5 Best LaunchPass Alternatives for Paid Discord and Telegram (2026)

Quick picks

Each of these gates a paid community automatically, and each beats LaunchPass on at least one thing that matters. Here's the short version by use case:

• Lowest published fees, no monthly plan, plus courses and chat: Whop.
• US owner who wants members to pay inside Discord: Discord Server Subscriptions.
• Telegram-first group that wants one flat monthly price: InviteMember.
• Creator who also publishes posts, video or podcasts: Patreon.
• WordPress site or newsletter with Discord roles: Memberful.

We list Whop first because it had the lowest cost in our $5,000-a-month example under its published fee schedule, and because LaunchPass card subscriptions can move to it with their renewal dates intact. We earn a commission from Whop and nothing from the other platforms on this list.

What each option costs on $5,000 a month

On the same 100 members paying $50 a month, total monthly cost ranges from $190 on Whop to $770 on Discord Server Subscriptions. LaunchPass sits in the middle at $379.

Prices as of October 2026, from each company's public pricing and help pages. Sources at the end of this page.

Assumptions: US cards, monthly billing, desktop or web purchases for Discord, no add-ons, payout fees, taxes or currency conversion, rounded to whole dollars. The 3% Whop scenario reflects a line on Whop's Discord and Telegram app listings that its fee page doesn't include; we couldn't confirm which applies. Stripe-based tools may also pay Stripe Billing (0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go) on subscriptions, which none of these vendors include in their own examples. Run your own numbers in the Whop fee calculator. This page explains published fees. It isn't financial or tax advice.

Why creators look for LaunchPass alternatives

Most people searching for a LaunchPass alternative are reacting to cost or to its narrow scope. These are the recurring reasons, each traceable to LaunchPass's own pages or public reviews:

• The fee stack. Premium is $29 a month plus 3.5% on every payment, and Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 comes on top. LaunchPass's own example shows a $50 payment netting $46.50.
• Access only. LaunchPass gates Discord, Telegram and Slack, but has no course hosting or file downloads of its own; its WordPress add-on is sold through a demo with no public price.
• Stripe only. There's no PayPal, and you need a Stripe account in a country Stripe supports.
• Member-side billing complaints. LaunchPass's Trustpilot page (3.5 out of 5 from 56 reviews on October 2, 2026) is mostly members, several of whom describe unexpected renewals or trouble cancelling. That's anecdotal, but those complaints tend to land on the creator as refund requests.
• Confusing edge cases. LaunchPass's cancellation article says new signups after a downgrade to the free plan are charged 12.5%, while the same article says the free plan can't accept new payments.

How we chose these alternatives

We looked for tools that hand out and remove Discord or Telegram access automatically when people pay or stop paying, and that publish their prices. We then compared them on five things:

1. Total cost on $5,000 a month, using identical assumptions for every platform.
2. Which chat platforms each one covers (Discord, Telegram, Slack).
3. Who holds the money and how fast it pays out.
4. How hard it is to move existing LaunchPass subscribers, given that they live in your own Stripe account.
5. What else you can sell on the same membership.

Everything here comes from each company's pricing pages and help centers, checked October 3, 2026. We didn't run paid communities on these platforms for this page, so there are no hands-on test results or timings.

1. Whop: best for low fees plus courses and chat

Whop is a marketplace and payments platform where a product can include a Discord role, Telegram access, courses, chat and files. It has no monthly plan; you pay per payment.

Pricing as of October 2026: $0 a month, 2.7% + $0.30 per domestic card payment and 0.5% on subscription billing, which comes to $190 on our $5,000 example. Whop's fee page lists no Discord or Telegram fee, but the app store listings for its Discord and Telegram apps say adding either app brings a 3% fee on that product's payments, which would make it $340. Read the full Whop vs LaunchPass comparison for the side-by-side, or how Whop's fees break down.

Where it beats LaunchPass:

• Lower cost at every revenue level we checked, with no monthly plan.
• More to sell: courses, files, events and Whop's own Chat and Forums on the same membership.
• Members can pay with PayPal (3.49% + $0.49) or crypto (1.5%), and approved sellers can offer financing.
• Instant payouts in minutes for 4% + $1, or standard payouts in up to 5 business days.

Where it falls short:

• Payments run on Whop Payments, so you give up your own Stripe account, and Whop can hold part of a new or higher-risk account's balance in reserve (its docs give 10% for 90 days as an example).
• No Slack app, and every member has to create a Whop account and link Discord or Telegram to get access.
• The unresolved 3% app fee line.

Switching effort from LaunchPass: low for billing. LaunchPass subscriptions live in your Stripe, so Whop Migrations can move active card subscriptions of $1 or more with their renewal dates. Remove the LaunchPass bot before you migrate; our LaunchPass to Whop guide explains why and lays out the full order.

Choose it if you want the lowest published fees and might sell more than chat access later.

2. Discord Server Subscriptions: best for paying inside Discord

Discord Server Subscriptions is Discord's built-in paywall: you create one to three monthly tiers, and members subscribe without leaving Discord or adding a bot.

Pricing as of October 2026: no monthly fee. Discord's Monetization Terms list a 6% payment processing fee on desktop and browser purchases and a 10% platform fee calculated after processing fees, about 15.4% in total, or $770 on our example. On iOS and Google Play, the app-store fee (up to 30% on iOS) is added to the buyer's price rather than taken from yours. Discord's FAQ describes this as a 90/10 split before other fees.

Where it beats LaunchPass:

• No bot setup, role hierarchy or second account; members buy inside Discord.
• Discord assesses, collects and remits sales tax where local law requires it.
• Free trials of 1 day or 1 week per tier, with optional caps on how many trials are available.

Where it falls short:

• Only owners based in the US, with a US bank account and US ID, can turn it on, and the server must have Community enabled.
• Payouts are monthly: the first needs $100 in earnings, later ones $25, and Discord's terms allow up to 45 days after month end.
• Monthly tiers only, and Discord's Monetization Policy rules out some topics entirely, including gambling advice and discussion.

Switching effort from LaunchPass: high. Discord bills inside Discord, so nothing moves from your Stripe; every member subscribes again. Our Whop vs Discord breakdown covers the fees, payouts and eligibility rules in more depth.

Choose it if you're US-based, your members live in Discord, and convenience matters more to you than the extra fees.

3. InviteMember: best for a flat monthly price on Telegram

InviteMember is a membership bot and hosted page for paid Telegram channels and groups, and it now sells Discord roles too. Its homepage says it charges no transaction fees, just one flat monthly price.

Pricing as of October 2026: plans are set by your monthly sales, from Influencer at $19 a month (sales up to $500) through Innovator at $149 (up to $5,000), Pioneer at $269 (up to $10,000), Icon at $899 (up to $50,000) and Legend at $1,499 (unlimited). Annual billing gets two months free. Payments go through your own processors, so Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 applies on card payments, for $324 on our example.

Where it beats LaunchPass:

• Flat pricing: at $5,000 a month it costs less than LaunchPass's $29 plus 3.5%.
• More payment options through your own accounts, including PayPal and crypto through CoinPayments.
• CSV export of users, payments and subscriptions at any time.

Where it falls short:

• The plan price steps up with sales, so a good month can push you into a pricier tier.
• Its pricing FAQ says existing customers with recurring subscriptions can't be imported, and it also still describes transaction fees being withheld through Stripe, which conflicts with the homepage. Confirm the current terms before you sign up.
• No course hosting is listed on its site (October 2026).

Switching effort from LaunchPass: high for billing. Per InviteMember's FAQ, existing recurring subscribers have to start a new subscription, use an access code or be whitelisted.

Choose it if your community is mainly on Telegram and you'd rather pay a predictable monthly price than a percentage.

4. Patreon: best if you also publish content

Patreon is a membership platform for creators who post content to paying fans, with Discord role sync built in for paid tiers.

Pricing as of October 2026: no monthly fee. Pages launched after August 4, 2025 pay the Standard 10% platform fee, plus card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 for USD payouts, which comes to $675 on our example. Older pages may still be on legacy rates of 5% to 11%. Our Patreon fee breakdown covers currency, payout and Apple fees.

Where it beats LaunchPass:

• Fans already know and trust Patreon's checkout, and Patreon handles payments, fraud screening and disputes as the merchant.
• Posts, video hosting, chats and a digital shop sit alongside your Discord roles.
• No monthly plan to pay while you're small.

Where it falls short:

• After Discord's own subscriptions, the most expensive option in our example, and iOS in-app purchases stay pending for up to 75 days.
• You can't connect your own Stripe, and the Discord sync covers paid members only, with one Patreon campaign per server.
• Patreon's bot removes paid roles that you assign by hand to non-members, so free or comped access needs a separate role.

Switching effort from LaunchPass: high. Patreon processes every payment itself, so LaunchPass subscribers would join again on Patreon. The Whop vs Patreon comparison runs the same fee math for creators weighing those two.

Choose it if Discord is a perk on top of the content you publish, not the whole product.

5. Memberful: best for WordPress sites with Discord roles

Memberful adds paid memberships to your own website, with a deep WordPress plugin, member newsletters, private podcast feeds and a Discord integration.

Pricing as of October 2026: the Standard plan costs $49 a month plus a 4.9% transaction fee, and Stripe's fees come on top because Memberful runs on your own Stripe account. That's $469 on our example. You can test it free until you connect Stripe and go live.

Where it beats LaunchPass:

• Stays on your own Stripe account, like LaunchPass, while adding a member website, newsletters and podcasts.
• Its migration team can import active Stripe subscriptions without disrupting billing or renewals, so LaunchPass subscribers may not need to re-enter cards.
• Discord roles per plan, with an optional separate role for members on a trial.

Where it falls short:

• More expensive than LaunchPass at our example size once the $49 plan is included.
• Stripe only, so no PayPal.
• Courses need a separate WordPress LMS plugin.

Switching effort from LaunchPass: moderate. Memberful's docs ask you to book its migration team 3 to 5 business days ahead, recreate plans and coupons, give a read-only Stripe key, and turn off signups and dunning emails in the old system first.

Choose it if you run a WordPress site or a paid podcast and want Discord roles to follow those memberships.

Other Discord paywall bots

Smaller Discord-only bots also compete with LaunchPass on price. DoorFee, for example, lists a free plan with a 10% transaction fee and a $28-a-month Pro plan with a 2.5% fee on its homepage (October 2026). Its pricing section doesn't say whether Stripe's own processing fee is included, so ask before you compare it with the numbers above.

Should you leave LaunchPass at all?

Sometimes staying is the right call. LaunchPass covers Slack, which Whop, Discord Server Subscriptions and InviteMember don't, and it keeps every payment in your own Stripe account, which some creators value more than a lower fee.

The savings also depend on size. At $1,000 a month, moving from LaunchPass to Whop saves about $61 a month on published fees, or $31 if Whop's 3% app fee applies. For a small, quiet group, that may not justify asking every member to set up something new. At $10,000 a month the gap is $349 a month on published fees, which usually does.

How to move off LaunchPass

How hard the move is depends on where the subscriptions can go. They live in your own Stripe account, so Whop and Memberful can take them over with cards and renewal dates intact, while Discord, Patreon and InviteMember need members to subscribe again.

For Whop, the free migration tool creates your products and plans from the LaunchPass export, Whop Migrations moves the card subscriptions, and members link Discord or Telegram on Whop to get their role. If you're setting up the Discord side from scratch, the paid Discord server setup guide covers the bot and role screens step by step.