In short
- Patreon: 10% for pages published after August 4, 2025, plus 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment. Legacy rates of 5%, 8% or 11% are lost for good if the page is ever unpublished.
- SubscribeStar: 10% on the adult site, plus processing from 3% + $0.30 to 10% + $0.40, which the creator can pass to subscribers.
- Japanese platforms: FANBOX 12.9% on R-18 pages, Fantia 12.5% in drawn categories, Ci-en 13% on R-18 plans, with no separate processing fee published.
- Commissions: Skeb 6.8% to 9.8%, pixiv Requests 10%.
Rates move: FANBOX and Fantia both raised theirs in 2025, so each figure here comes from the platform's own pricing or help pages. For how each model brings money in, see how comic platforms pay creators; the other guides in our creator section go platform by platform.
Creator platform fees side by side
| Platform | Platform fee | Processing | Payout fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patreon | 10% (pages published after 2025-08-04); legacy 5%, 8% or 11%; one-time purchases 5% to 12% by plan | 2.9% + $0.30 (cards, Apple Pay, US PayPal and Venmo); 3.9% + $0.30 non-US PayPal; 3.4% + EUR 0.35 or GBP 0.35; 2.5% currency conversion; Apple keeps 30% of iOS in-app purchases | US direct deposit $0.25; Payoneer bank $0.25 + 1.55% conversion; PayPal 1% (min $0.25, max $20); Payoneer wallet $1.00 |
| SubscribeStar (adult) | 10% (the SFW site shows 5%) | 3% + $0.30 to 10% + $0.40; creator decides who pays | Depends on method, shown after the request; possible 10% rolling reserve for 30 business days |
| pixivFANBOX | 12.9% R-18, 10% all-ages | None published for creators | Bank 200 JPY (under 30,000 JPY) or 300 JPY; PayPal free |
| Fantia | 12.5% drawn and other non-live-action; 17.5% live action; 30% lottery and meet goods | Buyer pays 8% on goods, commissions, tips and back numbers; none on drawn plans | 330 JPY per claim; overseas remittance fee deducted |
| Ci-en | Plans 13% R-18, 10% all-ages; crowdfunding 15% or 10%; one-off articles 15% | None published for creators | Ci-en pays domestic transfers; overseas PayPal fees on the creator |
| Skeb | 9.8%, 8.3% or 6.8% per request; boosts up to 13.6% | Included; clients pay nothing extra | 458 JPY bank, 254 JPY Kyash; 880 JPY on a failed transfer |
| pixiv Requests | 10% | None published for creators | Bank 200 or 300 JPY; PayPal free, conversion applies |
| itch.io | Creator chooses; default 10% | About $0.30 + 2.9% (PayPal) | Not published |
| Affect3D | 40% (Regular, Featured) or 30% (Exclusive) | Not published | Not published |
Gumroad, Ko-fi and GlobalComix publish fees too, but none of them accepts explicit comics. They appear further down for artists with safe-for-work lines next to their adult work.
The conditions behind the headline rates
Patreon legacy rates end when a page is unpublished
Patreon moved every page published after August 4, 2025 to a single 10% plan. Older pages keep their legacy plan: Founders at 5% for pages from before May 7, 2019, Pro at 8% and Pro + Merch at 11%. The condition is that the page never goes offline. If a creator unpublishes it, or Patreon unpublishes it for any reason
, the page comes back on the 10% plan. For an adult creator that clause has teeth: a suspension that ends in reinstatement can still cost a Founders page five points for good.
One-time purchases carry their own fee, Between 5% and 12% ... depending on your platform plan
. Patreon says creators who started selling digital products before 2025-05-22 may be on a 5% one-time purchase fee. A fan paying in a different currency adds a 2.5% conversion fee. Anything bought through the iOS app goes through Apple, which keeps 30%, and those funds stay pending for up to 75 days; Patreon charges no processing fee on them. Apple set 2026-11-01 as the deadline for all Patreon creators to move to subscription billing in the iOS app, so fans who join from an iPhone are the expensive ones.
FANBOX charges R-18 pages 12.9%
pixivFANBOX takes 12.9% of pledges when a page is set to post R-18 content and 10% when it is all-ages. The higher rate started on 2025-09-01; the notice of 2025-06-09 said requests from card companies and payment processors had raised review costs for R-18 content every year. FANBOX rounds fractions down, and the rate follows the page's setting at the moment of each pledge, so switching mid-month splits the month. Since 2025-08-25, going back from R-18 to all-ages takes a request to support, after the R-18 posts have been made private.
Fantia's 12.5% and the buyer fee
Fantia raised its creator fee from 10% to 12.5% in non-live-action categories (illustration, manga, 3D, animation, games, audio, novels) for sales from 2025-12-01; live action went from 15% to 17.5%. Separately, since 2025-07-03, the buyer pays an 8% service fee on goods, commissions, tips and back numbers. Plans in drawn categories carry no buyer fee, so a 1,000 JPY illustration plan costs the fan 1,000 JPY and leaves the creator 875 JPY before the 330 JPY claim fee.
Ci-en's 13% and the 15% buckets
Ci-en sorts income into three buckets. Monthly plans, which include back numbers, add-ons, tips and gift tickets, pay 13% on R-18 and 10% on all-ages. Crowdfunding pays 15% or 10%. One-off articles pay 15% either way. Ci-en covers the domestic bank fee itself.
Skeb's two discounts
Skeb's request fee is up to 9.8%. It drops to 8.3% if the creator meets one of two conditions and to 6.8% with both: requests open in that genre for the past 30 days, and the Skeb URL in the linked X profile (the second does not count for requests under 5,000 JPY). Boosts, money a client adds after delivery, carry up to 13.6%.
What is left of a $1,000 month
The examples below use the published percentages and fixed fees only. Where a fee is charged per payment, the example states how many payments make up the $1,000, because a $0.30 charge on 200 small pledges costs twice what it costs on 100 larger ones. The Japanese platforms bill in yen; the percentages are the same, and the yen fees are shown as published.
| Platform and setup | Platform fee | Processing | Left before payout fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patreon, new page, 100 US card payments of $10 | $100 | $29 + $30 = $59 | $841 |
| Patreon, new page, 200 US card payments of $5 | $100 | $29 + $60 = $89 | $811 |
| SubscribeStar, 100 payments of $10, lowest processing | $100 | $30 + $30 = $60 | $840 |
| SubscribeStar, 100 payments of $10, highest processing | $100 | $100 + $40 = $140 | $760 |
| SubscribeStar, subscribers pay processing | $100 | Paid by fans | $900 |
| pixivFANBOX, R-18 page | $129 | None published | $871 |
| pixivFANBOX, all-ages page | $100 | None published | $900 |
| Fantia, drawn-category plans | $125 | None on drawn plans | $875 |
| Ci-en, R-18 plans | $130 | None published | $870 |
| Ci-en, one-off articles | $150 | None published | $850 |
| Skeb commissions, full fee | $98 | Included | $902 |
| Skeb commissions, both discounts | $68 | Included | $932 |
| pixiv Requests | $100 | None published | $900 |
| itch.io, 100 sales of $10, default share | $100 | $29 + $30 = $59 | $841 |
| Affect3D, Regular or Featured vendor | $400 | Not published | $600 |
| Affect3D, Exclusive vendor | $300 | Not published | $700 |
Payout fees come next. On the Patreon example with $841 left, a PayPal payout costs 1%, about $8.41, while a US direct deposit costs $0.25. FANBOX sends the same month to a Japanese bank for 300 JPY (the balance is above 30,000 JPY) or to PayPal for nothing. Fantia charges 330 JPY per claim. Skeb charges 458 JPY per bank withdrawal, so an artist who withdraws after every commission pays it every time; Skeb also offers a monthly withdrawal.
Two lines on the table look cheap and come with limits. The Japanese platforms show no processing fee, but they pay out only to a Japanese bank account or PayPal (FANBOX, Ci-en), only to permanent overseas residents with 50,000 JPY in sales (Fantia), or only into Japan (Skeb). SubscribeStar may hold back 10% of collected funds, at least $35, for 30 business days as a rolling reserve, which changes when the money arrives without changing the fee. The payout methods guide covers those limits.
Fees on platforms that do not take explicit comics
Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 per direct sale plus 2.9% + $0.30 card processing; 100 sales of $10 would leave $791. Sales found through its Discover marketplace pay a flat 30%, and once a creator passes $20,000 in a calendar month new direct sales pay 5% + $0.50. Gumroad lists Adult comics with nudity or sexual acts
as not allowed, so these numbers apply to an artist's safe-for-work books only.
Ko-fi takes 0% on one-off tips on its free plan and 5% on everything else, with processor fees of around 3% + $0.30
on top. GlobalComix keeps 25% to 35% of its Gold subscription revenue and pays the rest to creators by pages read. Both ban sexually explicit work.
Adult pages pay more on the same platform
Three platforms charge the same creator more for adult work. FANBOX takes 2.9 points more from R-18 pages, Ci-en 3 points more on R-18 plans and 5 more on R-18 crowdfunding, and SubscribeStar's adult site shows double the service fee of its SFW sister site. FANBOX is the one that put a reason in writing, and the reason was the card companies. The content rules page follows that thread through each platform's policy.
Whether those points matter depends on the setup. An artist with 100 fans at $10 loses $29 a month to FANBOX's R-18 rate compared with an all-ages page, and nothing to Fantia's, which charges drawn work the same whatever its rating. A Patreon creator on a legacy plan has more to lose from a suspension than from any rate change. Recurring income against per-book sales is weighed on subscriptions vs pay per chapter for creators.
FAQ
How much does Patreon take from creators in 2026?
10% of income for pages published after August 4, 2025, plus processing (2.9% + $0.30 for a US card payment), a 2.5% conversion fee when a fan pays in another currency, payout fees and taxes. Older pages may keep 5%, 8% or 11% as long as they are never unpublished.
Why is the FANBOX fee 12.9% for R-18 creators?
FANBOX raised the R-18 rate from 10% to 12.9% on 2025-09-01. Its notice said requests from card companies and payment processors had raised the cost of reviewing R-18 content every year. All-ages pages still pay 10%.
Do I lose Patreon legacy pricing if my page is suspended?
If the page is unpublished, by you or by Patreon for any reason, it returns on the standard 10% plan when republished. Patreon's fee page states this for all legacy plans.
What percentage does Skeb take from artists?
Up to 9.8% of each request, 8.3% with one of its two conditions met and 6.8% with both, and up to 13.6% of a boost. Clients pay no extra fee, and withdrawals cost 458 JPY to a bank or 254 JPY to Kyash.
Which platform has the lowest fee for adult comic subscriptions?
Patreon's new-page rate and SubscribeStar's adult rate are both 10%, the lowest platform fee among subscription sites that allow explicit drawn work, but both add processing. SubscribeStar lets the creator pass processing to subscribers, which leaves $900 of a $1,000 month before payout fees.