ClickFunnels vs Patreon

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder for entrepreneurs who sell info products, coaching, services and physical goods online. It was launched in 2014 by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson under their company Etison and popularized step-by-step funnels of opt-in page, sales page, order form and upsells. The company reports more than 100,000 users and over a million funnels created.

The current platform, rebuilt as ClickFunnels 2.0, bundles landing pages, funnels, websites and blogs with checkout, one-click upsells and order bumps, an online store, courses and membership areas, community groups, email broadcasts and sequences, automations, a sales CRM with pipelines and appointments, a Message Hub inbox and an affiliate center. Plans are priced by workspace, team members, contacts, email volume and courses, starting with Launch and going up to the annual-only Dominate plan.

ClickFunnels fits solo founders, coaches and small marketing teams who want one system to sell and deliver an offer without stitching together five tools. It is expensive if you only need landing pages, and its page editor and templates have a distinct direct-response style that not every brand wants. Leadpages and Unbounce are cheaper and cleaner for landing pages alone, while Kajabi is stronger if courses and memberships are the core business.

There is a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Annual billing cuts Launch from $97 to $81 a month, but watch the contact and email limits: crossing 10,000 contacts on Launch forces a jump to the $197 Scale plan.

Patreon is the largest membership platform for creators, founded in 2013 in San Francisco by musician Jack Conte and Sam Yam. Fans support creators with recurring payments, monthly or per creation, in exchange for tiers of exclusive posts, community access and perks, and Patreon handles billing, payouts and sales tax or VAT on digital goods in many regions.

Creators publish text, audio, video, images and polls, host community chats, run free memberships alongside paid tiers, and connect Discord roles to membership levels. A native video player, private podcast feeds and mobile apps make it practical for podcasters and video creators, and digital products such as downloads and back-catalog content can be sold outside memberships. Instead of a subscription, Patreon takes a percentage of earnings plus payment processing: creators who launched before August 4, 2025 keep their legacy rates of 8 to 12 percent depending on plan, while those launching after that date pay a single standard rate of 10 percent. Apple's in-app purchase rules have also forced changes to how memberships are priced on iOS.

Patreon fits creators with an existing audience who want a trusted, familiar checkout and do not want to build infrastructure. Its fees are higher than alternatives, design options are limited and the platform owns much of the relationship with fans. Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee take smaller cuts for simpler tipping and memberships, Substack is better for newsletter writers, and Ghost or Memberful let creators run memberships on their own site.