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2 Comments

Ko-Fi vs BMC. What's your take?

Asked the same question over twitter, it was contentious.
But BMC won the race with one vote difference. 🤣

Let's see if IH thinks different.

The Plan
List and sell several info products, along with a membership option.
Encourage monthly payments with a discount for members.
Offer recurring data (e.g. leads etc.) for members in higher tiers.
Offer on-demand scraping (e.g. ph votes) for everyone.

The Aim
I'm trying hard to get members really, I have time and skill but not sure what people are looking for so having some people around to talk and get to know what they are looking for is what I think I need the most.

The Goal
Is to make around $300-$500 MRR.

The Fees
Both platform takes ~5%.
Ko-Fi has a gold subscription option for $6. This subscription eliminates the fees. So it's a no-brainer after $120/MRR.

The Problem
I've sold several items on both platforms, Buymeacoffee was my first choice but I had trouble with payments which was annoying at that time. Thus I switched to Ko-Fi. I don't think it'll happen again but who knows.

I kinda like the Ko-Fi's branding a bit better, zero fee option is also a bonus however as I'm aiming for getting members. Ko-Fi ridiculously doesn't display discounts.

If you wanna take a look; BMC shop & Ko-Fi shop all items has 50% discount for members. 🤦‍♂️

Ko-Fi as a bonus has a better tier system in place, better management of different tiered content.

In many ways BMC feels more mature and meet the needs. Only missing part is the payment option to lose the fees. But 5% even the project goes beyond my goals and reaches $1K, it's $50 for the whole membership and payment infrastructure.

Yeah, that's the way how I procrastinate and overthink the unnecessary details without even know if I'll manage to land a single sale. :)

So what do you think about both platforms?

p.s. PayPal is not supported here so Gumroad is not an option.

—————
  1. Ko-Fi
  2. BMC
Vote
on April 15, 2022
  1. 2

    A year ago I would have said the same thing as the n=1 on Twitter, but I've changed my mind and am trying to direct people to my Ko-fi page more. That '0 fee' Gold Tier is attractive for shopfronts, and I'm puzzled why more creators don't use it as an alternative to Gumroad.

    Buy Me A Coffee is arguably more recognisable, though. I haven't had as much traction on my Ko-fi page as I had on my BMC page, but it might be because I'm not punting it as much as I used to 🤷🏽‍♂️

  2. 1

    Sadly, the Ko-Fi gold option is not a thing any more. 5% fees only.

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