▲ ▼ Self-hosted Patreon alternative

posted by Abishek Muthian Ideator , 689 days ago permalink , show insights

Patreon is the de-facto solution for collecting recurring donation payments, When compared to solutions which charge commissions by transactions ( /problems/313 ) they charge a percentage over monthly revenue according to the plan.

At the time where anyone could create a payment workflow easily, Patreon still seems to be holding relevance due to its membership-communication and tier based features.

But Patreon has several shortcomings,

Stripe option only available for U.S. residents.

Different projects require separate accounts.

Tax collection support is limited to select countries.

Lack of configurable tax-invoice/receipt support.

Patreon commission/month + Payment gateway commission/transaction is expensive for small-time creators.

I think a self-hosted patreon alternative can address these issues, Are you looking for a Patreon alternative?

WHO NEEDS THIS

▲ ▼ Abishek Muthian Ideator , 454 days ago permalink

Folks, I am creating Open Payment Host - https://openpaymenthost.com to address the need-gaps in the payments host space.

It's self-hosted, Minimalist, FOSS(MIT) and Dockerized.

No code version is coming soon.

reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT
HOW MANY WILL PAY FOR THIS
▲ ▼ TheBlapse , 497 days ago permalink

There is ghost! Which does a similar job https://ghost.org/

reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT
HOW MANY WILL PAY FOR THIS
▲ ▼ Abishek Muthian Ideator , 454 days ago permalink

But Ghost is not straight forward to setup, Especially for a non-technical person. I think they have no incentive to make is easily self hostable as they sell hosting services with it.

Btw, I have create openpaymenthost.com to address this; Read my other comment for more details.

reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT
HOW MANY WILL PAY FOR THIS
▲ ▼ silten , 655 days ago permalink

I really like this idea, just to clarify - is it your intention to create open source code that can be (with a little bit of devops knowledge) hosted on the server or you choice just to help creators? If it is the case, the idea is wonderful (although I am not sure about how many creators actually have the knowledge to self host such a code on platforms like heroku or aws).

If it's not the case, I must ask - do you have some source of revenue for this product in mind? I have a few ideas but it's not easy in this case

reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT
HOW MANY WILL PAY FOR THIS
▲ ▼ Abishek Muthian Ideator , 654 days ago permalink
Those are pertinent questions.

In fact I researched about those since I posted this problem and have come to some conclusions,
1. Open-source alternatives for Patreon [1] [2] have done poorly and have been abandoned; I think its largely because those who use Patreon are non-technical users and they weren't looking for a self-hosted alternative.
2. Patreon has become synonymous with donations due to YouTubers, That even those who are capable of self-hosting (or) creating their own payment host is choosing to use Patreon instead for its brand.
That said, The problems I mentioned and bad reviews of Patreon on trustpilot suggest that there could a need-gap for an alternative. Perhaps, Another Patreon is what could address that instead of a self-hosted one.

I'm planning on building an on-premise payment host as an alternative for Gumroad instead - /problems/399 , As I think it could address problems with Gumroad better.
reply I WILL PAY FOR THAT
HOW MANY WILL PAY FOR THIS