Whop vs LaunchPass: Which Is Better for a Paid Discord or Telegram?

Pricing and fees: what you actually pay

LaunchPass charges a monthly plan fee plus a percentage on top of Stripe; Whop charges only per payment. In the LaunchPass vs Whop math below, Whop comes out ahead by $29 plus 3.2% of your revenue each month under its published fees, or by $29 plus 0.2% if a 3% Discord app fee applies.

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

Worked examples at three revenue levels

These use a $50 monthly membership, US cards, monthly billing, and no add-ons, payout fees or currency conversion.

Prices as of October 2026. Sources at the end of this page.

Over a year, Whop saves $732, $4,188 and $19,548 at those three levels, or $372, $588 and $1,548 if the 3% fee applies.

The formulas, rounded to whole dollars:

• LaunchPass Premium = $29 + revenue × 6.4% (3.5% LaunchPass + 2.9% Stripe) + $0.30 × payments.
• Whop = revenue × 3.2% (2.7% processing + 0.5% subscription billing) + $0.30 × payments, plus 3% of revenue in the last column.

Why two Whop columns: Whop's fee page, checked October 3, 2026, lists no fee tied to Discord or Telegram, and the 3% charge on purchases with Discord, Telegram or TradingView automations that an archived December 2025 copy shows had dropped off it by February 2026. Whop's app store listings for its Discord and Telegram apps still carry a line saying the app brings a 3% fee on that product's payments. Until Whop's pages agree, plan with both numbers and read the fee lines on your first payout.

Costs outside the table, on each side:

• Whop: +1.5% on international cards and +1% for currency conversion, $2.50 per next-day ACH payout or 4% + $1 for instant payouts, $15 per dispute, $0.07 Radar and $0.03 3D Secure per transaction where they apply, and optional orchestration (0.8%) and tax service (2%).
• LaunchPass: Stripe's +1.5% international and +1% conversion surcharges, Stripe's own dispute fees, and Stripe Billing, which Stripe prices at 0.7% of billing volume on pay-as-you-go. LaunchPass's fee examples leave Billing out; if your Stripe invoices include it, add 0.7%.

Try your own member count and price in the fee calculator, or read how Whop's fees work line by line. This page explains published fees. It isn't financial or tax advice.

Discord and Telegram access

Both platforms run a bot that hands out access when someone pays and takes it away when they stop. Whop gives you more control over what happens at cancellation; LaunchPass is the only one of the two that also covers Slack.

LaunchPass's bot needs its role at the top of your server's role list with Administrator turned on. When a subscription is cancelled, it removes the member from the server by default, usually within a few minutes; the dontKickOnCancel command switches it to removing only the paid role. Failed payments get up to three retries, and LaunchPass says a member loses access about 5 to 6 days after the first failed charge. On Telegram the bot needs the Ban Users and Add New Members permissions, and a removal counts as a Telegram ban.

Whop's Discord app adds a Whop Bot that also needs the top spot in your role list. You pick the roles each product grants and the cancellation action: no action, remove the role, kick the user or remove all their roles. You can assign a separate role to members with a past-due bill and send membership activity to an event log channel. Members connect Discord in their Whop settings and press Claim Access, and Whop's API docs say a resync re-adds a member to the server and restores their roles if needed. Telegram works through Whop's Telegram app with invite-based access. Whop also has its own Chat and Forums, so a community can live entirely on Whop.

Bottom line: Whop's cancellation options and past-due role suit communities that want a grace period; LaunchPass is the pick for Slack.

Payments and payouts

This is the structural difference. LaunchPass keeps you on your own Stripe account, while Whop replaces Stripe with Whop Payments.

On LaunchPass, payments go straight into your Stripe account and LaunchPass never holds the money. Payout timing is Stripe's: LaunchPass says the first payout arrives 7 days after your first member payment, then funds sit in a pending period of usually 2 to 7 days, and you choose daily, weekly or monthly payouts. The catch is that Stripe is the only processor, so there's no PayPal, and you need to be in a country Stripe supports. LaunchPass isn't the merchant of record, so sales tax is yours to handle.

On Whop, money lands in your Whop balance. Standard payouts take up to 5 business days, instant payouts arrive in minutes for 4% + $1, and next-day ACH costs $2.50. Members can pay with cards, wallets, PayPal (3.49% + $0.49), crypto (1.5%) or ACH, and approved sellers can offer financing partners at 15%. Whop's reserves doc explains that, as merchant of record, Whop covers disputes and refunds, so it can hold part of a new or higher-risk account's balance, for example 10% for 90 days.

Bottom line: if custody and payout control matter most, LaunchPass wins this round. If payment-method range and lower base fees matter more, Whop does.

What else you can sell

LaunchPass sells access to a chat community. Whop sells access plus the content around it.

LaunchPass has no course hosting, file downloads or email broadcasts of its own. Its "LaunchPass for WordPress" add-on, which connects to WordPress learning plugins, is sold through a demo with no public price.

Whop's apps include Courses, Chat, Forums, Events with livestreams, Files and Content pages, and a product can be a monthly plan, an annual plan or a one-time purchase. Your product can also be listed on Whop's Discover marketplace, which Whop's changelog says stopped charging its 30% marketplace commission on May 12, 2025, and Whop has a built-in affiliate program for members and promoters.

Bottom line: if your Discord is the whole product, LaunchPass covers it. If you also sell a course, recordings or downloads, Whop puts them behind the same payment.

When LaunchPass is the better choice

LaunchPass is the better pick in a few clear situations, even though it costs more.

• Your community runs on Slack. Whop's app directory had no Slack app when we checked on October 3, 2026.
• You want custody of your money. With LaunchPass every payment settles in your own Stripe account, and your subscriptions stay there, so you can move to another Stripe-based tool later without the platform's help.
• A reserve would hurt. If having 10% of sales held for 90 days on a new Whop account would squeeze your cash flow, LaunchPass adds no hold of its own (Stripe's account rules still apply).
• Your members are settled. Moving means every member links an account on Whop, and a quiet community may not be worth the disruption for the savings at low revenue.
• You value hands-on setup help. LaunchPass's homepage lists 24/7 live chat support and access to configuration experts on Premium.

When Whop is the better choice

Whop is the better choice when fees, payment options or extra products matter more than Slack and Stripe custody.

• You're paying real money in fees. At $10,000 a month Whop saves $349 a month under its published fees, and still $49 if the 3% app fee applies.
• You sell more than access, such as a course, replays or downloadable files.
• Your members ask for PayPal, or you want crypto or financing options at checkout.
• You'd like a community space that doesn't depend on Discord, using Whop's own Chat and Forums.

Whop has real limitations to weigh. You can't connect your own Stripe account. New or higher-risk accounts can face reserves, and r/whop has 2026 threads from sellers about holds and slow support. There's no Slack app. Members must create a Whop account and link Discord or Telegram before they get their role, and the 3% app fee question above is still open.

What creators say

Public feedback on both platforms is thin, so treat these as anecdotes, not trends.

• LaunchPass's Trustpilot page held a 3.5 out of 5 rating from 56 reviews when checked on October 2, 2026. Most reviewers are members rather than creators: several praise fast support, and others complain about unexpected renewals and cancelling.
• On r/whop, one seller reported a 90-day reserve placed after about $20,000 in sales despite no disputes, and another complained that support stayed with an AI agent and wouldn't escalate.
• In a March 2026 r/whop thread about a suspended account, one commenter suggested LaunchPass as the alternative.

Switching from LaunchPass to Whop

LaunchPass bills through your own Stripe account, so card subscriptions can move with Whop Migrations, keeping each member's price and renewal date. Members then link Discord or Telegram on Whop to get their role back. The one step that trips people up is the LaunchPass bot: remove it before you start, because it removes members whose subscriptions cancel and Whop schedules every migrated subscription to cancel. Our LaunchPass to Whop migration plan covers the order, the member email and the double-billing traps, and the free migration tool creates your Whop products from your LaunchPass export.

If you're still weighing options beyond these two, see how Whop compares with Discord's own Server Subscriptions or browse more LaunchPass alternatives.

How we compared

We compared published pricing, fees and help-center documentation from both companies, checked on October 3, 2026, plus a few public reviews. We didn't run live payments on either platform for this page. Fee examples use identical assumptions on both sides (US cards, monthly billing, no add-ons, payout fees or currency conversion) and are rounded to whole dollars. Where Whop's own pages disagree, as with the 3% app fee, we show both numbers rather than pick one.

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