shop, memberships, commissions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ko-fi Free | $0 | 0% | 5% |
| Standard, the default | $0 | 5% | 5% |
| Gold | $12 | 0% | 0% |
| Stakk, for comparison | $0 | No tips | 10% + $0.50 a sale, processing included |
The fee follows the payment, whatever the payment is for. A $5 tip, a month of a membership and a $20 download all carry the same 5% on Standard. Ko-fi's own wording is that you pay the service fee, no more than 5%, plus standard payment processor fees, and nothing else: no buyer fees, no payout fees, no marketing fees. That is a clean promise, and as far as Ko-fi's own charges go it holds up.
What is the difference between Ko-fi Free and Ko-fi Standard?
Free keeps tips at 0% and gives up the advanced tools. Standard charges 5% on tips as well and switches the tools on.
Standard is the default for new creators. It takes 5% on all payment types, tips included, and unlocks extras such as supporter-only content, scheduled posts and a shorter page name. Ko-fi Free takes 0% on tips and 5% on memberships, shop sales and commissions, and the pricing page describes it plainly as having no advanced features.
So the choice turns on what your page mostly does. If most of the money arriving is tips, Ko-fi Free charges no service fee on that money at all, and the tools you give up may not matter to you. If most of it is shop sales or memberships, Free and Standard charge you the same 5% on that money and Free simply takes the tools away, so Standard is the better deal.
The 0% is real, but it is narrow. It covers tips and nothing else. The moment a file sells, the 5% is back.
Does Ko-fi charge payment processing on top of the 5%?
Yes. Ko-fi does not process payments itself. You connect your own PayPal or Stripe account and supporters pay into it, so the processor's fee comes off each payment as well as Ko-fi's. Ko-fi marks this with a footnote rather than a number, because the rate belongs to Stripe or PayPal, not to Ko-fi.
For a US card payment through Stripe, Stripe's own pricing page lists 2.9% + 30 cents per successful domestic card charge. Stripe adds 1.5% when the card is international, and PayPal sets its own rates.
This is the number a "0%" headline leaves out. On a tip through Ko-fi Free the service fee is zero, but the card fee is not, and on a small tip the fixed 30 cents is most of it. A $3 tip paid by card through Stripe loses about 39 cents to processing, roughly 13% of the tip, before Ko-fi has taken anything.
Supporters can pay with cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, PayPal and Venmo, though the last two need your PayPal account connected.
How much does Ko-fi take from a $20 sale?
$1.88 on Standard, if the buyer pays by card through Stripe in the US. That is $1.00 of Ko-fi service fee and $0.88 of Stripe processing, and $18.12 reaches your Stripe balance.
Our own arithmetic on Ko-fi's published 5% and Stripe's published US card rate. PayPal and international cards cost more; Gold removes the $1.00.
On Gold the service fee drops to zero, so the same sale costs $0.88 in processing, plus the $12 a month. On Ko-fi Free a $20 shop sale costs the same $1.88 as Standard, because the 0% only covers tips.
Stakk takes $2.50 on that $20 sale, with card processing already inside the number. So Ko-fi is cheaper than Stakk on a plain sale, by 62 cents here and by more on Gold. I would rather write that down than have you work it out later.
When is Ko-fi Gold worth $12 a month?
Above a $240 a month threshold in payments that carry the 5%. That is the point where 5% of the money coming through the page equals $12. Below it the percentage costs less, above it the subscription does. We ran the same sum in our Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee comparison, and it is the only real question between Standard and Gold.
Two things are worth knowing before you subscribe. First, Ko-fi Free already takes tips to 0%, so if your page is mostly tips, Gold buys you very little that Free does not. Count only shop sales, memberships and commissions when you check which side of the line you are on.
Second, Ko-fi is openly lukewarm about its own upgrade. The Gold page now opens with the line "You no longer need Ko-fi Gold", because the whole of Ko-fi is available on the 0 to 5% service fee. It is still open to new creators for 0% on every payment type at a fixed monthly cost. If you cancel, Ko-fi says you move to the percentage model without losing the Gold features you had.
Does Ko-fi hold your money or charge you to get paid?
No to both. Ko-fi's pricing page says you get paid directly and that it never holds your money, and payout fees are on its list of charges it does not make. Payments land in your own PayPal or Stripe account, and from there the processor pays your bank on its own schedule.
That puts Ko-fi on the direct side of the split between platforms that hold your sales and platforms that pay you directly, and it matters more than a point of take rate when something goes wrong. There is no platform balance to be paused, no minimum to clear and nothing waiting to be released.
The flip side comes with every direct payout, Stakk included. Because the payment was made into your own account, a refund or a chargeback is dealt with there too, and when a buyer disputes a charge the evidence is yours to gather.
When should you stay on Ko-fi instead of switching?
If your money comes from tips or memberships, stay where you are. Stakk has no tips, no memberships, no subscriptions or recurring billing, no supporter-only posts and no Discord roles, so it is the wrong choice for a page built on support rather than sales. Ko-fi Free takes nothing on tips, and nothing is hard to beat. And if the lowest cost on products is the whole question, Systeme.io is free at 0% and Whop takes 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly fee, and both undercut Stakk as well.
Where Ko-fi stops is the checkout. It has no order bump and no post-purchase upsell on any setup, Gold included, which is covered in our look at the missing bump on Ko-fi. Stakk ships both on every account with nothing behind a tier. The bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two, and the upsell afterwards is one tap against the card already on file. That layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Want your products on a checkout with a bump?
Stakk is built for the point where a product becomes the main thing on your page. It is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included and no monthly fee, and the money lands in your own Stripe account, the same way Ko-fi pays you. That is more than Ko-fi's 5%, and what the difference buys is an order bump and a post-purchase upsell on every account. The upsell is a second charge and takes the fee again, which is the honest version of that sentence.