Looking for an alternative to Buy Me a Coffee? If you‘re an artist, YouTuber, podcaster, or writer, or someone engaging with a dedicated audience, you probably know Buy Me a Coffee. This platform has eased the way of collecting donations and recurring subscription payments. Although the service is undoubtedly very popular, not every creator might find themselves perfect for Buy Me a Coffee. So, just make sure to research several alternatives before deciding to rely on one of them. In this article, we have compiled for you a list of 6 good alternatives and explain what makes each special. This will be all the information on hand to pick the best one for you. So let’s get started!
Table of contents:
- Why Consider Buy Me a Coffee Alternative?
- Key Features to Look for in a Donation Platform:
- The 6 Best Buy me a coffee Alternatives in 2025:
- Conclusion
Why Consider Buy Me a Coffee Alternative?
- Fees: Fees: If you are getting your payments through Buy Me a Coffee, they take a cut of flat 5% of every payment.
- Customer Support: Buy Me a Coffee’s customer support has mixed reviews. A few customers have reported getting banned from the platform without warning.
- Payment Limitations: Buy Me a Coffee does not accept payments through PayPal. If you or your supporters prefer to use PayPal, this limitation could be a deal-breaker.
- There is content limitation for Buy Me a Coffee: The community has specific rules regarding types of content that may be hosted on the site. It does not support adult content creators or other types of content hosting as well.
Key Features to Consider When Choosing a Donation Platform:
There are so many important features that have to be considered when selecting the platform through which you‘ll be collecting donations for your creative work. They could all mean a lot between making or breaking it simple to use the platform both for you and for your supporters. Let’s walk over these key features and why they matter:
1. It is user-friendly.
A good donation platform should be easy to use for you and your supporters. Complicated systems are a hassle, so keep it simple. A platform that is easy to use will encourage people to donate and can increase your efficiency.
2. Customization
Every creator is unique and, therefore, should have his donation platform personalized to match your taste. You should add your personal logo on the donation platform and describe and let the story go so you may add colors appropriate to your brand.
3. Flexibility in Means of Transaction
No one pays equally. Make sure that the platform you choose accepts different ways of paying, like credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and, if your crowd loves it, cryptocurrency.
4. Periodic contributions
They can essentially almost become a steady stream of income. People can give to you every month without having to give all over again. This could possibly be one of the greatest changes to generate more donation revenue for you.
5. Simple Charges
You‘d be curious to know how much you‘ll take home after those pesky fees. Others might take a percentage cut off of every donation whereas some take a fixed fee-per transaction, so make sure the mechanism by which they operate is taken into consideration when making a final choice according to your particular financial goals.
6. Analytics and Report
The site should give data and statistics on who is donating and on how things are going.
7. Integrations
If you have email marketing or social media tools that you are using to connect with your audience, ensure that the donation platform integrates well with these. It will save you much time and help you connect better with your supporters.
8. International gifts
If it has to have support from other countries, then that platform must support international donations too. It is just this simple that every person donates without hassle regardless of their country.
9. Security
You really need to protect your financial and personal information. The platform you select must have good security measures like encryption that will protect your data as well as that of your followers.
10. Good customer service
Lastly, helpful support for customers can be really a big relief if, you will face some problems or ask some questions. Fast, friendly support makes your life as a content provider much easier.
The 6 Best Buy me a coffee Alternatives in 2025:
1. CheckYa:
CheckYa is one other service which is close to buy me a coffee but it has a few edge over Buy me a coffee. Here are the key features of CheckYa.
Key features:
- One-off and monthly subscriptions: With CheckYa, one off donations can be made and also on a recurrent basis. With CheckYa, you can receive one-time and periodic contributions.
- Free to get started: For you to register with CheckYa, you are not required to pay a fee. As such, all features in CheckYa can be tried free of charge without any upfront charges.
- Branded Portfolio: A portfolio that allows you to promote your works and tell your stories while increasing the branding with a professional and editable portfolio.
- Free Discovery Calls: Grow your business by adding free discovery calls all from inside your CheckYa profile.
- Sell Digital Goods Services: Make a recurring income by selling digital goods and services.
- Send Invoices: Invoice your customers electronically and provide them with various payment options such as Credit card, ACH, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal, and receive payments to your account faster.
- Get Paid: Set up a business payment page using CheckYa that allows you to receive payment including donations.
- Flexible Payment Options: Allow many payment methods, such as Credit Cards, ACH, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and much more.
Fee Structure:
- If you’re on the starter plan (the free to use plan), you would be charged a 2%(+ payment processor) fee on all donation types made to you, both single and recurring. On the other hand, pro plan users don’t pay any Platform fees!
2. Ko-Fi
Ko-fi has similar functions like Buy Me a Coffee which makes it easier for the creators to engage with the users and gain support. With Ko-fi you can do the following:
Ko-fi’s Key features:
- Content Sharing: Members can create content for their fans that has upcoming news, behind the scenes information as well as other content intended for only members.
- Online Tip Jar: Set Up a virtual tip jar for your fans to leave one-off donations to appreciate your efforts.
- Fundraising Goals: Arrange one-off fundraising campaigns for your specific financial needs, be it for a project, research, or even charity.
- Monthly Subscribers: Allow your fans and audience to subscribe to you for a month in which you would be giving them certain content as well as benefits only for the subscribers.
- Commission: You can receive direct commissions via Ko-Fi for the artwork and it is a win- win for both you and the client.
- Shop Integration: A shop integrated feature in the Ko-Fi will enable to sell tangible as well as intangible items from merchandise, e-books to art.
Fee Structure
One of the most well known reasons for why people settle for Ko-Fi as their platform of choice is the fee structure:
- 0% Kofi platform fees for one-off donations: Ko-Fi does not apply any sort of platform charges on a one-time donations. Therefore whenever someone decides to tip you, the entire sum is credited to your account, which in turn would be a great advantage for creators.
- 5% Transaction Fee: Kofi does offer a 5% fee on all recurring contributions, commissions and item sales.
3. Patreon
According to statistics, Patreon is among the leading platforms which enable artists and other content creators to monetize their work, having a user base of over 8 million active users worldwide. Unlike Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-Fi, Patreon is more oriented towards subscriptions and growing a large base of loyal fans who want to regularly support the creators. Patreon’s approach is focused on those creators who would like to receive a fixed monthly payout for their work, rather than the occasional tips. Here’s what makes Patreon appealing:
Key features:
- Membership Tiers: Creators have the ability to set multiple tiers membership where each tier has its defined perks for its members including rewards. This makes it possible for the creator to have various levels of support which could be in the form of content that is available to only people with memberships or other beneficial services to the most loyal supporters of the membership.
- Free Trials and Freemium Memberships. Patreon lets you offer free trials to would-be supporters in order for them to preview your content before committing to subscribe. Another option is that you could offer freemium memberships in which you give the supporter a selection of the content and reserve premium offerings for paid patrons, which can give potential supporters the push needed to subscribe.
- Easy Integrations Patreon allows integration with a list of third-party applications which include but are not limited to: Discord, Vimeo, MailChimp.
- Digital Product Sales: In addition to membership subscriptions, Patreon allows creatives to sell digital goods directly on the platform, which can be ebooks, unique merchandise, or digital paintings.
- Mobile Accessibility: Patreon offers a dedicated mobile app for Android and iOS, so that you can always access it as a creator or supporter and manage your content or community engagement on the go.
Fee Structure
Patreon offers a lot of features to empower creators, but one should not forget its fee structure. Patreon charges 8% as a transaction fee for Pro accounts and 12% for Premium accounts. This fee is deducted from the support you receive, so do keep this in mind when pricing your membership tiers.
4. Gumroad
Gumroad is another platform, primarily for selling digital products. If you are just looking for an online tip jar like Buy Me a Coffee, it is probably not your first choice, but it does have features that allow creators to monetize their content. Its primary strength is in selling various digital products, online courses, and memberships. It primarily helps writers, artists, and educators make their first dollar online. Even though it is mostly selling, Gumroad does allow for a lot of room in terms of monetization strategies.
Key Features:
- Sell Digital Goods: Gumroad is made for easy sales of digital donwloads, including ebooks, music files, software, and much more. Users can create their product offers by describing their products, its prices, and even incorporate multimedia.
- Offer Memberships and Subscriptions: One of the interesting features of Gumroad is to set up members-only subscriptions. Creators can create multiple tiers of membership. This helps in recurring revenue and encourages a loyal community of supporters.
- Integrated Sales Analytics: Gumroad provides detailed analytics and reporting functionalities. Creators can look at the sales data, customer behavior, and revenue trends.
- Embed Your Storefront in Your Website: The Gumroad storefront can be embedded into your existing website.
Fee Structure
Gumroad charges 10 percent of every transaction. Such a fee would cover any usage of features and services of the platform. This cost might be somewhat higher than some of the competing platforms.
5. Coindrop:
Coindrop is simple and flexible. This platform is perfect for individuals looking for a simple means of their followers giving them one-time tips or donations. Note that Coindrop doesn’t have support for recurring donations or memberships. One good thing about Coindrop is that it is connected to so many different payment methods. So whether your followers like PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Apple Pay, or whatever else, they can easily send support your way. And if you’re into cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, Coindrop allows you to accept that as well.
Key Features:
- Zero-Fee for One-Time Donations: Users can receive one-time donations free of transaction fees, so they maximize the support received.
- Manage Multiple Donation Pages: Users can now manage multiple donation pages with a single account, keeping all their fundraising activities managed in one place.
- Customize a donation page and bio. Customize what will represent your brand on their giving page and bio: Customize URL for every single giving page to further support recognition of brands and ease of use.
- Embeddable Button and QR Code: This service allows an embeddable button on users’ websites to easily enable direct contributions by supporters from the platform of a content creator. It offers a QR code for the donation page which may be saved digitally or printed out for use in any other form of offline promotion and thus extends donation channels.
- Multiple payment methods with very low transaction fees: This encourages its users to list a range of payment methods, giving in to the preferences that their supporters would love. It allows multiple payment methods, including cash apps such as PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, Zelle, and even cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash, with very minimal transaction fees, making donation convenient and cost-effective for a creator.
Fee Structure:
Coindrop does not charge fees on transactions done through their platform. You only pay the transaction fee of the payment processor. However, Coindrop generates revenue from affiliate links, ads etc.
6. Tipeee
Tipeee is a platform for creators, YouTubers and artists, to receive support or donations from their fans. Initially, it was designed to cater to the people doing live video streaming on Twitch and YouTube. Tipeee only allows access to European countries users. If you are outside of Europe, then you can’t use it.
Key Features:
- Donation Options:
– One Time Donation: Fans can simply do a one-time-only contribution to support creators.
– Recurring Donation: Fans can also offer a recurring donation.
- Creator-Fan Engagement: The creators can reciprocate the support by offering content exclusive to the supporters or access to private chats for their donating fans.
- Goal Setting: Creators can set specific financial goals, such as raising $500 for a new project. Fans can monitor the progress towards these goals, creating a sense of involvement and motivation to help creators achieve them.
Fee Structure:
Tipeee deducts an 8% fee on the donation amount.
Conclusion:
Now that you have the 6 best alternatives to buy me a coffee, weigh the pros and cons and decide what is best for you. Each platform has its advantages and based on your needs, suit what is best for you
