COMPARE · COMMUNITY.IO VS WHOP
Whop has the cheapest rails. That's not the product.
Whop's 0% + 2.7% + 30¢ is the industry rate floor — we don't claim to beat it. What premium educators get here instead: the engagement engine, real course tools, and curation instead of marketplace adjacency.
Verified against live pricing pages · July 7, 2026
The feature ledger
Verified against live pricing pages · July 7, 2026
| Feature | community.io | Whop |
|---|---|---|
| Honest all-in fees (processing included) | All-in MoR: 4.9% / 2.9% flat / 2.4%, + 30¢ — nothing stacks | 0% + 2.7% + 30¢ — the rate floor; we don't claim to beat it |
| Engagement engine (points, levels, leaderboards) | Skool-grade gamification: points, levels, leaderboards, level-gated content | Marketplace traffic; thin community engagement |
| Course tools (quizzes, certificates, drip, progress) | Built in on every tier — a classroom, not a video list | Marketplace-first — weak for premium educators |
| Member tiers & gated spaces | Tiers + gated spaces in one community, one price | Multiple products per store |
| Branding & white-label | Custom domain on Pro; full white-label + branded app on Scale ($199) | whop.com marketplace framing |
| Data export & lock-in | Full export — posts, courses, members, history. No exit penalty. | Payment data portable; content export minimal |
The fee math, all-in
Total monthly cost — fees + subscription. Computed, not quoted.
| Platform | Growing — $10k/mo · $50 avg | At scale — $100k/mo · $50 avg |
|---|---|---|
| Whop$0 + 2.7% + 30¢ processing (0% platform take) | $330/mo | $3,300/mo |
| community.io Free$0 + 4.9% + 30¢ all-in | $550/mo | $5,500/mo |
| community.io Pro$49 + 2.9% + 30¢ all-in — flat, no $900 cliff | $399/mo | $3,549/mo |
| Switching to community.io Provs Whop’s cheapest setup at each point | −$828/yr — Whop’s rails cost less; we don’t claim otherwise | −$2,988/yr — Whop’s rails cost less; we don’t claim otherwise |
Where Whop wins
Both columns of the ledger — strengths first.
Their column
- Cheapest rails in the category: 0% platform take + 2.7% + 30¢ processing
- App-store extensibility
- Large consumer marketplace with built-in demand
What it costs you
- Get-rich-quick marketplace adjacency repels premium brands
- Fund-hold complaints from sellers
- Weak course/LMS tooling for premium educators
pricing source: whop.com↗ · Verified against live pricing pages · July 7, 2026
Run the numbers at your revenue.
The same math behind every table on this page — every formula published at /fees.