What Aren’t You Allowed to Do on Ko-Fi And Patreon?

Ko-Fi and Patreon are great platforms for content creators. It’s easy to sign up, and your fans can pay you for the things you make – videos, articles, podcasts, books, video games, etc.

Now, both platforms have their pros and cons – Ko-Fi is better for people who want to do commissioned work and don’t want to pay fees (other than the PayPal/Stripe processing fee). On the other hand, Patreon is better for content creators who earn a lot of money, want multiple integrations with other tools, and don’t mind letting the site take a cut of their earnings. If you want to learn more about the two services, GamerGirl compares the two sites in this comprehensive guide.

But here’s one thing many articles don’t address – what’s against the rules on these platforms? What aren’t you allowed to do on Ko-Fi and Patreon according to their TOS?

Well, we’re going to take a quick look at that in this short article.

What Aren’t You Allowed to Do on Patreon?

The first big no-no: you can’t post anything that infringes on other people’s intellectual property rights. You need to come up with original things. So you can’t just copy a video off of YouTube and edit your watermark on it.

What’s more, it’s against the rules to pretend you’re someone else. That means you can’t use their name, brand, or works to attract donations.

Besides that, Patreon doesn’t allow you to get paid for not doing certain things. They give a pretty funny example – you can’t say you’ll stop tweeting videos of you playing the harmonica if people send you $200.

Also, bullying and threats aren’t allowed on Patreon (like on any other site). Hate speech and doxxing isn’t allowed either.

Regarding nudity, it is allowed on Patreon, but you need to flag it appropriately as adult content. It’s also against the rules to use Patreon to fund pornography.

Finally, Patreon has the following restrictions:

• Politicians can’t use the platform to fund their campaigns.
• People can’t use Patreon to promote illegal activities.
• People affiliated with dangerous groups (like terrorist organizations) aren’t allowed to use Patreon.

What Aren’t You Allowed to Do on Ko-Fi?

First of all, you need to adhere to all of PayPal and Stripe’s guidelines. Ko-Fi uses them for payment processing. If you break their rules, you won’t be able to use Ko-Fi.

Like Patreon, Ko-Fi also bans hate speech, funding illegal activities (human trafficking, holding someone hostage, etc.), copyright infringement, tax avoidance, violent and gory content, and more.

Asking people to pay a fee to enter a giveaway or raffle is also against the rules. And Ko-Fi can’t be used to fund pornography or sexual services like prostitution and adult live chat shows. While you can tag your page as NSFW, that doesn’t mean you can upload adult material that goes against Ko-Fi’s guidelines.

Did We Miss Anything?

If we forgot to cover anything important, please let us know in the comments. We’d also love to hear about your experience with Ko-Fi and Patreon – how it went, what you liked, what you disliked, and more.