This page is dedicate to explain with a bit more detail what are the available sponsoring options if you want to sponsor me, and what are the features and fee, or pros and cons.
If you are looking to know why I'm looking for sponsors and what I do, you can check out my GitHub Sponsors profile.
One of the main difference between some of the sponsoring platforms is they accept one-time payments or recurring payments (weekly, monthly, yearly).
In general I much rather receive a small recurring sponsorship than a bigger one-time one, as one of the big issues for people like me is reaching some stability. Even when is nice to receive a big unexpected gift once in a while, is hard to plan and make sure all the bills are paid this way.
Sponsoring platforms are listed in order of preference (I prefer the most the first one and the last the last one), either because of fees, features or how much I (dis)like the platform 🙃.
All sponsorship platforms that have fees, are also probably subject to some extra fees when currency conversion is involved, but there is really very little to do about that.
GitHub Sponsors is my preferred platform, as it takes ZERO fees (the only one so far). Not even transactions fees, so 100% of the money spent by sponsors reaches the people being sponsored, which is amazing!
- ZERO fees.
- It only supports recurring monthly payments, no one-time payments option.
- It only supports pre-defined amounts, no free amount option.
- It doesn't support micro-payments.
- Payment methods: Credit Card, Paypal (which in turn accepts many options).
- It requires a GitHub account.
- More information: https://github.com/sponsors.
Fees examples:
- You spend 1$ - I receive 1$ (100%).
Liberapay is a non-profit and open sponsoring platform focusing on long term support, privacy and transparency. For example, I can't see who is sponsoring me via this platform.
- Fees vary by payment processor, payment method, countries and currencies. The average is expected to be below 5% in all cases (but Liberapay doesn't take a cut, it only charges processing fees). When paying with non European cards I think it should be around 2.9% + €0.25 and when using Stripe as a processor with an European card, 1.4% + €0.25.
- It only supports recurring weekly, monthly and yearly payments. It doesn't support one-time payments but it has an option to manually renew the recurrent payments, so it can be effectively used for one-time payments with this in mind.
- It supports micro-payments (as low as 0.01€ per week), but it also has a maximum of 100€ per week). Also fees are expected to be relatively high for low amounts.
- Payments methods: Stripe, Paypal (both accept multiple options, like credit cards or bank transfer, depending on the country).
- It requires a Liberapay account.
- It can only be used for donations, meaning that transactions must not be linked to a contract nor a promise of recompense.
- More information: https://liberapay.com/about/faq
Fees examples (Liberapay doesn't give details, I'm getting the info from Stripe and Paypal, but I'm not sure if these are the conditions that really apply):
- See Paypal for an example for non European cards or when using Paypal.
- You spend 1$ - I receive $0.74 (25% fee) with Stripe and European cards. (this is proably a very worst case scenario; in order to minimize processing fees, Liberapay will ask you to pay for multiple weeks in advance for very small contributions)
- You spend 10$ - I receive $9.61 (3.9% fee) with Stripe and European cards.
- You spend 100$ - I receive $98.37 (1.63% fee) with Stripe and European cards.
Paypal is one of the most widespread and used online payment platforms, and not really an sponsoring platform, but since it is ubiquitous, it is always good to have it as an option. For small amounts, fees are quite high, but for bigger amounts is reasonably low.
- 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction fee.
- Supports both one-time and recurring monthly payments.
- Supports pre-defined and free amounts.
- Micro-payments are not practical due to the high fees for small amounts.
- Payments methods: Credit card, bank account, etc. (depends on the country).
- It doesn't require an account (when paying with credit/debit card).
- More information: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/fundraising
Fees examples:
- You spend 1$ - I receive 0.67$ (33% fee).
- You spend 10$ - I receive 9.42$ (5.8% fee).
- You spend 100$ - I receive 96.88$ (3.1% fee).
Buy Me A Coffee is similar to Liberapay, but it is more focused on communities than privacy. For example, I get the information of all my supporters and have tools to e-mail them. It also have the concept of membership which is exclusive content for people having recurring payments. I have this enabled but really offering anything valuable for now, just a mention on the sponsors list in my home pages.
- 5% fixed per-transaction fee.
- Supports both one-time (the default) and recurring monthly or yearly payments (called membership).
- Supports pre-defined and free amounts (sort of, memberships have a fixes price and one-time payments are multiple of a minimum amount, in my case 3€).
- It doesn't support micro-payments.
- Payments methods: Stripe, Paypal (both accept multiple options, like credit cards or bank transfer, depending on the country).
- It doesn't require an account (when paying with credit/debit card).
- More information: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/about
Fees examples:
- You spend 1$ - I receive 0.95$ (5% fee).
- You spend 10$ - I receive 9.5$ (5% fee).
- You spend 100$ - I receive 95$ (5% fee).
Patreon is a quite popular platform similar to Buy Me A Coffee but more focused on content creators and giving benefits to patrons. The fees are considerably higher though, but it offers many tools to foster communities.
- 5% fee from Patreon + 3.4%+0.35€ from payment processing fees (5%+0.15€ for payments of 3€ or less).
- Supports only recurring monthly payments.
- It doesn't support free amounts.
- Micro-payments are somehow supported with smaller fees.
- Payments methods: Credit cards, Paypal
- It requires a Patreon account.
- More information: https://www.patreon.com/product/pricing
Fees examples:
- You spend 1€ - I receive 0.8€ (20% fee).
- You spend 10€ - I receive 9.32€ (6.8% fee).
- You spend 100€ - I receive 96.36€ (3.6% fee).
Flattr started as a micro-payment platform and one of the main differentiators was you set up a monthly amount to spend on sponsoring and then you give "flattrs" to creators. At the end of the month, all your month money is divided by the amounts of flatts you gave and is paid out to creators. It is a good way for supporters to have a fixed budget and reward creators dynamically, but all of that is over and now is just a sponsoring platform with quite high fees 😒.
- 5% fee from Flattr + 5% fee from its payment processor + 3$ fee each time I want to make a withdrawal = 10%_+.
- Supports both one-time and recurring monthly payments.
- Supports free amounts.
- Micro-payments are not supported (minimum 3$).
- Payments methods: Credit card
- It requires a Flattr account.
- More information: https://flattr.com/faq
Fees examples:
- You spend 3$ - I receive 2.7$ if I don't withdraw, otherwise 0$ if it's the only donation of the month (10%-100% fee).
- You spend 10$ - I receive 9$ if I don't withdraw, otherwise 6$ if it's the only donation of the month (10%-40% fee).
- You spend 100$ - I receive 90$ if I don't withdraw, otherwise 87$ if it's the only donation of the month (10%-13% fee).