Memberful
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you're a creator or publisher ready to run a paid membership on your own site and absorb $49/mo.
Comparison
Memberful vs Buy Me a Coffee
Memberful and Buy Me a Coffee both land on Depends.
Buy Me a Coffee
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy it if you're a solo creator who wants a fast, free-to-start page for tips and memberships.
| Compare | Memberful | Buy Me a Coffee |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Newsletter writers and independent publishers | Individual creators |
| Who it's not for | Hobbyists not ready to run a paid membership business | Businesses selling actual products or services |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.² | No platform-wide breach found in reviewed sources; its WordPress plugin had three CVEs in 2023. |
| Support quality | No support evidence in sources | Users report email and login failures |
| Public sentiment | Public sources surfaced directory blurbs but no substantive independent user reviews.⁴ | Praise for fast, simple setup is balanced by recurring complaints about support, fees, and account reliability.⁸ |
| Biggest gotcha | No free tier . trial only; $49/mo Standard before revenue. Enterprise is custom-priced.³ | 5% platform fee applies to every contribution . it compounds as your income grows10 |
Pick Memberful when
- Newsletter writers and independent publishers
- Podcasters with paid feeds
- WordPress site owners selling memberships
- Discord communities charging dues
When Memberful is not a fit
- Hobbyists not ready to run a paid membership business
- Creators wanting Patreon-style discovery and network effects
- Anyone needing a free tier . starts at $49/mo
- Sellers of one-off products wanting simple checkout
Pick Buy Me a Coffee when
- Individual creators
- Podcasters and writers
- Artists and indie devs
- One-off tip monetization
When Buy Me a Coffee is not a fit
- Businesses selling actual products or services
- Fee-sensitive creators . 5% beats Patreon but loses to Ko-fi's 0%
- Anyone needing deep membership management or content hosting
- Teams wanting guaranteed support response
Sources
- Memberful homepagememberful.comofficial
- Memberful Security pagememberful.comsecurity
- Memberful pricing rundownvibeityourself.comreview
- Memberful on Stack by ROSTRstack.rostr.ccreview
- Memberful traffic overviewdeets.feedreader.comnews
- Memberful on Xx.comofficial
- GridinSoft URL reviewgridinsoft.comsecurity
- Buy Me a Coffee Reviews . Trustpilottrustpilot.comreview
- Buy Me a Coffee . Google Playplay.google.comreview
- Buy Me a Coffee Review 2026: Is the 5% Fee Worth It?builtbyfoundry.ioreview
official
review
review
- CVE-2023-2078 . Missing Authorization (NVD)nvd.nist.govsecurity
security
- How two brothers built Buy Me a Coffee . What a Startupwhatastartup.substack.comnews