A Better Patron Alternative for Creators: Heights Platform vs Patron

Looking for the best Patreon alternative that doesn't charge any transaction fees and lets you build a scalable business under one roof?

Today, we are comparing Patreon with Heights Platform to see which tool is best for creators looking to monetize their content.

Heights Platform is an all-in-one, AI-powered platform for creating and selling courses and community memberships. Patreon is a membership platform that lets creators monetize their exclusive content and let fans support the work of creators.

Heights Platform Key Features:

• All the tools that creators need to launch and grow a thriving online course, membership community, tiered memberships, and coaching business, all under your own branding.
• Zero transaction fees
• No limits on video hosting
• Advanced AI features for creation and growth, including a personal AI assistant for task management, an AI for drafting complete online course content, and an AI coach that continuously evaluates your business, offering weekly, personalized action plans based on your objectives to foster growth.
• A community feature to connect with your customers and supporters. Option to charge a fee for community access, sell a community channel separately or make certain channels hidden. Plus, private messaging with customers.
• Unlimited courses, community channels, digital downloads, challenges, digital products, etc...
• Option to accept one-time donations from customers with a Pay What You Want feature.
• Charge a one-time fee, installments, or subscription model to customers, or offer your content for free.
• Gamification elements, adaptable course structures, customizable launch options, diverse payment methods, and more.
• Web page builder to create unlimited page designs through a simple drag-and-drop interface.
• Full Whitelabel branding customization
• Other marketing features: email marketing, your own affiliate program, blog, landing pages etc...

Patreon Key Features:

• Free plan with transaction fees (8% or 12% - learn more about the costs below)
• Membership tiers with specific rewards or content to patrons based on their subscription level
• Gated content for paying members
• Built-in messenger for creators to communicate directly with their patrons
• Offer exclusive merchandise to their subscribers, handling production, shipping, and support
• Podcast feed
• Free trials and special offers
• Mobile App

Key Features Showdown: Which Platform is Better?

Heights Platform is a Patreon alternative that can do everything that Patreon does, not vice-versa.

Both software allow creators to monetize their exclusive content, create a membership platform for gated content and build a community.

However, Heights Platform doesn't stop here. With Heights, you get all the features you need to start scaling a profitable business selling digital products and online courses - without any transaction fees.

Now let's see in more detail how the two platforms compare in our review of Patreon vs Heights Platform:

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Transaction Fees

When comparing Patreon and Heights Platform in terms of transaction fees, it's clear that Heights offers a more creator-friendly financial model.

Heights Platform does not take any percentage of your earnings; instead, it operates on a subscription model.

After a 30-day free trial, creators choose between monthly or annual subscription plans.

This pricing strategy is particularly advantageous for creators with a large customer base, as it offers predictability and stability in costs, regardless of earnings.

Patreon, on the other hand, adopts a different approach: they offer a free plan where creators are subject to an 8% (Pro Plan) or 12% (Premium Plan) transaction fee on earnings (excluding standard payment processing fees).

This might not seem much. However, when you put it into perspective, things change.

For instance, if a creator earns $2000 a month on Patreon, they would have to pay at least $160 in fees every month if they are on Patreon's cheapest plan. On Patreon's Premium plan, the monthly cost for $2000 earned would be $240/month!

This means that as your audience grows, so does your financial burden on Patreon.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Sell Online Courses

One of the main differences between Patreon and Heights Platform is the option to create and sell online courses.

Patreon, primarily known for supporting creators through memberships, has no features for course creation and sales.

This can be a significant drawback for creators, coaches, or any business owner looking to package their expertise into courses and monetize their knowledge.

In contrast, Heights Platform is designed with the educational entrepreneur in mind, offering robust tools for building, marketing, and selling online courses.

This allows creators to diversify their income streams and provides a platform for scalable, leveraged income through educational content.

Here is a list of different products you can create and sell using Heights Platform:

• Self-paced online courses: structured learning programs with lessons and modules.
• Membership sites: access through subscription models, either monthly or yearly.
• Online challenges: courses with a set timeframe, featuring lessons that are made available according to a schedule and have a deadline.
• Digital downloads: digital products such as PDFs, worksheets, events, live streams, coaching sessions, etc., that students can access.
• Online communities: spaces for interactions and communications among members
• Bundles of products: multiple products packaged together, potentially as exclusive deals.

Heights Platform has exclusive features like scheduling multiple rolling launch dates for courses or memberships, pre-selling programs, locking course lessons until prior ones are completed, creating assignments and projects, designing and awarding completion certificates, and more.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Membership Communities

Both Patreon and Heights Platforms let creators build communities and sell membership access.

On Patreon, community members can comment on posts, join real-time community group chats, and connect directly over DM.

However, the community in Patreon only works for paid membership tears, which means that you cannot offer a community space and let customers join for free.

Plus, Patreon only allows creators to build up to 10 chat spaces in their community, and community spaces are only available through the Patron mobile app.

On the other hand, Heights Platform is the Patreon alternative that lets creators offer free community access to their members, as well as create unlimited community channels and channel groups (like community chats), and the community can be used from all types of devices.

Channels inside a community can be sold separately or made hidden from certain members.

The community feature in Heights is directly connected to your program and products, giving members a place to discuss the content, ask questions, get feedback, and talk to each other and the creator.

Also, Heights Platform includes gamification tools like points and badges that can be customized. These tools reward members for finishing lessons or courses, encouraging them to stay active in the community.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: One-Off Payments and Donations

Many Patreon users complain about the lack of a one-off payment option inside the platform.

While Patreon claims that this feature is not aligned with their value, at Heights, we believe that it is a pretty important one for creators.

Whether you want to sell digital products, courses, community access, or even accept donations on Heights Platform, you can charge a one-time fee to your customers.

This is not the only option; you can charge installments and a monthly or annual subscription as well.

Our pay-what-you-want feature allows you to let your customers choose how much to pay for a selected product. This can be useful if you are a nonprofit organization that accepts donations from fans or collects leads.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: AI Features

Heights Platform is famous for its AI features. On the other hand, Patreon has zero AI tools as of today.

Here are the main AI tools creators can benefit from inside Heights Platform:

• Create an entire online course for you: Easily generate an online course in minutes and receive feedback on your idea with AI. The Heights AI can craft a course title, lesson outline, course description, and even a cover image, all automatically built into your account.
• Chat & answer your questions: You can ask the AI anything about how to use Heights Platform and online course creation and marketing. The AI can help you with everything from coming up with a winning course idea to promoting your business online and reaching your ideal students!

• AI as Your Business Coach: Get a personalized business action plan made by AI to help you reach your goals. Every week, this AI coach autonomously sends you new tasks to complete according to your needs and goals.
• AI as Your Personal Assistant: The Heights AI works as your personal AI assistant by providing text commands for product edits. Whether you need to adjust the price of your online course, publish it, enable a landing page for your online challenge, or execute other commands, the AI swiftly carries out your instructions.
• Analyze your web page SEO: This AI tool can help you refine your SEO and optimize your pages so they show up higher on Google searches.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Branding

Another important aspect that makes Heights Platform a better alternative to Patreon lies in its branding and style customization.

Patreon offers basic customization options, allowing creators to align their page with their brand colors and a few other settings.

However, even after customization, it is still clear that the membership is built using Patreon, and it doesn't feel like your own business. Plus, you cannot set a custom domain in Patreon, only change part of your URL.

In contrast, Heights Platform provides extensive branding and customization options, including adding your logo and custom domain, setting your brand color schemes, font choices, and image selection, and the creating a fully branded website with unlimited pages.

This level of customization enables creators to offer a more cohesive and professional brand experience, potentially improving audience engagement and loyalty.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Video Hosting

Patreon is currently changing its policy on video hosting. So far, only creators who have purchased an early access pass have a total of 100 hours of video hosting available.

This is set to change at the beginning of 2024, without specific instructions. What we know is that Patreon's current policy change indicates a move towards limited video hosting capabilities, with only certain creators having access to a capped amount of video hosting.

This limitation could be a significant drawback for creators who rely heavily on video content.

Heights Platform, however, offers unlimited video hosting, removing barriers for creators to share and monetize video content without worrying about storage limits.

Patreon vs Heights Platform: Built-in Marketing Tools

Built-in marketing features are essential for creators to attract and retain their audience, and here Heights Platform clearly stands out from Patreon.

Heights offers a suite of advanced features and marketing tools, including a website builder, email marketing capabilities, a blog, and an affiliate program.

These tools are integral for creators to build their brand, engage with their audience, and leverage partnerships to grow their reach.

For instance, on Heights Platform, you can build your own website with unlimited sales pages and an easy drag-and-drop page builder (included in the Pro Plan).

The Web Page Builder has multiple ready-made templates you can choose from and then edit by dragging and dropping building blocks or even starting from scratch.

Patreon's lack of integrated marketing tools means creators must often rely on external services to fulfill these needs, potentially complicating their workflow and increasing costs.

A Better Patreon Alternative For Creators: Heights Platform

Heights Platform is an online course and community platform and a better alternative to Patreon, especially for creators who want to scale their business in the future, without losing a chunk of their earnings to transaction fees.

With Heights, creators get the tools to build much more than just a membership site. They can create and sell online courses, communities, digital products, host unlimited videos, and even accept donations, all under their brand.

Heights Platform also offers multiple AI tools that simplify tasks like course creation and provide personalized business advice.

Creators can fully customize their pages to match their brand, which isn't as flexible on Patreon. Plus, Heights includes marketing tools like email campaigns and affiliate programs, making it easier to reach and grow an audience.

So, to conclude, the choice of platform is up to you. For creators who are serious about growth and looking for a strong tool to support their journey, Heights Platform is the better choice.

Try it for yourself by creating your free Heights Platform account today: