Move from Patreon to Whop: What Transfers and How to Switch

What transfers from Patreon to Whop

Your tiers, your member list and the structure of your community move with the free migration tool. Your patrons' payment methods, your old posts and your media files don't, because Patreon holds the cards and its help center doesn't describe a way to export posts in bulk.

The "What moves" table on this page shows the support level for each part. Here's what each one means for a Patreon creator.

Tiers become Whop products. In the wizard you confirm each tier's name and monthly price, and the tool creates a Whop product for each tier, each with its monthly plan, through Whop's official API. On Whop, access and Discord roles attach to a product, so separate products let each tier keep its own perks. If you sell annual memberships on Patreon, add the yearly price as a second plan on that tier's product.

Your member list comes from your own export. Patreon's Relationship Manager has a CSV button that downloads every member who matches your current filters. The tool cleans that file and builds a hidden "Existing members" access option on Whop: a free claim link for free members, and for paying patrons a plan at their current price with a free trial that covers the time they've already paid for. Whop's API has no endpoint for creating memberships directly ("checkout does that for you," per Whop's developer docs), so each person claims access themselves.

Your community gets a new home rather than a copy. The tool creates Whop Forums and Chat and pins a welcome post. Old posts and comments stay on Patreon, because anything published through Whop's API appears under your name with today's date.

Courses don't apply here. Patreon has no course product, so there's nothing for that step to import. If you want a series of posts organized as lessons, build it in Whop Courses yourself, and re-upload the video files in Whop or embed them from YouTube or Loom.

Payments don't transfer. Patreon is the merchant, so saved cards and billing history stay with Patreon. Whop's own migration feature only moves card subscriptions out of a Stripe account you control (Whop blog, June 2026), and Patreon creators don't have one. Every paying patron re-subscribes, which is why the rest of this page is about doing that without losing people. Our guide to moving paid subscriptions covers the re-subscribe pattern across platforms.

How the switch works, step by step

Export first, build on Whop second, announce third, and close Patreon last. Doing it in that order means nobody loses access and nobody has to pay twice.

1. Export your members. In Patreon, open Creator Studio, then Audience, then Relationship Manager. Clear the filters so paid and free members are both included, then click the CSV button. If you want a cleaned, de-duplicated list before you start, run the file through the member CSV converter in your browser.
2. Find your iOS patrons. The Relationship Manager can filter by subscription source. Use it to list patrons who joined through Apple's in-app purchase, because Apple bills them and Patreon says it can't prompt or reroute them for you.
3. Create your Whop and connect it. Use Sign in with Whop inside the migration tool. We never ask for your Patreon or Whop password.
4. Confirm your tiers and prices. The tool creates a product for each tier, with its plan. Add Whop's Discord app now if your patrons get Discord roles (read the 3% fee note below before you connect it).
5. Upload your member CSV. The tool sets up claim links for free members and trial-aligned plans for paying patrons.
6. Rebuild what's worth keeping. Pin a welcome post, copy your most-used posts into Forums, and move any video your patrons still watch.
7. Announce a switching window. Email every member their link, the date their Whop billing starts and a reminder to cancel on Patreon. The email below and our announcement templates cover the wording.
8. Close Patreon last. When the window ends, pause billing or unpublish. The next section explains the trade-off.

How to keep patrons and avoid double billing

A patron only pays twice if their Patreon membership renews after they've started paying on Whop. Line up the dates, give everyone one clear deadline, and keep a safety net for the patrons who forget to cancel.

Each paying patron's Whop trial runs until the day their next Patreon charge would have happened, so their first Whop payment replaces a Patreon payment instead of adding to it.

When a patron cancels on Patreon, their access stays active until the end of the period they already paid for, and Patreon stops creating new bills for them (Patreon's Relationship Manager billing statuses article). Asking patrons to cancel right after they join Whop costs them nothing.

Patreon's pause tool is the safety net. You can pause billing one cycle at a time, and you have to log in each month to pause again. Existing paid members aren't charged for the paused month and keep their access, but on subscription billing anyone who joins during the pause is still charged upfront. The cost of pausing is one month of Patreon revenue from patrons who haven't moved yet, in exchange for nobody being billed on both platforms.

Patrons who joined in the iPhone app are billed by Apple. They cancel on their phone under Settings, their name, then Subscriptions (Apple Support). Patreon can't nudge them for you, so your announcement has to spell this out.

Unpublishing is the last step, not the first. Per Patreon, unpublishing pauses memberships made on the web or Android and cancels iOS in-app memberships without automatic refunds. If your page is on a legacy rate (5%, 8% or 11%), unpublishing for any amount of time moves it to the 10% Standard plan if you ever republish.

If you're still on per-creation or first-of-the-month billing, Patreon requires a switch to subscription billing by November 1, 2026. Creators who don't act are switched automatically, with billing paused until they approve a price multiplier. Your patrons will see a billing change this fall either way, so a move to Whop now can mean one change for them instead of two.

Keep Discord roles working through the switch

Patreon's Discord bot assigns roles to paid members by tier, removes them when a pledge ends or a payment declines, and syncs once a day (Patreon help center). Whop's Discord app does the same job for Whop products. You connect your server, drag the Whop Bot role above the roles it should manage, pick the roles each product grants, and choose what happens when a membership ends: remove the role, remove all roles, kick the member, or take no action (Whop blog, April 2026). Before you connect it, read the fee note further down: the app's listing mentions a 3% fee that Whop's fee page doesn't.

Don't let both bots manage the same role. If a patron joins Whop and then cancels on Patreon, Patreon's bot removes its tier role, and if Whop granted that same role, the member loses access they're paying for. Create new roles for Whop, such as "Supporter (Whop)", with the same channel permissions, and let each bot manage only its own roles.

When the switching window closes, delete the old Patreon tier roles in Discord or disconnect the integration from Patreon, which Patreon says can take up to 24 hours. Don't just kick Patreon's bot: Patreon warns that once it's removed, it can't take back the roles it handed out. Members connect Discord on Whop and click Claim Access to get their new role. Our paid Discord server guide walks through the Whop side.

Announcement email you can copy

Send this to every paid and free member, then post a shorter version on Patreon. Replace the brackets.

Subject: Our membership is moving from Patreon to Whop on [date]

Hi [first name],

On [date], [membership name] moves from Patreon to Whop. Same [tier name] perks, and the price stays [price] a month.

Here's your personal link: [link]

1. Join with the link above. You won't be charged on Whop until [date of your next Patreon charge], the day your Patreon membership would have renewed.
2. Then cancel your Patreon membership. You keep Patreon access until the end of the period you've already paid for. If you joined in the iPhone app, cancel in Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions.
3. On Discord? After joining, connect your Discord account on Whop and click Claim Access to get your new role.

Patreon stays open until [end date]. After that, new posts and Discord access live on Whop only.

Questions? Just reply to this email.

[Your name]

Patreon vs Whop fees at your revenue

On Patreon's Standard plan you give up 9.7 percentage points more of every US card payment than on Whop. At $1,000 a month that's $97, or $1,164 a year.

Prices as of October 2026. Sources at the end of this page.

How we calculated it: fees = number of payments × (price × fee percentage + $0.30). Patreon's Standard plan charges a 10% platform fee plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing on USD payouts. Whop's published fees are 2.7% + $0.30 per domestic card payment plus 0.5% billing when enabled, which we include on every subscription charge, with no monthly fee (docs.whop.com/fees, checked October 3, 2026). Both columns assume US cards, no payout fees, no currency conversion and no taxes, rounded to whole dollars. This compares published fees and isn't financial or tax advice.

Legacy plans narrow the gap. Patreon's legacy Pro plan (8%) costs $77 more than Whop per $1,000, Pro + Merch (11%) costs $107 more, and Founders (5% with discounted 1.6% + $0.30 processing) costs $34 more. Two Whop items sit outside the table: Radar fraud screening at $0.07 per transaction would add $7 per 100 payments, and Whop Tax Service adds 2% on direct sales if you want Whop to handle sales tax the way Patreon does, though Whop only remits it in the US, EU and UK.

If you gate a Discord server with Whop's Discord app, one more fee is unsettled. Whop's fee page lists no charge for the app, but the app's own listing says adding it to a product subjects that product's payments to a 3% fee. Budget for it until Whop resolves the conflict: with the 3%, the Standard-plan gap shrinks from $97 to $67 per $1,000, and the Founders gap from $34 to $4.

Plug in your own tier prices, annual plans and international share with the Patreon fee calculator. For every line item on both sides, see Patreon's fees, explained and Whop's full fee schedule.

What you'll rebuild by hand

Expect to rebuild content, not relationships. Your patrons follow a link, but posts, media, shop items, merch and any newsletter or podcast setup need your hands.

• Posts worth keeping (effort depends on your archive). Start with the posts new members ask about, pin an index post in Forums, and let the rest go.
• Video and audio (medium to high effort). Re-upload files in Whop or embed them from YouTube or Loom. Bigger libraries are easier to organize as a Whop course, one chapter per series.
• Shop items (low effort). Recreate each one as a one-time Whop product and upload the file. If past buyers should keep access, send them a free claim link. One-time items under $700 bought inside Whop's iOS app go through Apple at a 42.86% markup; web purchases don't.
• Merch (medium to high effort). If you're on Pro + Merch, Patreon's merch program stays with Patreon. Since October 1, 2026, Whop can sell physical products with variants, inventory and shipping-address collection, and you can attach carrier tracking to orders. Its docs show no shipping-rate settings or label printing, so plan to produce and ship merch yourself or through your own supplier.
• Email newsletters (medium effort). Patreon's pricing page lists built-in email newsletters. Whop has no built-in email marketing (no broadcasts, sequences or segments). It sends welcome and goodbye DMs with an optional email copy, transactional emails, and Forums posts (each admin post or a weekly summary) by email, which is the closest match to Patreon's post emails. For a separate newsletter, add an email app from Whop's App Store or keep your own email tool.
• Private podcast feed (medium effort). Patreon lists podcast importing and RSS distribution. Whop's consumer apps page doesn't list a podcast or private RSS app (October 2026), so decide where episodes live before you announce.
• Welcome message (low effort). Turn on Whop's automated join message so every patron who claims access gets the same first steps.

Should you switch from Patreon to Whop?

Switch if fees or Apple billing cost you real money and your patrons know you well enough to follow a link. Stay if Patreon itself keeps bringing you new patrons or you're on a cheap legacy rate.

The move makes sense if:

• Your page was first published after August 4, 2025, so you're on the 10% Standard plan. At $10,000 a month, the difference is $970 ($670 if the 3% Discord app fee applies).
• A real share of your patrons pay through Apple. Apple takes 30% of in-app memberships from non-US fans (15% after a member's first year), while Whop sells subscriptions through web checkout.
• You want courses, forums or a gated Discord sold alongside the membership.

Stay on Patreon if:

• You're on the legacy Founders plan. The gap is $34 per $1,000 ($4 if the 3% Discord app fee applies), and a handful of patrons who don't re-subscribe can erase it.
• Most new patrons find you through Patreon's Explore tab and recommendations, and those sign-ups stay on Patreon. Whop lists you on its Discover marketplace instantly at a 0% published commission and lets affiliates promote you (default 30% rate, which you set), but you'd be building that audience from zero.
• You rely on Patreon to collect and remit VAT and sales tax at no extra cost and don't want to pay Whop's 2% tax service on direct sales or handle it yourself. Whop handles tax itself only on sales through its Discover marketplace.

If you're still deciding, the Whop vs Patreon comparison goes deeper on payouts, discovery and taxes, and our ranked Patreon alternatives cover six other options by fees.

After the move: launch checklist

Run these checks before you send the announcement, and the last two before you close Patreon.

• Buy your own plan with a real card, then refund it, so you see the checkout and welcome message patrons get.
• Open the "Existing members" link in a private browser window and confirm the trial end date looks right.
• Test Discord with a second account: claim access, confirm the Whop role appears, cancel, and confirm it's removed.
• Replace Patreon links in your bio, video descriptions, website and pinned social posts.
• Check your account's approval status. Whop caps new accounts at $2,500 per checkout link until it approves them.
• Set up your Whop payout method early and finish identity verification (personal details, bank details and an ID upload), which Whop requires before any withdrawal. Whop can also hold part of each sale for a new account (its docs give 10% for 90 days as an example), so don't plan on day-one cash.
• Export the Relationship Manager again before you unpublish, so you keep a final record of who moved.
• Keep Patreon published, or paused, until the switching window ends.

What changed

• October 3, 2026: First published. Patreon and Whop fees and policies checked October 3, 2026.