Are you a content creator who has a paying audience and is unsure whether you must use Patreon or your membership website to serve your audience? You can be a fitness trainer, a musician, a photographer, or even an adult star; you have come to the right place.

The creator economy has created endless options for content creators (of all sizes, shapes, and niches) to make money by doing what they love the most. With content creator subscription platforms like Patreon becoming more popular, more and more creators are flocking to those platforms.

However, there are many those who create their own professional membership websites offering the same features covered by websites like Patreon.

In this blog, we will explore the advantages of Membership websites and Patreon so that it becomes easy for you to make a choice.

What Is Patreon

Patreon is a popular membership platform connecting content creators and their supporters. Not just that, it offers everything creators need to monetize, and everything users would like to receive from the creators they admire.

The membership platform is a modern take on the old concept of patronage. Earlier, artists like musicians, dancers, poets, painters, or any other creators having unique skills used to rely on rich donors’ patronage to monetize their work. Patreon also uses this core concept and allows a larger audience to access and support the artists or content creators they like.

Patreon allows content creators to implement subscription tiers ranging from $10-$20 per month.

Pros And Cons Of Patreon

To help you solve “Membership website Vs. Patreon, it is important to consider the pros and cons of both. Let’s begin by exploring the pros and cons of both Patreon and your own membership website.

Pros Of Patreon

• Patreon platform offers content creators a well-organized and functional interface specially designed to support creativity and provide freedom.
• Designed to support subscription payments every month, Patreon offers a consistent payment method.
• The platform has an effective payment protection policy to handle declined payments, missed payments, and other inconveniences creators and followers might face.

Cons Of Patreon

• Patreon takes up to 10% of your earnings every month.
• Patreon decides the rule and when to change the policy. Sometimes this might leave you with fewer options to determine what works for you.

Pros And Cons Of Creating Your Own Membership Website

Now let’s look into the advantages and disadvantages of building your own membership platform.

Pros Of Membership Websites

• Building a Community

Find a target audience with like-minded preferences and create a solid bond with them.

• Regular Revenue

Create a reliable source of revenue as you don’t have to pay a transaction fee like in any third-party platform.

• Content Creation Without Restrictions

Having your own membership website offers the freedom to be creative and come up with fresh ideas without any restrictions.

• Freedom To Perform Marketing Activities

You can perform marketing activities more effectively on your own membership website. You are creating a brand of yourself and have full ownership of the platform.

Cons Of Membership Websites

• Requires Initial Investment

Starting a membership website requires you to make some investment. If you are on a budget, you can consider using an OnlyFans clone script to create your membership site to cut down the costs.

• Marketing Can Be Hard

As opposed to creating content on OnlyFans, marketing your own membership website can be tricky when starting out.

Which Is The Best Choice, Patreon or Own Membership Website?

If you are an entrepreneur who wants to make money by selling adult content, OnlyFans can be a good choice when you are starting out. However, there is a high chance that adult content could be banned on the platform as it did in the past.

If you are an experienced content creator, the best choice is to create a membership website, as it is easier for you to grow and make money. You need not pay a commission for each transaction between you and your users.

How To Create A Membership Website Like Patreon?

To build a membership of a subscription website like Patreon, you create a business plan so that the chances of success are high. Remember that you are creating a website like Patreon to compete with already giants like Patreon, OnlyFans, and N number of other adult content creator platforms. So here’s what you need to follow to get started.

Set Clear Goals

The business plan you create must have clear goals like what you want to achieve and at what time. What type of content do you want to deliver to your audience, and who are they?

Identify your target audience before you begin so that you can plan your offering around your audience’s interests instead of simply creating general content, thinking people would buy from you.

Consider The Key Performance Indicators

KPIs are significant factors that help you to track the performance and success of your membership website like Patreon. Some KPIs of membership sites is the number of followers who joined your membership platform, searches, the total number of sold products, etc.

Choose How To Build The Platform

Building a membership website isn’t as easy as you think. Choosing the development team, creating the project plan, Front end and back-end development, testing, and deployment is an elaborate approach that involves a lot of work, cost, and time as well.

Another alternative approach that is easy and cost-efficient is to use an OnlyFans clone script that can help you to build and launch your membership platform quickly.

If you are looking for a recommendation, Fanso is an efficient OnlyFans clone you can leverage to create your Patreon-like membership platform from scratch with the personalization (to any degree) you need. The best part- You get full access to the source code, and that too for a one-time fee. ‘

Promote Your Website

Now comes the final but significant part- Promoting your platform. To grow your membership business, promoting it on social platforms is important to let your target audience know your presence.

You can start with email marketing by sending invite links to your most loyal followers. Delight them with exclusive discounts and offers for the first sign-up.

Conclusion

Owning your own membership platform is better than OnlyFans in several aspects; you get the flexibility and freedom to create and market the content the way you like.

A membership website of your own comes with all features that are helpful to generating revenue through several monetization strategies.