YouTube Channel Memberships vs. Membership Site
YouTube Channel Memberships vs. Membership Sites: Which earns more? Compare revenue potential, features & audience reach in 2025.
In this show, we delve into the key differences between YouTube Channel Memberships and traditional Membership Sites. Discover the unique benefits and features of each option to help you determine which platform best aligns with your content strategy and audience engagement goals. Whether you’re a creator looking to monetize or a viewer curious about supporting creators.
This Week’s Sponsors
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:00.620] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 142. In this episode, we’re going to be discussing comparing YouTube channel memberships with having your own membership website, and we’ll look at some other platforms you could use instead of just relying on YouTube memberships. I think it’s an important subject. Written up some decent notes, and I’ve got my great co-host, Kurt, with me. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:00:46.020] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, Jonathan. My name is Kurt von Annen. I own an agency called Manana Nomas, and we also work directly with the great team over at WP Tonic.
[00:00:54.340] – Jonathan Denwood
Thanks, Kurt. Like I say, we’ll be looking at YouTube channel memberships, comparing them to having your own membership site or using Patreon. Should be a great discussion. But before we go into the meat and potatoes, we got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I wanted to point out that we’ve also got a great course by Kirk himself that shows you, from beginning to end, how to build our membership website on WordPress using the latest technology. It’s normally around $50. You can get it at half price. Plus, if you buy the course, we will send you a coupon code for 50% off your first year of hosting with WP Tonic. It’s a great offer. Where can you get it from? Well, all you have to do is go over to WP-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Deals. There are also some special offers from the sponsors and a curated list of the best WordPress technology and services. A ton of free goodies. What more could you ask for? So let’s go straight into it, Kirk. So if you were having a chat with a possible client or somebody asking for advice, what would you do if they brought up YouTube channel memberships and were thinking of just using that, or a membership, or building a membership website? How would you start the conversation?
[00:02:36.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s interesting how we dive into these shows, Jonathan, because my most recent research on this topic shows that I really have some learning to do myself. I’m seeing that there are an awful lot of people who successfully create these communities, subscriptions, and memberships through YouTube, Patreon, and similar platforms. And you I look at the different categories that they create in, and they can drive an awful high volume of viewership. But I always drive back to there needs to be some central location that they can always direct or redirect people to. That’s why I think having your own website is so important.
[00:03:20.100] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think let’s get right down to it, Kirkle. I think we should, or I will attempt to. It’s just convenient. They make it really easy to get additional revenue from your YouTube channel, but you pay a high price for that convenience. They want 30% of everything, plus… And that’s a chunk of change. And you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. If you get three strikes, they’re going to shut down your channel. It could be unjustified copyright complaints. It could be competitors complaining about things that are not true, and you get a community strike. As you know —and I know —dealing with Google and YouTube and trying to speak to someone or get any response from them is, a lot of the time, not very easy. So I understand why people do it —it’s so convenient. There are some restrictions before you can do it. I think they keep changing. You need between 500 and 1,000 subscribers. You need to watch over 300 hours of normal-length video. That excludes video, which is classified as anything under three minutes. If you’ve just done a load of free short videos, it’s got to be three million hours of content that’s got to be watched.
[00:05:11.700] – Jonathan Denwood
But it’s so damn convenient. You can set up six plans. Fees range from 99 to 499 per month. That’s the span that you can charge. It’s got other limitations, but its main strength is the convenience, isn’t it? But I think you pay a high price for that convenience. What would you say?
[00:05:36.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
Here’s where the disconnect happens for even experienced people like us, Jonathan. I can’t help but get distracted by certain things. I met with a couple of very young professionals yesterday, and they talked about their YouTube viewership numbers. Kevin Geary’s best show is their worst show. They’re in a whole other realm of possibility. And they’re not just in the WordPress space. They’re talking about tech stuff, SaaS, and related topics. And so they’re bringing in this giant, giant audience. And I think to myself, how would I possibly lure that big, giant audience off of YouTube and onto my own website or a Patreon or whatever we talk about in the rest of the show? And the truth is, I just don’t think you can get the audience without the YouTube tie. But then you have to change gears and go, do you need YouTube’s, like, membership model to make that success happen? Or could you just have the videos on YouTube, generate popularity that way and still redirect them to your own property? That’s the mode of operation we typically discuss.
[00:06:51.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but it’s friction. We can’t refute that. It’s friction. Doing it on YouTube is seamless, but I don’t really care how easy they make it. I think relying on just one platform to not only promote your business, but also, obviously, the great thing with YouTube is if you get a reasonable size audience, you can make reasonable money from AdWords and AdSense. That’s great. But would I want them to add membership to it? No, I wouldn’t, to be honest. Obviously, I’m in WordPress, but that would be the same answer if I weren’t. I wouldn’t want everything over half for them to be so dominant in my way of making a living, basically.
[00:07:54.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
I don’t think I’m ever going to get over what we saw during the COVID crisis with censorship and big tech. I don’t know if I could ever trust a large corporation to be in charge of my client’s branding or digital footprint. And so you’ll constantly hear from me, probably till the day I die, that you need to own the platform your content is on and use the other tools to draw them to your own site. But then that really is a daunting task in We say it like it’s easy, but it is very difficult.
[00:08:33.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. So on to the next most popular alternative, and that’s Patreon. They’ve seen from what my research, from August, they’ve got a flat transaction fee of 10%. It used to be from 3% to 15%, I think, but it looks like it’s a flat rate now of 10%. And then you got 2. 9%, you got to add from Stripe, so you’re looking almost at 13%, a lot better than the 30% that YouTube wants. Very popular platform, provides a website, other tools. To me, it’s better than utilizing YouTube, but it’s still quite limiting, and they still, in my mind, quite a cut. When I was doing research into them about a year ago, I did a couple of shows about them. They haven’t got the greatest reputation when it comes to support and dealing with people that utilize the platform creators. I don’t know if that’s changed. I don’t know what you know about that. What was your thoughts on Patreon?
[00:09:56.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I tried to use it a couple of years ago. I thought, Well, let’s Let’s try this. Let’s see if we can generate this as some other vertical of revenue in the grand scheme of things. The interface, from a creator standpoint, is a no frills interface as far as I’m concerned. There was no design template offers. There was no frills. And you’re paying, in my mind, you’re paying a pretty penny to be there depending on what you charge for memberships and stuff like that. And I think Correct me if I’m wrong, Jonathan, but the 2. 9% to Stripe, Stripe still has the 39 or 35 cents per transaction fee, right? On top of the 2. 9?
[00:10:40.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, sorry. Could you say that again? Sorry.
[00:10:42.180] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think Stripe still has… They have the 2. 9%, but they also have the 35 cent per transaction. Yes. And so what I saw a lot of people do with Patreon is try to say, Oh, for a $2 membership or whatever, because they’re just trying to grow a list through it, like a list building tool, but that decimates margins in your revenue. If you’re dealing with low dollar amounts and you’re paying 2. 9 % plus $0. 35 for every transaction, if those transactions are small on a percentage basis, you’re over 10% of your money there, and then you’re giving away another 10% to Patreon. It’s not a great business model. And the Patreon system, the Patreon platform, doesn’t really set up for premium creators. There’s not going to be people in there succeeding with a 50, 75, or $100 a month subscription. A lot of the subscriptions in there are very low dollar.
[00:11:40.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think that’s well put. That’s probably why a lot of people are looking at YouTube membership, because if you’re looking at those lower amount subscriptions, I think probably YouTube, but then you’re giving 30 %. Where it’s a lot better. Patron, there’s always a balance between flexibility and ease of use, and patron have gone the route of ease of use. It’s very basic, isn’t it? But it’s very easy to set up and get utilizing it and get it running, isn’t it? It’s all right. They’ve religiously kept to that, haven’t they? They haven’t.
[00:12:26.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
It seems very simple. Yes.
[00:12:28.260] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes. No frills. No frills, kept it simple. What’s your remarks about when I last did research that their customer support hasn’t got a fantastic reputation?
[00:12:43.360] – Kurt von Ahnen
I didn’t have to personally use any support because I was able to find enough documentation to get done what I wanted. I drive back to the idea that there wasn’t a lot to play with in there. There were no design alternatives. There were no themes to import. There was It was nothing. I mean, you got in there and you were like, it’s either an open channel or it’s a closed channel. I’m going to add these videos. I’m going to put in a couple of comments, and I’m going to put the rate that I’m going to charge for my subscription in, and that was it. There was really no need for support, but I didn’t really grow the channel either, Jonathan. Maybe if there was a need for support on billing or access or something like that, I didn’t have that experience.
[00:13:27.320] – Jonathan Denwood
I do have community elements like live and other community building elements, don’t they?
[00:13:35.160] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think they have the live chat feature. Never had to use it.
[00:13:38.500] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m going to move. I put WordPress after. I think we should leave that to last, actually, in the second half. Let’s move on to the next one in the list, Kajabi. Totally different animal, really. They kept the kit starter at 89. It’s not crippled or nothing, but it has got some severe restrictions on how many admin you can have and how many products you have. The next one up, they put the price up, basically, they put that up to 179. For years, it was 149. Really, the only thing, a lot of the influences around building membership, they seem to be really highlighting community elements. I’m not sure with every plan, you’ve got the base, the ability to build a community. A lot of the influencers I’ve been watching have been really pushing circle. A bit. Or Fluent Community, I’ve seen it being mentioned more as well. But a lot of people on the SaaS side are pushing circle because they’re really pushing community. And Mighty Networks isn’t fantastic. I know Kajabi bought a company and they have integrated community elements into their base product. But it’s a totally different animal to Patreon and to YouTube members’ membership, isn’t it?
[00:15:20.480] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s a total different animal, isn’t it?
[00:15:23.540] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it is and it isn’t. On the one hand, we’re talking about you’re going to create You’re going to become a content creator and create a membership out of that content. Youtube is, I hate to say the perfect extension. I mean, if it wasn’t so pricey, but it is. It’s like the perfect extension from your content to the membership. And so when you look at things like Patreon, Kajabi or some other tools we’re going to talk about, it’s almost like you’re trying to filter away from that effort that you’ve launched in YouTube to build that. Kajabi, I think, is missing an opportunity in their marketing, Jonathan. And that is, I think they’re getting big enough where they really could start pushing their own directory of top creators and stuff like that, like YouTube does for their top creators. Like school. Like school, yeah. Because Kajabi, two years ago, you had me on a show talking about Kajabi, and I wasn’t thrilled. I had a client that was in Kajabi. I couldn’t figure out the back-end. It was clumsy. There was no alignment between what was in the back-end and what I saw on the front-end.
[00:16:30.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I’m here to tell you, I looked at it a couple of months ago after they’ve done some refreshing on the platform, and it’s much easier to use. It’s more direct for a creator to implement. And so I think a lot of the negatives are gone, and they have enough usership now that I think they’re missing an opportunity. They could be leveraging their existing user base to promote within the way YouTube promotes within. And I think they would grow more of a revenue base for their members, which would help them promote new memberships.
[00:17:04.080] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but I think you’re spot on. They must be looking at it, I would imagine. I’d be very surprised if they don’t bring that out, actually, or they might choose not to, but I would have thought this marketplace type of feature. It’s not exactly a marketplace. It’s a front-end. There’s a way to use Kajabi as more than just a course platform.
[00:17:33.450] – Kurt von Ahnen
So that’s what we’re talking about, right? We’ve talked about online courses before, but today we’re talking about membership, community, about gathering people together. Kajabi Kajabi has a way to almost use it like its own TV station, like a series of shows. You can differentiate things, courses versus themed pieces, skits, whatever. And you could really build it into separate channels within your Kajabi account the same way you would with playlists on YouTube.
[00:18:04.640] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. I think it’s a good place for us to have our middle break. We’ve got some other platforms to give you some insights on. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. Coming back, folks. I’d like to point out that if you want to support the show, why don’t you leave us a review? Basically, if you’re listening on Spotify, on iTunes, on your phone, it’s dead easy to leave a review. Just do it because it really means that the show will be shown to new people, and both me and Kirk would be very appreciative. So just leave a quick review and take a screenshot and send it to us, and then we’ll read it out. So let’s go on, Kirk. On to the next one, Podio. Yeah, I like Podio. The problem is their mover, which is $39 month to month, all the prices that we’re going to give you, folks, they’re all month to month. They charge a 5% transaction fee on top of the 2. 9. The Shaker, they don’t. It’s their next plan up, 89. I just think it’s the in between. I find Podio to be between Patreon and Kajabi because I think for a lot of people, Kajabi can be quite…
[00:19:37.680] – Jonathan Denwood
I know it’s improved, but it’s offering so much functionality. And Patreon’s very bear I think Podio is that middle ground. What do you think?
[00:19:50.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, what’s interesting about Podia is you can broadcast emails to your memberships directly from that account. You don’t need separate CRM and automation tool to attach like you would with Patreon.
[00:20:04.160] – Jonathan Denwood
You do need Podio email, though, don’t you? Which is extra. For 2,500 emails, it’s around $20 a month extra. So it makes it $109 a month.
[00:20:18.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
But it’s in one interface and it makes sense, right? So that, to me, is a benefit. I see Podia being… I I know you like Podia, Jonathan, and I see it as a training source, training tool, but I don’t believe it has the gumption, the traction to be a content membership, building my video channel thing in it. I understand that Kajabi and Podia are very similar, but I just think Kajabi has more chops for what we’re talking about today than Podia.
[00:20:57.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you’re right. It just really It depends what you’re looking for and where you’re coming from. There is no right and wrong here. It just isn’t. It’s case by case. I think I forgot. Kajabi, you still have to use a third-party email sending platform. It integrates with all the leading ones, but you got to use a third party. Is that correct?
[00:21:20.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
Correct.
[00:21:21.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I forgot about that. On to the next one. Hopefully, I’m pronouncing it correctly. Uniscreen. Uscreen. Uscreen, yeah. Starts at 149, but where people look at it, really, is the essential plan, which is 449. But unlike Circle or Mighty Network, where the lower plans, you can get an app for Android and iOS, but it will have all their marketing all over it. At the 449 level, it’s white-labeled. You can get a white-labeled app. Obviously, it will have restrictions on functionality, and I would imagine if it is offered, it’s quite expensive to get customized development done on a unit screen, but I don’t know, I’m surmising this. But for a basic app, 449 is good value if you can white label it and have it all your branding all over it. But apart from that, that particular case use, I don’t really see why you would use it instead of Kajabi or Podio, really. If you don’t just want to use YouTube memberships, you’d probably just go to Kajabi, wouldn’t you? I think they offer app right now on the higher plans, don’t they?
[00:23:02.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, this whole thing has my brain in a circle because when I studied their pricing page, I really thought to myself, this is quite a bad deal. If you look at this from the perspective of like, I could potentially go down the YouTube membership lane and have my video content and do all that because that’s what we’re comparing to, right? And we’re saying, well, that’s expensive. They’re taking a big cut, so you might not want to do that. And then this is $450 a month plus a dollar, well, not a dollar, 99 cents for every subscriber that you have. And so if I have 100 subscribers, I’m at 549 a month. If I have a thousand subscribers, I’m at 1,500 bucks a month. And you get 100 hours of video storage. And just think about this show, right? We’re on episode what? 150 something?
[00:24:02.140] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, 142.
[00:24:03.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
They’re like 45 minutes a piece. We’re already over the limit. You wouldn’t be able to keep all of your shows videos in your account if you were on this platform. And then it says it gives you an hour of free live streaming every month. Well, we stream, I personally stream probably four, four and a half hours a week. And I know that you stream quite a bit yourself, Jonathan. So when I look at the creators that I talk to and the people I deal with in my agency space, what they’re offering as benefits of the platform all fall well below the requirement that my customers need.
[00:24:44.980] – Jonathan Denwood
When I was looking at it, apart from the essential plan, if you’re really looking for a white-labeled app, it doesn’t make sense to me compared to the competition.
[00:24:56.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think there would have to be an awful lot of curation moderation, moderation, and maintenance on this to keep the bandwidth and the storage and the numbers within their guidelines.
[00:25:09.440] – Jonathan Denwood
They’ve been around a while. I presume they found some niche or they’re well-funded because they’ve been around. They have been around a while, haven’t they?
[00:25:18.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, and they do sell you extra storage packs for extra videos or whatnot, but they sell them in 100-hour packs. My personal YouTube YouTube channel, I think, has something like 700 hours of video on it. I know that your WP Tonic has well over 1,500 hours on it.
[00:25:40.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. On to something that’s really different. They don’t charge anything, and that’s Discord on the basic plan. They have got a paid plan. It’s really aimed at the Discord, was it? Netro, Netro? Netro? Netro? Netro? Netro? Netro. Yeah, it’s like their roots are in the live gaming market it, isn’t it? But they are utilized as a forum, as a community place. But I put it on because they’re part of a lot of conversations. A lot of people are utilizing them for… I don’t particularly like it myself. What’s your thoughts about it? I thought it’s a bit… It doesn’t really wonder why I’ve added it to the list, but it does seem to turn up a lot in threads and discussions.
[00:26:50.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think it’s a great addition, and it’s worth talking about in the show, Jonathan. Anyone under the age of 30 seems to love Discord. I think you and I are just north of 30 a little bit, just a smidge.
[00:27:02.880] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, you are.
[00:27:03.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m well above it. And maybe that’s our obstacle here. But I can’t tell you how many times someone says, Oh, let me send you my Discord server, and blah, blah. And as soon as they start talking, it’s like when people wanted to boycott X when it was sold and they said, I’m going to go to Mastodon. I’m going to start a Mastodon server. It’s the same. To me, it’s like this weird outlier concept That’s the concept.
[00:27:30.520] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re making a great point there, aren’t you? It’s the twin ugly child of totally opposite to what YouTube membership, really easy lack of fiction. This seems to have a lot of fiction, but it’s very popular because it’s free. A lot of it’s free, isn’t it?
[00:27:49.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
And young people love it. I can’t figure out why, Jonathan, because I’m not in that space. But I work with a lot of college-age students with some other projects that I’m in. And these kids, they all have their own channels, they all run their own groups, they all have their own conversations. When we have discussions about decentralized social media and you talk about things like local Socles or Mastodon or Slack is one of the tools that some of them use, Discord, always bubbles to the top of these conversations. These younger people love this platform, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out because it’s not easy. It’s not plug and play to me, but they love it.
[00:28:37.000] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s not too difficult. It’s just the terminology, and I think the main thing that drives it is seeing a lot of people are really into gaming. I don’t think you’re into gaming because I’m not. If you’re not into gaming, live team gaming, that’s its roots. A lot of people, not only young people, all sorts of age groups are really into gaming. That’s why I think it doesn’t do too much for us because we’re not in that scene.
[00:29:12.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
There’s also a sense of, and I am not horribly educated in this space, I’m just saying a sense of, I’m not saying it’s true. When I speak to these young folks that use Discord, that use it vibrantly, they refer to these topics like my server, my channel, Oh my. There’s this sense of pride and ownership, like what we would hope people would experience in the WordPress world when we say, Well, with WordPress, you get ownership.
[00:29:39.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Can you run it on your own server or is it just fully hosted by them?
[00:29:44.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
I thought you could run it on your own server. Again, I’m not the expert in this.
[00:29:49.510] – Jonathan Denwood
I was in the bank. I haven’t checked that. On to the next thing, which you can run on your own server or you can utilize there. I did send you some revised notes through Slack, and that’s Ghost. Because Ghost was started by somebody who has really had a lot of contributions in the WordPress space, and he just left the community and he started Ghost. They’ve got a hosted version, and you can host it on your own server as well. It’s got a lot of elements of WordPress, and they’re really marketing to the creator, and the prices start at $15, the next one at $29. I think you got to have the $29 a month version to take membership, but it’s got a lot… It’s built its own… Well, it’s a growing business, and they really push to the creator influencer market, don’t they? What’s your thoughts on Ghost?
[00:30:58.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
I actually I got suckered in. You know how sometimes people that are in the space will say something and I go, Hey, I should probably check that out. Robert DeVore got super vocal about Ghost back when he was really amped up about the WordPress and WP engine stuff. And he said, I’m going to disappear and I’m going to build in Ghost. And it was making these posts and these comments about Ghost. And so I went in and I tried to check it out. And I’ll be honest with you, Jonathan, I spent just a smidge time in there and I thought, there’s just too much. It seemed like too much work to set something up and not enough features to make me want to stay. I’m sure it’s going to grow and be awesome over time, but it was- I think you just got to go with the self that they’re hosted.
[00:31:47.660] – Jonathan Denwood
I think you go with the hosted. You can run it on your own server, but I don’t think you would want to, really. I think it’s the publisher at 29, it’s not outrageously. And then you got just the two point… I don’t think they charge any transaction fees. You just got the 2. 9 from Stripe. But they’ve definitely found a niche. I think they found a niche amongst influencer tech writers and influencers that just don’t like WordPress, but like open source. But I say that the main product is their hosted version. On to something that I wasn’t going to put on the list, but I think it has a sub stack because it’s become a real… A month, a certain type of… It’s a writer, blogger, a commercial writer, blogger. It’s a marketplace. It’s a bit… They suggest other writers, and you can suggest other writers on your Substack page. They do podcasting, they do RSS feed. You can do live video on it now. I think you can do membership as well to some degree. You can set your own prices. You get a lot more control. It’s not open source. It’s a company, but I think they’ve made voices that they’re not going to sell, and you have to take that for whatever it is.
[00:33:25.140] – Jonathan Denwood
The pricing, I’ve got it here. I need to get it in my site. Of 5. 50 a year, you can charge more. Average around 10 a month. Subtakes 10% revenue share, payment processes, Stripe, the 2. 9 or 30 cents. They’re taking 10% sub stack. But you’ve got this, if you’re in a certain genre like tech, science fiction, or you’re talking about WordPress, or you’re talking about AI, if the Substack creator likes what they’re doing, they can… I think They can also get a cut, can’t they? So it’s become very popular, hasn’t it?
[00:34:21.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I don’t know if… I’m pretty sure you know Aneel Gupta from Multidots? He has a wonderful Substack channel. And it sends out… He sends out mass emails, he updates things, he’s recommended other authors in the space. And Substack, to me, as a community, it’s almost the opposite of what I described in the Patreon market. It’s attracted what seems to be high level, smart, great thought content. It just seems like the stuff that you get to out of Substack. It’s been attractive to people that are high quality creators. And I don’t know that, I don’t think you have to apply to get it, right? But I’m just saying what the platform has attracted. It’s attracted some really great top-notch content. But when I drive through it, like as the possibility of using it for me, it again, I drive back to that Patreon example. Like, yeah, it’s got some features, but it seems It’s pretty plain, right? It seems like a lot of control over appearance and feel and taste and things like that.
[00:35:37.680] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, because you like writing, you’re a good writer. I see it as a natural platform if you didn’t want to use Kajabi or WordPress. I actually think a lot of people, if you’re not, and I advise you, I just got to be honest with you, if you’re listening to this, folks, I would advise you not to use YouTube membership. I understand it’s totally frictionless. It’s so tempting, and it’s not around the 30%, it’s just ownership that worries me about it. Would I use Patreon? If I was looking at something like Page… A lot of people do go to Patreon because I think they’re influenced by other YouTubers and past posts. I would go to Substack. If I was looking at Patreon or Substack, I would go to Substack myself.
[00:36:35.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
Out of the ones that we’ve listed, and I’m thinking from a content creation standpoint and gaining an audience, I lean towards Substack as well. It’s so hard because YouTube, when we talk about building an audience, building a list, gaining viewership, YouTube seems like the obvious, and it’s really hard to compete. You could still host your videos on YouTube. You can still do that. But we’re talking about curating this list of people.
[00:37:03.340] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re talking about getting- That’s the main problem, isn’t it? Because you don’t get the list with YouTube. You got to get your list. It’s natural with Substack. To some degree, it’s natural with Patreon, you get access to the list. But because it’s a newsletter platform with podcasting, live video, they’re adding these other features. It is barebone, but they’re adding these other features. It’s a natural If you’re a good writer, you like making video, but you’re also a good writer, I think Substack’s the natural because it’s a natural for building your list, isn’t it?
[00:37:39.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I want to be super transparent with the listeners and viewers on this. I’m a WordPress agency. I’m an agency, but I focus a lot on WordPress. It would make sense that I would write my content, publish my blogs, do my things in my WordPress environment. But I drive back to this idea that you need to get the viewership. And for me, it’s like that viewership serves as the net that brings people back to my website. The website very rarely becomes the net. I’m not anybody famous enough where people are going to be so attracted to search Manana No Mas and go find my content. I have to lure them to my site with content. That’s why I’m talking about these other platforms.
[00:38:26.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Finally, WordPress. Wordpress Got to be honest, it’s probably the platform that has the most fiction, but you get the most control. You get the most control over your business. You get the most control over your intellectual property. Second one, probably Substack. Third, it’s a toss between Kajabi. Kirek likes Kajabi, Morning Podio. I like Podio, Morning Kajabi. It’s a toss up. It just depends where you’re coming from. But if you’re looking for the maximum control of your business, especially using some of the Fluent products, which we love, Fluent Community, and you can combine it with Lifter LMS. It’s got a very bare-bone membership, but you can use it with Lifter or LearnDash. It works with Cadence and Generate Press, ASTRA. It works well with all the leading page builders.
[00:39:41.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
That’s about the 30% out of your wallet.
[00:39:44.340] – Jonathan Denwood
No. You got access to Fluent CRM, Fluent support, Fluent Boards, and he did his launch for Fluent Cups, didn’t he? Yeah. Jim and his very large team, I’m talking about Jules, the owner of the Fluent family, got a very large and talented team behind him. It is more friction, but if you’re with a good host and you choose the right plugins, it isn’t, in my opinion, as long as you don’t get sidetracked and load every plugin that comes on your radar, and you’ve got one or two voices guiding you, influencing you, and you listen. I don’t think it’s that difficult. You just need some decent hosting and stick with the fluent and stick with either Ashto or Cadence. I think you can be up and running pretty quick, and you got all that ownership benefit. What do you think?
[00:41:00.180] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, and you didn’t even touch on the thing that people seem to hit us up the most on, and that is freedom of design, freedom of user experience, freedom of… So you really have a lot. We talked about Patreon for sure, Substack, not having a lot of liberty with design or look or feel. And with WordPress, you’re able to build what you want. And with the right host, like with WP Tonic’s hosting package and being able to pick from that curated list of plugins, you can build that and then you get it ready to go. It’s already built and set up. I mean, if someone goes through WP Tonic, it’s ready to go. Load in your content, put in your pricing, advertise your site, make some money.
[00:41:43.980] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I don’t think we could Do you think we could do anything more to make it easier to get your business up and running on WordPress, what we do at WP Tonic. No, I don’t think so. I don’t think we could do anything more. I’m going to start the ending and then we wrap it up. I think I wouldn’t recommend that you do membership through YouTube, just for the reasons I stated. If you’re just looking for the easiest way of doing it, not using them, I probably would say, and you’re light writing and you’re doing podcasting and you’re doing live streams, I would suggest you use Substack rather than Patreon. Then if you’re looking for more sophisticated marketing and you don’t want to use WordPress, I’ll go Kajabi. You’re probably right. If you’re going to go to the Substack, it probably diminishes the attractiveness of Podia because you can do most of everything on Substack. If you want something better, you’re probably looking at Kajabi. But if you can put up with a little bit more friction, depending on what host you go, WP, there won’t be any You’re better off going WordPress because it gives you the most ownership.
[00:43:08.300] – Jonathan Denwood
But I can’t deny Substack. It has its attractions as well. It’s a cocker. I was wondering where I was going to go. It’s either Substack or WordPress, really. What do you reckon?
[00:43:26.160] – Kurt von Ahnen
It all comes down to use case and what you want to do. Do you Are you working on it? Do you have staff that’s working on it? It depends on your enterprise and how that lays out for you. I personally believe that owning the site and controlling the design and user experience trumps the offer Substack provides. And I’m not even talking about the 10% fee, because 10% is not that big of a deal. I mean, unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands of dollars of stuff. But even without considering the 10 %, the experience tells me I would want to go the WordPress way. I want more control over how things look and feel, and what the user experience really is for my people coming.
[00:44:14.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that is the only problem with Patreon and Substack. It’s very limited. It’s not yours. It’s the truth. But of those two, I think Substack has a lot more going for it than Patreon, in my opinion now. Would you agree with that?
[00:44:35.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think so. Yeah. Patreon, I’m a former user. I wasn’t thrilled to be on the platform, and I wasn’t super proud to send people to it. It didn’t have anything there.
[00:44:51.380] – Jonathan Denwood
I hope you found this useful. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and maybe book a consultation?
[00:45:00.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
For business, Mañana No Más. We’ve got a Book Us link right at the top of the page. You can select that and select an appointment. If you want to connect on LinkedIn, I’m the only Kurt Von Annen, so when you find me, you know you’ve got me.
[00:45:12.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and if you’re looking for the best WordPress host that gets you up and running — and your business—within 14 days. Go and have a look at WP Tonic. Kirk helps us out there. Got a great team, and we offer the best hosting package if you’re looking to build a membership community online. I can say that in all honesty. We will be back next week with another great show. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
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