Every tipping platform takes something. The useful question is not "what percentage" but "what percentage, plus card fees, plus how long before it reaches my bank". Here is how the main options differ, including ours.
The three things that decide the cost
- The platform's cut — the headline number, and the one everyone compares.
- Who pays card processing. Roughly 2.9% plus a fixed amount per transaction. On a $3 tip the fixed part alone is over 10%. Whether it comes out of your side or theirs matters more than a couple of points of commission.
- Where the money sits. Straight into your own bank, or held in a platform balance you withdraw from later, sometimes with a minimum and a fee.
A platform advertising a low percentage while you absorb processing can easily cost more than a higher percentage that includes it — particularly on small amounts, which is what tips usually are.
Buy Me a Coffee
The simplest to start. No monthly fee, a clean page, and one-off support in fixed increments that people immediately understand. Memberships and paid posts are built in.
Best for: occasional support with no setup effort. Watch for: a platform cut on top of processing, and money arriving through their payout flow rather than directly.
Ko-fi
Notable for offering a version where the platform takes nothing from one-off tips, funded instead by an optional subscription — so the arithmetic is genuinely different from its competitors. It also handles shops, commissions and memberships.
Best for: creators who want the largest share of small tips and do not mind a monthly fee to get it. Watch for: card processing is still yours, and terms differ by feature — check what is included currently.
Patreon
A different product. Built for recurring membership with tiers and gated content, not for one-off tips.
Best for: a genuine membership offering with something ongoing behind it. Watch for: it is overkill if you simply want people to be able to say thank you.
Gift blocks on gomy•bio
Our version sits on the bio page people already visit, rather than on a separate destination you have to send them to. A visitor taps a gift, pays by card without leaving the page, and can unlock something exclusive the moment payment clears.
The money goes into your own Stripe account, not a balance we hold — we never sit on your funds and there is nothing to withdraw from us. We keep 20% of the sale, with Stripe's processing cost coming out of our share rather than yours, so the number you see is the number that applies.
Being straight about the trade-off: 20% is not the lowest headline rate here. Because it is all-inclusive it compares well on small tips, where fixed processing fees hurt most, and less well as amounts rise. If you mostly sell higher-value items, one of the options above will likely cost you less — run your own numbers.
Working out what it costs you
Take the amount you realistically expect most often. Then for each option: subtract the platform cut, subtract card processing if it falls on you, and subtract any withdrawal fee.
Do it twice — once at the small end and once at the large end — because the ranking usually flips between them. Fixed per-transaction fees dominate small amounts; percentages dominate large ones.
The part that matters more than the fee
Most creators lose more to friction than to commission. Every extra tap between "I would like to support this" and "done" costs you a meaningful share of the people who were willing.
A supporter who has to leave your page, land on an unfamiliar site, and create an account is several times less likely to finish than one who taps something on the page they are already reading. Before optimising percentages, count the taps.
Gifts are included on the free plan — three per page, settling into your own Stripe account.