5% of every payment
Buy Me a Coffee keeps 5% of every transaction, tips and monthly support alike. On a $5 tip that is $0.25, before Stripe's $0.45.
The free Buy Me a Coffee alternative
Take tips without Buy Me a Coffee's 5% fee
Payly's tip jar takes no fee on tips, one-time or monthly. People tip with PayPal or a card, straight into your own PayPal or Stripe account, which charges its standard processing fee.
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Payly and Buy Me a Coffee at a glance
0%
No fee on tips
Buy Me a Coffee takes 5% of every transaction. Payly takes nothing from tips, monthly tips or memberships, and has no monthly fee.
$4.55
Kept from a $5 tip
By card, a creator keeps $4.55 on Payly and $4.30 on Buy Me a Coffee, after Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30. On a $10 tip it is $9.41 and $8.91.
PayPal
Tips by PayPal or card
Buy Me a Coffee's help pages list cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Cash App, and do not list PayPal. A Payly tip jar takes PayPal or a card, whichever you connect.
Why creators move from Buy Me a Coffee
Buy Me a Coffee has no monthly fee and plenty of extras, and the main difference is what it takes from each payment.
Extra fees in the fine print
Its fee article also lists 0.5% for payout processing, 0.5% on subscription payments and 1% on payments from outside the US. It does not say who pays them. Payly adds no fee of its own.
Monthly tips with no cut
A Payly monthly tip is a PayPal or Stripe subscription on your own account, with no platform fee. On Buy Me a Coffee, monthly support pays the 5% too.
Where Buy Me a Coffee does more
Buy Me a Coffee adds a shop, posts, stream alerts for OBS, Streamlabs and StreamElements, widgets, and followers who hear about public posts. Payly's tip jar pages do not list those. Both have a setting that lets supporters cover the card fee.
What you actually pay
A $5 tip, a $10 tip and 100 monthly supporters at $5 a month, with every payment made by card.
| Cost | Payly$0/mo | Buy Me a Coffee5% fee, $0/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | $0 | $0 |
| Platform fee | None | 5% of every payment |
| Card processing (Stripe) | 2.9% + $0.30 a payment | 2.9% + $0.30 a payment |
| A $5 tip: total fees | $0.45, you keep $4.55 | $0.70, you keep $4.30 |
| A $10 tip: total fees | $0.59, you keep $9.41 | $1.09, you keep $8.91 |
| 100 monthly supporters at $5 a month: total fees | $45.00, you keep $455.00 | $70.00, you keep $430.00 |
Every payment is a US card payment through Stripe, which both platforms take, and each fee is rounded to the cent per payment. Buy Me a Coffee's 5% and Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 come out of the creator's earnings by default. On Payly, Stripe's fee is charged to your own Stripe account. The 100 supporters can be monthly tips on a tip jar or members on a creator page; the fees are the same. Buy Me a Coffee's fee article also lists 0.5% for payout processing, 0.5% on subscription payments and 1% outside the US, without saying who pays. If the creator pays the first two, the amounts kept would be $4.28, $8.87 and $425.36. PayPal, which Buy Me a Coffee's help pages do not list, costs 3.49% + $0.49 on Payly, so a $5 tip paid that way leaves $4.34. Not counted: sales tax, refunds, currency conversion, payments from outside the US, instant payouts, and Cloudflare or domain costs. Stripe also lists a separate fee for recurring billing, which is not counted. Buy Me a Coffee pricing as published November 2026.
What you get
- Tip amounts to pick from, and an amount people type
- One-time and monthly tips
- A name and a message with each tip, if people want
- A link to share anywhere, and a QR code to download and print
- Your photo, colors and font
- A receipt by email for every tip
- Every tip in your dashboard, and a CSV download
- A robot check to keep out spam
How a tip jar works in Payly
You set the amounts. PayPal or Stripe collects each tip.
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Create a tip jar
In Your sites, click New and choose Tip jar. Start from a template or from scratch.
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Set the amounts
Choose the tips people can pick, let them type their own, and decide whether they can tip every month.
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Connect PayPal or Stripe, then publish
Your tip jar runs on your own free Cloudflare account. Share its link, or print its QR code.
Honest answers
Is Payly really free?
Yes. There is no monthly fee, no transaction fee and no paid tier. PayPal and Stripe charge their standard processing fees, as they would on any platform. How can this possibly be free?
What does Buy Me a Coffee charge?
A 5% platform fee on every transaction, plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 on each payment. Both come out of the creator's earnings by default, and a supporter can choose to pay a little extra to cover the card fee. Its fee article also lists 0.5% for payout processing, 0.5% on subscription payments and 1% on payments from outside the US, and does not say who pays them. There is no monthly fee.
Is Payly cheaper than Buy Me a Coffee?
Yes, on every card tip: the processing fee is the same, so you keep the 5% Buy Me a Coffee would take. Payly also takes PayPal, which Buy Me a Coffee does not list. PayPal's fee is higher than a card's ($0.66 against $0.45 on a $5 tip), and a $5 PayPal tip still leaves you $4.34, against $4.30 for a card tip on Buy Me a Coffee.
What does Buy Me a Coffee do that Payly does not?
Quite a lot around the tip. Buy Me a Coffee has a shop, memberships with free trials and member caps, and posts with audio clips and polls. It also has direct and broadcast messages, video thank-you messages, stream alerts for OBS, Streamlabs and StreamElements, and buttons and widgets. Payly's tip jar is a tip page with a link and a QR code, and its pages do not list a shop, direct messages, stream alerts or widgets. Memberships are a separate Payly product, Creator memberships, with levels, members-only posts, polls and comments.
How do I move from Buy Me a Coffee?
Payly has no importer for tip jars, so moving means making a new one. Set up a tip jar: choose a template, set your amounts, connect PayPal or Stripe and publish. Then put the new link in your bio, or print the new QR code. Supporters who tip monthly on Buy Me a Coffee would need to start a new monthly tip, because Payly cannot move their payments. Nothing changes on your Buy Me a Coffee page until you change it.
Is there a catch?
PayPal and Stripe charge their standard processing fees. Your tip jar runs on your own free Cloudflare account. Its free plan holds up to 100 tip jars and forms, fewer if it also holds stores, and its $5 a month plan holds up to 500, paid to Cloudflare. Stripe allows a tip only for something you have already provided, so word your tip jar as thanks. Payly's templates do. What the free plan covers
Thinking about another platform?
Keep more of what people tip you
Your tip jar, your payment account, your supporters. The only thing you pay is normal PayPal and Stripe processing fees.
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