Decision Tool
Platform Migration ROI Calculator
Thinking about moving your paid community from Patreon to Substack, Beehiiv, or Ghost? The fee difference looks obvious — but member churn through the transition erases some of it. This calculator shows your monthly take-home on both sides, the cost of expected churn, and how long until the fee savings actually pay off.
Once you've modeled the move, stack all your revenue streams in the Multi-Platform P&L Simulator to see full after-tax take-home across every platform.
Your audience
0.85 = 85% retention. Platform migrations typically see 5–20% churn.
Current platform
8% platform fee. Most common tier; full feature set.
Target platform
0% transaction fee. $39/mo flat. Best for 1,000+ paid subs.
Migration result
$269/mo loss after migration
Migration costs more than it saves at these numbers. Check fee inputs or consider a higher retention rate.
The math
Methodology
How the migration calculator works
Platform migrations look straightforward — lower fee percentage means more money. But three things complicate the math: fixed monthly platform costs, Stripe processing on top of platform fees, and member churn through the transition.
- 01
Enter your audience and revenue
Paying member count and average monthly subscription price together determine your gross monthly revenue. The calculator uses this to model take-home on both platforms before any fee or churn adjustment.
- 02
Select current and target platforms
Presets fill in the platform’s take rate and fixed monthly cost. Both can be overridden. Stripe payment processing (~2.9%) is added on top of the platform fee for both sides.
- 03
Set expected member retention
Not all members follow you to a new platform. The default 85% assumes a well-communicated migration. Adjust based on how deeply your audience is engaged and how much friction the new signup process involves.
- 04
Read the monthly and annual delta
The calculator shows net monthly take-home before and after migration, the monthly gain or loss, and — if the migration is net positive — how many months until cumulative fee savings offset the revenue lost to churn.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- What's the typical member loss when migrating platforms?
Most creator migrations see 5–20% member churn through the transition. The low end (5%) is achievable with strong audience communication — announcing the move well in advance, explaining why, and making migration simple. The high end (20%+) happens when migrations are sudden, poorly communicated, or require members to create a new account and re-enter payment info. The default 15% in the calculator is a reasonable midpoint. Your own audience loyalty and how you execute the migration will matter more than any benchmark.
- Why does Beehiiv look so much better than Substack in the calculator?
At scale, Beehiiv's flat-fee model ($39/month Scale plan with 0% transaction fee) beats Substack's 10% take for any creator earning more than ~$400/month in subscription revenue. At $2,000/month gross, Substack takes $200 and Beehiiv takes $39 — a $161/month difference. At $5,000/month gross, the difference is $461/month ($5,522/year). The comparison reverses at very small scale: below ~400 paying members at $5/month, Substack's zero fixed cost is better than Beehiiv's $39/month.
- How is Stripe payment processing handled?
The calculator adds a 2.9% Stripe processing fee on top of each platform's stated fee rate. This applies to both the current and target platforms, since all listed platforms use Stripe or a Stripe-equivalent under the hood. Patreon's stated fees (5–12%) are on top of a separate 2.9% + $0.35 Stripe-like processing fee on most transactions. Ghost and Beehiiv pass Stripe fees directly to creators at ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
- What about email send costs on Beehiiv or Ghost?
Not modeled — email send costs are typically small for mid-size lists (under $50/month for 10k subscribers on most platforms) and vary by list size and send frequency. The fixed monthly cost input covers the platform subscription tier. If you're at large scale (100k+ subscribers), check Beehiiv's overage pricing and Ghost Pro's higher tiers before assuming the default $39/mo applies.
- Should I migrate from Patreon to Substack just for the newsletter features?
Not purely based on the newsletter feature — the fee math usually argues against Substack vs. Patreon Pro at any meaningful scale ($1,000+/month), since both charge 8–10% platform fee and both add Stripe on top. The legitimate reasons to migrate to Substack are distribution (Substack's built-in discovery and recommendation network can grow your paid subs) and editorial workflow (Substack's writing and email tools are better than Patreon's). The migration ROI calculation alone doesn't capture those upsides.