Which podcast subscription platform has the lowest fees?

It depends on your subscription price and subscriber count, because the models are not comparable. Patreon's 10 percent beats Supercast's $0.59 per subscriber below a $5.90 monthly price and loses above it. Memberful's $49 monthly fee plus 4.9 percent only becomes cheaper than Patreon past roughly 190 subscribers at $5 a month.

Do I need Apple Podcasts Subscriptions as well as a third-party platform?

Many shows run both, because they do different jobs. Apple puts the paid tier in front of people already browsing Apple Podcasts, which is discovery you cannot buy elsewhere. A third-party platform gives you the subscriber relationship, the email list and the ability to sell outside Apple's rules.

How many subscribers does a paid podcast tier need to be worth running?

Enough that the revenue exceeds the platform fee plus the hours you spend producing the bonus content. The fee side is easy to calculate from the published rates. The production side is the one that kills paid tiers, because a weekly bonus episode is a second show with a fraction of the audience.

Best subscriptions for podcasters: fees compared

The best subscriptions for podcasters are decided by arithmetic, not features, because these platforms charge on three incompatible models. Patreon takes a percentage of income. Supercast charges a flat amount per subscriber. Memberful charges a monthly fee plus a percentage. Which is cheapest flips depending on what you charge and how many people pay it.

Work out your own numbers before you compare dashboards. Two platforms on this list differ by more than double at some price points and are nearly identical at others.

How we selected these podcast subscription platforms

We read each provider's current published pricing pages and judged them on the terms that determine what you keep.

Published fee structure: whether the model is stated in full, including payment processing.
Where the fee bites: percentage of revenue, per subscriber, or flat, since each favours a different show shape.
Private feed delivery: whether subscribers listen in their normal podcast app without copying an RSS URL.
Ownership of the relationship: whether you get the subscriber's email address.
Discovery: whether the platform puts your paid tier in front of anyone new.

Browse the subscriptions directory for the wider category.

Quick comparison

Platform	Published fee	Processing on top	Best for
Patreon	10% of income earned	Yes, plus currency and payout fees	Low price points and small subscriber counts
Supercast	$0.59 per subscriber per month	Yes, Stripe fees	Higher price points at any scale
Memberful	$49/month plus 4.9% transaction fee	Included in the 4.9%	Larger subscriber bases
Apple Podcasts Subscriptions	$19.99 a year to join	Apple's commission applies	Reach inside the Apple Podcasts app
Supporting Cast	None published	Not published	Multi-show bundles and networks

1. Patreon

Best for: starting cheaply at a low monthly price.

Patreon's pricing page states a single fee of 10 percent of the income you earn on Patreon, plus payment processing, currency conversion, payout fees and applicable taxes. There is one model, not a set of tiers, starting an account is free, and you pay nothing until you earn.

The percentage model is the right shape for a small or cheap tier. At $3 a month, Patreon's cut is 30 cents a subscriber, which no per-subscriber platform can match. The same model works against you as the price rises, since 10 percent of a $15 tier is $1.50 where a flat fee would be a fraction of that.

Patreon is built for creators in general rather than for audio, so check how private feed delivery works for your subscribers before you commit. The tools on this list that only do podcasts treat that as the core product, not one content type among several.

2. Supercast

Best for: any paid tier priced above about $6 a month.

Supercast charges $0.59 per subscriber per month on its All-In plan, plus Stripe's fees. Those are stated as a transaction fee of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, and a billing fee of 0.7 percent per recurring payment. One-time payments are charged differently, at 15 percent capped at $1.50 per payment plus Stripe fees.

A fixed amount per subscriber means your platform cost does not rise when your price does. Set against Patreon's 10 percent, the break-even sits at a $5.90 monthly subscription. Below that Patreon is cheaper, above it Supercast is, and the gap widens fast: at $15 a month Supercast costs 59 cents where Patreon costs $1.50.

The All-In plan includes premium content hosting, a landing page, subscriber analytics, email, an AMA feature, YouTube video support, monthly, annual and lifetime plan types, free trials and third-party integrations. No monthly minimum is stated.

3. Memberful

Best for: an established paid tier with a few hundred subscribers.

Memberful's Standard plan is $49 a month plus a 4.9 percent transaction fee, with volume-based Enterprise pricing available.

A flat monthly fee is a bad deal at small scale and a good one at size, and the crossover is calculable. At a $5 monthly subscription, Memberful costs $49 plus 24.5 cents a subscriber against Patreon's 50 cents a subscriber, so the two are level at roughly 190 subscribers. Below that Patreon wins comfortably. Above it Memberful's advantage compounds.

Run that sum at your own price before deciding, because the crossover point moves sharply with the subscription price. Its pricing page does not confirm which tier includes podcast private feeds, so verify that before committing.

4. Apple Podcasts Subscriptions

Best for: reaching people who are already in the Apple Podcasts app.

Apple's own announcement states that the Apple Podcasters Program, which includes the tools needed to offer premium subscriptions, is available to creators in over 170 countries and regions for $19.99 per year. Podnews recorded Apple keeping 30 percent of subscription revenue when it surveyed paid podcasting routes, though that survey dates from 2022, so check Apple's current commission terms directly before you model revenue.

The reason to be here is not the fee. Your paid tier appears inside the app where a large share of podcast listening already happens, so people find it while browsing instead of only after you send them a link.

What you give up is the relationship. Apple's subscriber is Apple's customer, so you do not get the email address, and you cannot easily move those people anywhere else.

5. Supporting Cast

Best for: networks and multi-show bundles.

Supporting Cast sells and delivers podcast subscriptions, audiobooks, newsletters and other members-only benefits, and states it is part of Graham Holdings. Its listed features include private feed access through a listener's existing podcast app without copying and pasting an RSS URL, single-show or multi-show bundle configurations, free trials, promo codes, pay-what-you-want pricing, piracy protection and analytics.

Bundling is the feature to look for if you run several shows, since it lets one payment cover every feed instead of asking a listener to subscribe to each separately. Supporting Cast states it handles both a single show and a multi-show bundle.

It publishes no pricing at all. The page offers a demo request instead, which usually signals a product priced for larger operations, so expect a conversation rather than a signup form.

Before you pick any of them

The fee comparison above assumes the tier works, and most paid podcast tiers fail on production, not on platform choice. A weekly bonus episode is a second show made for a small fraction of your audience, and the enthusiasm for it runs out around month four.

Decide what you can sustain indefinitely first, then price it, then run the arithmetic above against that price. Our subscriptions guide covers designing a promise you can keep, and subscriptions examples covers offers that have held up.

One measurement note. Apple reports paid subscribers and followers as different numbers and the words get used interchangeably, which produces confused reporting. Our piece on subscriber count untangles the two, and listener lifetime value covers the number that tells you whether a paid tier is worth its production cost.

Podder reports downloads and unique listeners on your free show from the prefix, which is the audience your paid tier converts from. Start on the Analytics plan and install the prefix before you launch a paid tier.