why I'm leaving kofi 

I hope my experience can help you in your own journey! btw I’m still working on setting up my Patreon/Discord (February has become an unexpectedly busy month) but it is DEFINITELY coming soon💖 thank you all so much for the support!

The content guidelines on KOFI are very strict, which is something that people will need to watch if they want to use that platform. I have spicier content, so I can not sell, link, or promote that part of my work on Kofi. Even accepting money for spicy coms that you don't show can get your account suspended. Just something for people to keep in mind.

My biggest issue with Ko-Fi is it’s not international friendly. I live in Jamaica and neither of Ko-Fi’s payout options (PayPal and Stripe) work in my country. I know it’s probably not as simple as “just support international artists!” but does seriously suck because it meant I had to give up being a career artist seeing as I would have to cut myself off from a worldwide audience. Yes, there are work arounds but they cost a lot to use and as a small artists without a steady income it just didn’t make sense

I didn’t know full time artists relied so much on their audience for support… I’m definitely supporting more artists from now on ;w;

All i saw was why i was leaving and i got so scared 😂

i completly understand your decision! Also, it's AMAZING seeing you grow as an Artist!!

I've wanted to sell art for a while now, but have been too intimidated to start. I'm not even sure if anyone would want to buy my art. But Kofi might be a good start. Even if you switch later on, it seems good for starting.

Wow that sounds very chaotic hopefully you were able to figure everything out. The digital painting of Saul is so beautiful I love the way you drew the grass and the wings very fluffy looking makes me wish that is was the summer time. Im so sick of the snow. I'm still not sure where I'd like to make a Shop for my art yet but I'll figure that stuff once I've graduated. I'm very grateful for the tips that you have shared they have really helped me with my art. As always keep up the AMAZING art and hope that you have a fabulous rest of your February. Can't wait for more amazing drawings and videos from such an amazing artist and person. ☺️

Your art makes my heart flutter please never stop that, this drawing in the bg was so bright and so full, like, boom. Hard to focus on listening but I got the idea, GROW STRONG!

Your art is ridiculously insane. In a good way. It hasn't been that long since I found your channel, but now I look forward to your videos ever since I did. Such an inspiration 🥰

Thank you so much for this info! I recently launched my sticker shop on ko-fi for the exact reasons you mentioned - it is very easy to create item listings and set up a store that is secure and looks good- BUT - it is also a little clumsy. The one thing that really gets me confused is that there are no order numbers or linear identifiers for your orders - only dates and names. The receipts are also not downloadable or even viewable on single lines, so it makes fulfilling orders hard to decipher when there are variations, and collecting data for record keeping is also really difficult. I think I am going to keep going with it for a while as I am so small right now it is all manageable, but this is such helpful food for thought! Thanks again, your artwork is wonderful and thank so much for the help and insight!

So happy for you that your audience has expanded and that your business is growing! Totally understand why you are leaving Kofi! Do whatever makes your job easiest! We all want you to be able to keep creating!❤ Beautiful art as always by the way! 😍

5:50 ty for making it clear that this job isn't possible to achieve for many people. It is a dream job and I'm sure many young aspiring artists still hang on to that dream but are not capable of making it reality due to multiple factors like financial status, time, acceptance from family members etc. I think being a full artist is easier AND harder with social media nowadays. Either you were lucky enough to be blessed by the algorithm or not. Can't advertise your stuff far enough if only a handful of people can see it.

I’ve been debating what to use for my sticker club, so I appreciate the insight dude!!

I completely understand why you left Kofi! Thank you for making this video. I want to eventually start my own shop and sticker club, so this information is very valuable. Thanks Shay!! :D

I hadn't actually heard of kofi until you started yours, thanks for sharing more information about it, it's all really interesting 🥰

Thank you so much for making a dedicated video about this with so much info of the pros and cons and your experience with ko-fi, it's super helpful for folks like me trying to decide on platforms to use for monetization! Also I love the art you were working on in the video, I love when the sunsets paints everything pink and you portayed it so well , the soft glow of the wings is so beautiful yet relaxing or how should I say this!

I feel this video so much! Initially I thought Ko-Fi would be improved in quick iterations and sticked to it despite the inconveniences, but their platform being so versatile means that they have a loooot of features to work on and they're often not the ones you need :')

This video was so so helpful

I’m so glad you’re growing!! Can’t wait to see the new shop!!

I never understood why people would get onto creators for sharing their issues. Yes these may be nitpicks, etc, but you are trying to run a business. There is and should be no shame in making changes to the way you do this for better time management. The less time needed for the grunt work and behind-the-scenes tasks, the more time granted to do what it is you wanted to be doing in the first place. There has to be a balance or you risk burnout eventually. So, in short, I support this change and took it as no slight to Kofi.

Consider that in Patreon content leaking is super easy, there is a TON of leaking and Patreon is doing NOTHING about it.

I haven't heard of KoFi before but thank you so much for all the insight on it! I'm working on starting up merchandise soon so this will definitely be something to look into. Also! I generally love your vibes so much you're honestly my go to channel to watch when I'm drawing. Thank you for the videos

Hey thanks for this super useful feedback ! And nice work on the cowboy Angel 😊

I have debated about getting a Kofi for commissions when I first heard about the platform. I only decided against it when I heard about what happened to Duchess Celestia with her Kofi account (TL;DR, someone hacked into her account and stole $700, she never got notified about it nor was there a Two-Factor Authentication from what I could remember, and both Kofi and Paypal kept giving her the runaround about whose fault it is/what to do about it.) However, with creators like you and PartyCoffin, I've been debating about making a Kofi shop (I didn't know shops were a thing til I found you) and doing stuff like you did - a lil sticker/print shop for myself! I'll have to listen to your reasons again and think about it, since this stuff isn't as easy as people think.

Hey that's me! I'm actually still not entirely sure of what I wanna do for my store, but I think this cleared things up a little so thank you! I really want to work on upgrading my store, but shopify (starting out) is so hard to keep up with especially if you aren't making the income to pay for it every single month. I'm not entirely sure still since everything takes a percentage off orders.... Ahhh this is such a hard decision haha. Hoping to grow this year! Thank you again Shay for the vid!

the background speedpaint is gorgeous oh my god

Thank you for this honest review of the platform! I think it's very natural to develop and change your processes as your business grows and sometimes that also means you're outgrowing certain modes of operation. But what's great, it's that there are platforms for people in different stages of their business -- and I do hope that Kofi will stay as easy and 'barebones' as it has been for beginners. Personally, and things staying same, I'm still going to go with Kofi when I get to that point. I'm not expecting much business/transactions so I appreciate easy to use and affordable over more customisation and bells and whistles. I've been building websites for 25+ years so I'm fine with making my own static site and implementing the simplest way to sell. If for some reason my business exploded, I'd consider a more integrated, full-service platform like Squarespace -- but for it to be worthwhile to me, my revenue (and volume) would need to be substantial. Maybe, if I'm in a position to offer memberships, I'll start a Patreon as well. Or maybe look at other options out there. When/if I get to that point.

After the video i do understand your decision quite well. I am a hobbyist artist slowly reaching out to more professional work mindset. I am already self-employed so i can use my company and experience on this new journey. My current platforms where I share art are instagram and my LinkedIn. I also have an Shopify shop which is currently running as handmade craft shop. I also do event selling anyway so will start to bring some prints and other art stuff. Next project is to go ArtStation After that no idea yet 😅

Its awesome you outgrew ko-fi! congrats ! I hope to outgrow it someday too

this is a really neat look into your experience & thoughts on kofi!! very understandable how it wasn't working for you. i'm glad they seem to be pretty receptive to feedback!

I clicked on this thinking "ko-fi" was a spin-off from the lo-fi genre of music, thought I was about to go down a rabbit hole

That does sound like a lot, but im glad you're comfortable enough to make this decision! It's interesting to hear your perspective on the store and how your mind works when creating and managing everything like blog posts vs image posts

I will probably use kofi soon lol. Probably because i am a beginner artist on the internet and will definitely make some small commissions

If i understood correctly, you won't have the sticker membership open for international customers, which does make me a little sad bc i would love to be part of the sticker club! too bad the shipping would be higher...

as someone who is starting out in taking comms and getting a monthly 300-600dollar icome ratio i can not relate to the "suffering from sucsess burden" quite yet. But i do have friends who are full time artists with like 200 K followers on twitter or whatever and they always complain about it i get it though, its like this with any job rly, even if you love doing art and all of that stuff i had this in my first year of UNI where we were only really drawing for class, i couldnt do anything but draw for class and not really for myself wich had a serious toll on me and led to me hating art for the entire summer after youre doing amazing!

What other platforms would you recommend to start a shop instead of ko-fi?

i truly love your content, i never get tired of it !

Frankly, I dropped Ko-fi as soon as I saw an artist on Twitter (can’t remember their name at the moment, oof) explain how they had $2,000+ stolen from them because the website has crappy security measures; and the Ko-fi staff did absolutely jack in helping her get the money back.

I've been considering shifting over from Etsy to Ko-fi but this video helped me understand better that with a larger scale shop, Ko-fi would not be the platform for me. I do think using Ko-fi for digital items is definitely worth it at least, as well as donations. Would definitely be interested in hearing how your experience with taking commissions through Ko-fi fares, as well as how creating and running a online shop with square space . Thanks for such an informative video

This was really insightful, thank you! I plan to sell my art in the future so this was so helpful

wow... $1000 a month seems like a dream to me 🥴

Thanks for informing! I planned on using this site. 😅

Have you thought about getting a cricut machine?? I think it would make things a LOT easier for you with your stickers! That way you don't have to cut them all by hand.

I came to understand what kofi is and I stayed for the nice relaxing voice lol

Incredibly helpful video, Thankyou so much

It’s very easy to use for people with learning disabilities and people who get easily overwhelmed Really easy for me, however I rarely get commissions. Right now I redoing some of my listings cause before I feel like I rushed through all of them without putting in much thought. There’s like 2 listings right now But I’m struggling on advertising my shop, any suggestions based on your experience?

So inspiring to hear that you've been able to grow and succeed as an artist!! ✨ As a small artist/creator, i've been thinking of trying something like Ko-Fi. So its good to hear that it can be beneficial for small creators.

"The numbers scared me." Relate, haha.

You’re very hardworking, so inspirational! :D

This video is great and really well thought out! I'm glad to have heard the pitfalls of using ko-fi, as despite having one, I'm still getting used to it. However, the last part about them being receptive to feedback rings very hollow. I'm sure they listen to people with thousands of followers on various socials, but the average user can't expect the same treatment. We aren't going to be equal in their eyes, which isn't an attack on Shay here, it's being a realist regarding how corporations work. That's literally the only criticism I have of this video, otherwise it's wonderful and very informative!

A couple of things I would like from KoFi. Collections and discounts for collections. Printify integration. Have a bulk options (open, close, apply discount etc). Better Newsletter email list support (a zero tier for new letters)

I made a ko-fi literally last night and this is just wahat i need 😭

so.. what will y'all consider to use? I thought I wanna use Kofi at the first place.. now this persuade me

Yeah, I just don't trust Ko-fi for what they did to Duchess Celestia where they basically got hacked, and Ko-fi never notified them and was just like "Are you SURE you got hacked? Or did you just FORGET you changed your PayPal?" and just was eventually like "Ok, here's the money you lost, shut the fuck up," smh, basically just shit security and the way they handled the situation was just gross so I just don't like Ko-fi for that tbh

This video is very helpful, even if I'm a minor and still can't really sell things like my art for actual money, I'm looking for any kind of way I could try to do so in the future when I get the opportunity, and I'm probably gonna try kofi out. :)

I have recently stated on Kofi , it's good for stating , I have saved this video for later 😅

oh wow I met you! thats unexpected! you were at awesomecon last year! i hope you'll be there this year! this is my first year of trying to become a fulltime artist!

Can someone plz tell me why they leaving kofi? I watched the video but english isn me first language so it was difficult from hear and understand without the English subs ;_;

What a great concise over view, thank you so much.😂

As an artist wanting to grow my Ko-fi, this is such a great insight!! It's so telling how they were open to, and actually implemented change from your feedback! As a more 3-D artist (crochet), I think my orders would naturally be slower anyway. Thanks so much for a great video!

Thank you for the informative video. I am a hobby artist, but so far, I have been painting only for myself. I do keep getting requests for prints and commissions, so I am thinking of doing it on a small scale as a side thing. From what I gathered from this video, it seems kofi would be a suitable platform for it. Do you have any advice by chance as far as prints go? I was thinking about using the services of prints on demand sites because I live in a country which is just too expensive for shipping and production if I did it myself.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA LEAVE I GOT SO SCARED😭😭😭

PRO TIP: If you use postybirb you can create posts with longer text, however you won't be able to edit them later if you do a typo.

For the address issues, did you ever try putting addresses through USPS address lookup? It might not be practical for the volume of orders you take, but I work at a bank and we use that to make sure we input an address correctly. Sometimes people don’t realize they’ve been writing their address wrong. It might be helpful!

I understand where you coming from, and why you're moving to a different platform. But I feel like Ko-fi leans more towards digital products, and not so much the physical ones, as much as they want it to! I hope it all goes well with Patreon. :)

i hate the strict rules about nsfw content, i usually draw nsfw stuff from just plain nudity to ~spicy~ and no matter how tame it is they take it down. so i can only post small updates and sketches on there. which makes my use for it kinda useless. so idk if anyone has better alternatives for nsfw artist to post pls tell me!

a little unrelated but how long did the illustration in the video take you? i am obsessed with the rendering and colors and just want to get a grasp on how long it takes other artists! thank you and awesome informative video :D

I clicked to find out what's Kofi, and I was kinda right. A facy way to spell coffee ☕😅

657 Kallie Highway

You probably want to use a black square to cover sensitive information. Blurring or using photoshop warp tools aren’t really effective anymore, as there are not only AI tools but people can easily undo a lot of those effects manually.

thank you for the insight!!!! this is really helpful as someone whos trying to get into selling and stuff of that ilk.... can i ask what brushes youre using in the speedpaint or where i could find them ???!

I personally tried to give Patreon and such a go, but thinking maybe like Patreon just forget using Ko fi or Subscribe star.

suffering from success dj khaled era; i don't think you need to apologize for wanting to optimize your workflow as much as possible. it's extremely important and switching to squarespace just makes the most sense for you. like you said, those extra 5-10 minutes for each task, trully does add up and can quickly become an hour of time gone from your workflow in an instant. also, the speed sketch here is freaking amazing. i think it might be my favorite one yet! saul with wings is something i didnt know i needed untill now

♡

A lot of people tend to forget that being an "online content creator" is proprieting your own business. Companies that publish designs have things like public relations, legal reperesentation, human resources, you literally have to do all of that yourself.

Ah shoot, halfway through the video and I just realized that this basically only applies to successful kofi users 😅 I barely make a 100 a year and school has been horrible to us here recently, so I barely get to grow my kofi and other art accounts But congrats to ya

I'm really confused... I want to sell my art and the only place I can sell is Ko-fi because the payment options on other websites aren't valid in my country. (Or maybe they are, but I missed it.) As a beginner would it be easier for me or should I look into other sites? I hope you can help me with this 🥺❤

can you make a kofi tutorial on how to use this site; I don't know exactly what to put on there that doesn't overlap with patreon since I'm making both.

A bit offtopic but can you let me know what printer you use to print your stickers please?

But Patreon takes 12% compared to 0% Kofi... Thats alot the bigger you grow. I'm leaning towards digital only so I dont think I will have many problems you mentioned. Wait... Hold on a sec. lol I checked your profile, youre back with Kofi again after 5 months?

What drawing apps do you use??:3

Hey can any of you Kind Artists recommend me a Digital Paying Website that won’t make me Receive Fees or Bills so I can pay People for my Future Animation Projects.

Can i use Ko-fi just as a payment transfering site without linking my page and post there . I draw nsfw so

I'm not familiar with patreon. Will your shop still be available even if you aren't a member on there?

Hi! I started using ko-fi because I really liked the idea of one off donations, instead having to subscribe BUT I started adding some things to the shop, and i realized taxes is a thing. Idk if you have any experience charging sales tax on kofi, but I was wondering if you had any insight. It seems like I would have to go in and set one for every state individually.

Tbh I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make the changes you were looking for. Being a small business platform is great but if they're losing the artists that are actually making money? They're going to want to fix that.

Do you think your KoFi experience helped prepare you for switching to Patreon? Or do you think you would have similar success by starting with Patreon in the first place?

You're cool

omg my name is shae too lol

Is It in Sri Lanka

At 2:33 you say "When I started using Platform..." What is that? Is that a product printing business of some sort? You say you started selling stickers.

stop yapping so much and get to the point

I've had such a hard time finding a job and I've had to rely on art and it's not working out, I'm told my work is good but nothing sells and I'm selling dirt cheap.

ive had beef after beef with kofi. its not nsfw artist friendly at all, and even if you dont have anything in your page thats nsfw, a link to a nsfw page triggers the guidelines, a link to a linktree that has a link to something nsfw also triggers the guidelines. so yeah, i didnt want a third strike to hit a third page i would attempt to create and risk loosing my paypal for it, so i moved to buymeacoffee. its much moer chill there.

Hi there! Was just scrolling thru and found your video, I really appreciate your insights on ko-fi's pros and cons! I absolutely agree on how easy-to-understand it is as well as the nitpicks. I've been offering memberships on kofi for 2 years now and over time I found it frustrating to work on in its interface to provide the same kind of stuff you pointed out- blogs and gallery NEEDING to be separate and no real way to tag artwork. I do believe they have a great vision when it comes to assisting creatives (and I will still use them for dono's assistance!), it's just a hassle when wanting to keep organization smoother. Anyway, more power to you and thanks so much for the video! 😄

Having to quit a platform because you're too successful so it becomes too small of a place for you 💅 Can't relate

i never even got success from it XD but imma watch this video anyway!