What Is Whop? How the Platform Works for Sellers

What Whop is

Whop is a platform where businesses sell access to digital things, from courses and paid communities to software and coaching, while Whop runs the checkout and pays them out. Since August 2026 it also hosts websites, and since October 1, 2026 those sites can run ecommerce stores with carts, variants and inventory. It also has Whop AI, a chat agent that builds and edits sites and products; an ads manager that runs Meta (Facebook and Instagram) campaigns with no platform fee, with TikTok, Google and others listed as coming soon; a first-party tracking pixel; and, since September 30, 2026, Economic Intelligence, an optional paid add-on charged as a percentage of sales. It's run by Whop, Inc., a US company co-founded in 2021 by Steven Schwartz (now CEO), Cameron Zoub and Jack Sharkey. When it raised its Series A in 2023, TechCrunch described it as a marketplace for selling access to digital products.

It has grown a lot since. In February 2026, stablecoin company Tether invested $200 million in Whop at a $1.6 billion valuation, CoinDesk reported. In June 2026 Whop told Fortune it had about 22 million users, a figure that comes from the company itself.

This guide looks at Whop from the seller's side. If you know Whop from clipping, where people get paid per view for short videos, skip to the section on Content Rewards. That's a different part of the platform.

How a business on Whop fits together

Every business on Whop is built from the same pieces: a whop, products, pricing options, apps and checkout, with payouts behind them.

Features as of October 2026, from Whop's docs, blog and announcements. Sources at the end of this page.

Whop's developer docs use different words for two of these: a business is an "account," and a pricing option is a "variant" (its ID still starts with plan_). You'll only run into those terms in the API or in tools built on it.

Apps decide what members get

When someone buys a product, they get every app attached to it. You can add the same app more than once, such as several Chat apps for different topics, and give a free product a couple of apps while a paid product gets all of them. Whop's docs say most of the largest communities on the platform use exactly that free-plus-premium setup.

• Courses holds modules, chapters and lessons: video, text, PDF and multimedia lessons, plus ungraded knowledge checks and graded quizzes. You can drip lessons by days, require lessons in order, watermark videos and issue completion certificates.
• Chat is real-time group conversation. Forums is for threaded posts, announcements and member wins.
• Events covers live or in-person sessions, optionally ticketed. Whop also has built-in livestreaming, and streams are saved automatically.
• Content, Files and Calendar Bookings handle pages, downloads and paid or free 1-on-1 calls.
• The Discord app sells access to your server with automatic role management, and the Telegram app does the same for a Telegram group. Both apps' Whop listings (and the TradingView app's) say adding them puts a 3% fee on that product's payments, but Whop's fee page lists no such fee. Budget for it until Whop settles it: on a $49 monthly membership, card and billing fees come to about $1.87 a charge without the 3% and $3.34 with it. Our guide to running a paid Discord server with Whop covers that setup.

How money moves from checkout to your bank

Buyers pay through Whop's checkout, Whop processes the payment and credits your Whop balance, and you withdraw once you've verified your identity.

• Whop is the merchant of record on Whop Payments. It settles the money and carries the liability for card disputes, which is also why it can hold part of your balance in reserve on new or risky accounts. That doesn't mean it handles sales tax on your direct sales: its tax service is optional at 2% (remitting only in the US, EU and UK), and existing businesses default to handling tax themselves.
• Buyers can pay by card, digital wallet, PayPal, ACH bank debit, crypto and regional methods like iDEAL, and with financing such as Klarna or Afterpay once Whop approves your business. Whop advertises 100+ payment methods across 195 countries.
• There's no monthly fee. A US card sale costs 2.7% + $0.30, and subscription charges add 0.5% when Whop's billing is enabled. International cards add 1.5% and currency conversion 1%. Our breakdown of every Whop fee, with worked examples covers payouts, international cards and the optional extras.
• To withdraw, you set up Whop Payments under Dashboard → Balances and complete a KYC check with your details, bank account and ID. Sale proceeds become withdrawable in 1 to 4 business days. A standard payout then takes up to 5 business days (Whop's troubleshooting page says to allow 10), the minimum withdrawal is $10, instant payouts cost 4% + $1, and Whop pays out to more than 200 countries.
• New accounts can't create checkout links above $2,500 until Whop approves higher amounts, which it says takes up to 24 hours.

Discover, Whop's marketplace

Discover is Whop's public marketplace, where buyers browse whops by category. Whop's published marketplace fee on Discover sales is 0%, and a whop appears there as soon as it's live.

That changed in 2025. Until May 12 of that year, Whop charged 30% on sales that came through Discover. Its announcement cut that to 0% and made marketplace approval instant. Discover sales still pay normal processing, and Whop handles US sales tax and EU and UK VAT on them as the marketplace facilitator.

Two more things come with a listing. Whop's global affiliates can promote any listed product for a default 30% commission, which you can lower or raise, and Whop adds a 1.25% affiliate processing fee on those sales. And Discover's reputation is mixed. Sports picks and trading groups have been prominent on Whop for years: TechCrunch listed sports gambling picks among its popular categories in 2023, and CoinDesk's 2026 coverage named trading groups among what creators sell there. Whop's rules ban gambling platforms but allow betting picks and analysis. If you sell coaching or education, your own audience may matter more to you than Discover traffic.

Whop Partners, affiliates and Content Rewards

Whop pays three different groups of people, and the names get mixed up.

• Affiliates promote a seller's product for a commission the seller sets, 30% by default for Whop's global affiliates. Whop pays them after a 30-day wait and charges you a 1.25% processing fee on affiliate sales.
• Whop Partners refer whole businesses to Whop and earn a share of Whop's own profit from them: up to 30%, per Whop's help center. Whop's August 2026 launch post adds 1% of a referred business's Whop Ads spend. Move to Whop is paid this way when you create a Whop through our links, and we don't adjust your fees. Whop's Verified Partners can raise or lower fees for businesses they refer, within limits Whop sets, so check the rates on your own account.
• Content Rewards lets a business pay creators per 1,000 views for clips or original videos about it. Clippers earn money there, and sellers use it as a marketing channel.

Who Whop is for

Whop suits sellers of digital access, and since October 2026 small online stores, who want low fees, built-in payouts and room to add a community later.

• Course creators who want lessons, a community and checkout in one place
• Paid communities, including Discord and Telegram groups
• Coaches and service businesses that sell bookings or send invoices
• Software and SaaS sellers who need payments and member management
• Sellers with buyers abroad (local payment methods and local-currency pricing on one-time sales, though international cards add 1.5%), and sellers based outside the US (payouts to 200+ countries)
• Small online stores. Whop launched end-to-end ecommerce on October 1, 2026, with carts, variants, inventory and itemized sales tax (through its optional 2% tax service). It doesn't document shipping-rate settings or label printing yet
• Sellers with card subscriptions in their own Stripe account, which Whop's own migration tool can move

Who Whop isn't for

Skip Whop if your category is off-limits, if a payment hold would sink you, if you need your own payment processor, or if you depend on built-in email marketing or a drag-and-drop site builder.

• Prohibited categories. Whop doesn't allow adult content, prop trading firms, debt and lending services, legal advice or medical services, among others. Its Seller Terms also ban "lifetime" or indefinite-access offers, so every offer needs a stated access period.
• Sellers who can't absorb a hold. Whop's Seller Terms allow reserves of up to 100% of funds for up to 180 days, and sellers on Reddit report payout reviews and suspensions. Read our honest Whop review before you move your main income.
• Sellers who want their own processor. Card payments run through Whop Payments, and Whop's docs don't describe processing cards through your own Stripe account.
• Trading-signal or betting-picks sellers who want buy now, pay later. Whop's financing partners don't support those categories.
• Sellers who run on built-in email marketing. Whop has no broadcasts, sequences or segments. It sends welcome and goodbye DMs with an optional email copy, forum posts by email and transactional emails, and anything more comes from a third-party email app in Whop's App Store or your own email tool.
• Sellers who want a drag-and-drop website builder. Whop websites are built and edited through AI chat or code, with no visual editor or built-in blog. Custom domains currently need Whop's API, and SEO settings stop at a site title and description.

How Whop compares with Skool, Kajabi and Stripe

Here's how Whop stacks up against three common alternatives:

• Skool costs $9 a month plus 10% + $0.30 per sale on Hobby, or $99 a month plus 2.9% + $0.30 on Pro. Our Whop vs Skool breakdown shows where each one wins.
• Kajabi costs $179 to $499 a month (billed monthly) before card fees, while Whop has no plan fee. Kajabi's plans include email marketing, which Whop doesn't have built in. Our Whop vs Kajabi comparison lines up features and fees side by side.
• Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 plus 0.7% for subscriptions, but it's payments only. You'd add your own courses, community and access control. See Whop vs Stripe for the full math.

If you're deciding between Kajabi, Skool and Whop at the same time, start with our three-way Kajabi vs Skool vs Whop comparison.

Moving an existing business to Whop

You can rebuild everything by hand, but most of the setup can be done for you, and paying members move in one of two ways.

• If your subscriptions live in your own Stripe account, Whop Migrations (Settings → Migrations) moves active and trialing card subscriptions of $1 or more that have an email, keeping each renewal date. The Stripe subscriptions are then set to cancel at the end of their period, and Stripe emails each customer a cancellation notice, so tell members about the move before you run it.
• If your old platform holds the billing, as Skool, Patreon, Gumroad and Kajabi Payments do, members re-subscribe on Whop. Our guide to moving paying subscribers to Whop covers timing and messages.
• The free Move to Whop migration tool connects through Sign in with Whop and creates your products, plans, course structure, Forums and Chat. Existing members get a claim link, and subscribers get a matching plan with a free trial that lines up their first Whop charge with their next renewal. Course video files don't transfer automatically, so you re-upload them or embed YouTube or Loom, and old community posts stay behind.
• If you have a website elsewhere, Whop's website migration (Dashboard → Websites, announced October 2, 2026) has Whop's AI rebuild your pages, products and images on whop.site from the site's URL. It doesn't move your domain, SEO redirects, customers or subscriptions, Whop has no docs page for it yet, and a full site can take up to an hour.

If you're starting from scratch, follow our step-by-step guide to selling on Whop.