Ko-fi Memberships and Membership Tiers
Ko-fi Memberships make it easy for you to build a reliable monthly income. Set up Membership tiers at different price points and offer special perks like exclusive Discord roles, unique content, or even physical products.
How to set up Memberships
In the menu head to Memberships and set Membership Mode to “Membership tiers”.
Note
Choosing "Simple monthly donations" lets fans support you each month without being added to a Membership tier.
Adding Tiers
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Choose ‘Add Tier’ and give it a Name and a Price per month. This is the minimum price, but supporters can choose to pay more if they want to.
Note
New members are charged right away when they join a tier, and you get paid straight away. They'll be billed again every month on the same calendar date as their first payment.
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Add Benefits to reward supporters for becoming a member. Choose from the list of suggested benefits or create your own.
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Add a Description and Tier image. 2:1 ratio images at 300px x 600px work best. Use the Description to introduce your tier and mention anything you want members to know such, as how to access benefits.
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Set a Welcome Message. New members will see this on screen immediately after their first payment has completed. We’ll also send them an email which includes this message.
Note
Most creators use the Welcome Message to say thanks or to deliver welcome rewards like links or discount codes.
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Choose if you want to Request Supporter’s Address. This will be needed if you plan on offering physical rewards like merch.
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You can Limit the number of people who can join if benefits include one-to-one access or other limited-availability rewards like physical items.
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Enable the Tier so it shows on your page.
Tip
You can preview how an individual tier looks by clicking this icon or just go to your page and choose the Memberships tab.
Choosing benefits your supporters really want
Thinking about what benefits to offer? Why not ask your fans to find out?
If your fans love your latest projects, consider offering exclusive content. If they just like chatting with you, then think about direct messages, behind the scenes updates, or special Discord roles. Learn more about setting up Discord and offering custom roles.
You don't need to go overboard with tiers and perks. Starting simple is just fine. Why not try three tiers to begin with:
- A basic tier for easy-to-send rewards like discount codes.
- A middle tier with your main perks like exclusive content.
- And a VIP tier for your biggest fans, featuring extras like personalized requests or shoutouts on social media.
Take a look at these 40+ Benefits for even more inspiration.
How your Membership Tiers look
Once you’ve published your Membership tiers, you can see how they look at any time by visiting your page and tapping Membership.
You'll spot your tier image, description, and perks right there. Once you have three members in a specific tier, a little counter will be shown to boost its appeal.
Want to turn this counter on or off? Head to Settings > Page.
You can also share a direct link to your Membership page just by adding ‘/tiers’ after your page name. E.g. Ko-fi.com/MyPage/Tiers. Ko-fi even creates a cute image preview of your Membership tiers when you share your link.
How to create content just for your members
Once your tiers are ready, you can start posting content just for your members. Head to your page and click on the 'Create' dropdown, then choose 'Post something'. Select the type of post you want to make and add your content. Then head over to the Audience menu and pick the minimum Membership tier that should unlock the post. Learn more about supporter-only content.
Exclusive supporter-only content appears on your page feed. Non-members will spot a blurred preview with a lock icon, inviting them to sign up for your membership.
When do supporters get access to supporter-only content?
The moment a supporter pays for their first month of your Membership, they get instant access to all the content available in that tier. Note members pay the full month upfront before getting access to Membership benefits like supporter-only content.
If a member decides to cancel, they can still see your content until their paid period runs out.
How to make Memberships the default way to support you
If you prefer monthly support from your fans, you can tweak your page to show Memberships as the default option instead of one-time donations.
Default to the Membership option from your Payment tab.
When a supporter visits your page, the Membership option in the payment panel will already be selected and your Tiers will be right there ready to join.
Note
If you're using the Donation Widget on an external site or blog, one-time support will always be the default.
Managing members and their payments
Go to Memberships > Members to see who joined, review payments, end memberships, offer refunds, and even grab all your member info in a CSV.
Understanding your CSV file
When you click on CSV, it downloads all of your membership information. You can see the usernames, email addresses, membership status, total amounts given and even if they pay via PayPal or Stripe.
You can find your CSV in the Members tab, but only on a desktop.
How to refund or cancel a membership
When it comes to managing your member's subscription, you have three options.
- Cancel the subscription. Your member will still have access to your content until the end of the payment period, but the subscription will not renew.
- Refund the subscription. Your member can still access your content until their membership expires.
- Cancel and refund the subscription:. Your member loses access to exclusive content right away.
Steps to make changes
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Go to your Members tab.
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Find the Member’s subscription you want to change
Click the three dots near the message option, then choose 'Cancel'.
Find the latest payment, click the three dots, then 'Refund'.
Find the latest payment, click the three dots, 'Refund', and tick 'Also cancel this subscription'.
Your member's subscription should now be updated.
Note
Learn more about refunds here.
If you have any trouble managing your subscriptions, you can reach out to us here.
How to update a member's shipping address
If you're sending physical rewards, you'll sometimes need to update shipping details—like if a member moves or there's a mistake in their address.
Steps to update:
- Go to your Members tab.
- Pick the member whose address needs changing.
- Click the three dots near the message option > 'Update Shipping Details'.
- Make your changes and hit 'Save'.
Voila! Your member's shipping details should now be updated. 😊
Your supporters can easily update their shipping address:
- Go to Account Settings
- Click on the 'Subscriptions' tab and select the subscription they wish to update.
- Click the three dots next to the relevant subscription and select “Update Address”
- Enter the new address details and save the changes.
What are the fees for using Memberships?
Any creator can use Memberships. Ko-fi takes a creator-friendly 5% platform fee on Membership payments.
👉 PayPal and Stripe charge their usual payment processing fees.
Note
Switching from a contributor to Ko-fi Gold doesn't change fees for existing Stripe memberships. You'll keep the same fee structure for those. If you cancel Ko-fi Gold, we won't start charging the 5% fee on Stripe memberships you got while you were Gold.
We're here if you need us. Feel free to submit a request our way. 💌
Frequently Asked Questions
When someone joins your membership, they pay you directly so you get the money instantly in your PayPal or Stripe account the moment they sign up. No minimum balances, no waiting for payout days.
Memberships renew monthly on (or very close to) the day of the month the member first paid you. With a different number of days in each month the actual renewal date can vary by a few days in some circumstances. If a payment doesn't go through, we'll try again a few times automatically.
We’ve noticed some of these popular categories:
- Exclusive content - like unreleased or back-catalogue content.
- Early access - to YouTube videos, podcast episodes, chapters or photoshoots.
- Behind the scenes - access to videos, pics, tutorials or even sketchbook access.
- Access and input - exclusive AMA’s, 1-2-1 lessons, polls or discord roles.
- Member recognition - like social shoutouts, name in credits or fan signs.
Just make sure your rewards are your own creations and stay within Ko-fi's content policy.
Absolutely! Just add Discord Access as a Membership benefit, then once your tiers are set up, head over to the Discord settings screen, connect your Discord server, and then select roles for each of your tiers.
If a member's status shows as 'Overdue,' it means their monthly payment didn't go through. They'll get an email about it, and the 'Overdue' label will show on their Account & Billing page under “Subscriptions”.
Common reasons for this could be an expired card, low account balance, or a bank hiccup. Members can still see your content until their current month ends.
For example, if someone joined on January 5th, they won't see any supporter-only content after February 5th until they sort out the payment.
We'll give it a few more tries. If it keeps failing, they'll lose access to your tier and content. They'll keep their Discord role while we keep trying. They'll only lose that if they're removed from your tier.
Need more help? Direct your members to the Supporter FAQ for how to fix 'Overdue' issues. And if you're still stuck, feel free to reach out to us.
Yes, head to Memberships > Members. You can download all of the information you need here. Your dashboard also shows a real-time count of your members.
Yes, rewards are optional, but offering a simple reward is recommended in most cases.
Yes, both membership payments and recurring monthly donations count towards your Goal. We’re working on making this optional.
Members have the freedom to switch their membership tier whenever they like. If they decide to upgrade or downgrade, the full price of the new membership tier will be charged. No refunds or adjustments relating to previous payments, but you can issue partial refunds through PayPal or Stripe.
How can members make changes?
- Log into Ko-fi.
- Head to Account & Billing.
- Under 'Subscriptions' find the one you want to change.
- Click the three dots to either change the pledge amount or opt not to renew.
And that's it! Your membership details should be up to date. 😊
If one of your members is having problems with payments or accessing content, we’ve got a help guide you can send to them. Here are some common issues below:
- If members cannot see your content, they might have paid as a guest and they’ll need to link that payment to their Ko-fi account. Suggest they click the link in their Ko-fi email when they paid and create an account or link the payment to an existing account. You can direct them here for more information.
- If members are having payment issues, direct them to our article here.
- For other problems they can also explore our supporter articles (choose ‘Supporters’ at the top of the page), or raise a support ticket.
Already getting monthly support from recurring donations? If you decide to switch to Memberships they'll keep getting charged and have access to your content at the 'All Monthly Supporters’ level.
Creating new tiers won't automatically move recurring donation supporters into those tiers, even if the price matches. But there is a way to switch them to your new Membership Tiers—here's how to do it.
- For Stripe memberships, you can follow Stripe’s help article under “Updating subscriptions in the Dashboard”.
- For PayPal memberships, you or the supporter will need to cancel the current subscription and rejoin at the new price.
We suggest notifying all members before increasing a tier's price.
Before you can delete a tier, make sure it has no current members, exclusive items, or commissions linked to it. Once you do delete it, it will no longer be visible on your Memberships tab or available to select when posting new supporter-only content.
If you'd rather keep it as an option for later, you can hide it. Go to your tier settings and uncheck "Enable tier." This keeps new members from joining until you decide otherwise.
Yes, members will gain access to all previous content available in their Tier. Not just from the point that they join your tier.
Want to pause new sign-ups? Just flip the Membership Mode to 'Off' on the setup page. Don't worry, your current members will remain part of that tier and membership payments will still be taken until they/you decide to cancel.
We’re working on loads of ways to make Memberships even better. Here’s a taster of what could be coming next:
- Accept annual Membership payments
- Gifting, discounts or free trial Memberships
- Switching off one-time donations for a pure Memberships experience
We’d love to hear your ideas and feedback. We read every response!
Remember on Ko-fi, members are paying you not us. Because of that, if you change your payment account e.g. connecting a new PayPal to your page replacing an old one, your current memberships won't be associated with the new account.
After you update your payment method:
- New memberships will be paid into your new account.
- Existing members will continue to make payments to your old account.
Moving your existing members to your new payment method:
To move your members to your new payment method you’ll need to cancel the existing memberships.
You can cancel the memberships yourself from Memberships > Members or if you prefer you could DM your members, asking them to cancel and rejoin.
Consider making a post to notify everyone of the update. We're here if you need us.
Feel free to send any questions our way. 💌