How to: Make money on kofi as a cosplayer
Hey llamas,
If you have been following me for a while, you know that I've been using ko-fi actively for the past 6 months - and thanks to your donations and help we managed to get a lot done including Shego, Zero Two, Yor Forger, Hinatsuru and get holiday and studio props, and I am forever grateful for your support! ♥ I've decided then, to share some tips with my fellow cosplay friends, as we don't gatekeep info here this is a see all post with actual earnings.
Cosplay can get expensive really quick and kofi *does* need work for it to be successful, so this is going to be a long post - with lots of information on what you can expect from this website.
KO-FI - is a great option and my personal favorite because it's very versatile and easy to use compared to other similar platforms.
Why should I open ko-fi?
(Important: This is an all time earning over the past 6 or so months, except the 100$ single donation I received a year ago.)
Short answer is - why not. It doesn't cost a thing to open it.
But the longer answer is that we all want to support our friends and people who we follow. When I was younger I didn't have money to support artists that I liked, but I always shared their work and helped in other ways. It's the same with ko-fi. No one is obligated to give you money, but some people might want to.
Now that I am older I support other cosplayers, podcasters and writers. And many more people do.
The main thing about ko-fi is that you just have to start. At the time of writing this I have 1700 followers on Instagram and 1100 on Tiktok. I wouldn't say I'm a big creator, but that doesn't stop me, and neither should it stop you. More people want to help than you know!
I didn't invest my time into ko-fi since I didn't think anyone would donate. Putting yourself out there is the first and most important step.
I'm from Serbia, and we don't have access to a lot of cosplay things like good wigs, materials or costumes, especially including shipping costs, considering we are one of the lowest paid countries in the region with 500 eur being a standard monthly salary for a lot of households, and saying that a cosplay standard is 100+ euros you can do your own math.
And so, ko-fi helps me cover expenses that otherwise I wouldn't be able to, or sharing the money cost of a cosplay (for instance for Yor Forger, donations covered the costume and wig, and I covered the boots and jewelry)
Nevertheless, even with my smaller following I can't deny that I do cosplay professionally, and I do sell posters at cons, get paid to guest at some events and travel for free. These are also things that get me out there and mingling, but that's a post for another time.
The point is, just start. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
How to get started?
When you open up your page, make sure to use the username and a profile picture that you use everywhere else. People are visual creatures, and these things are important, using the same profile picture, username and colors everywhere.
Use your cover photo to direct people where you want them to go. On my cover photo you can see that members have a discount. Make it easy so people don't have to dig for information.
Whenever you go to my social media, I have the same colors that I use everywhere. And it's not just "purple", I have specific tones or purples and greens and textures that I use that people can associate with me. This way, when people see that, they will associate it with you. I use the same colors for my cover photos, event banners and roles on discord. This makes your followers familiar with you and what they can expect. For me, everything in color green is something to notice more. Teach your followers where to look with the colors that you use.
For the "what do you do" tags, you have a lot of options - cosplay, blogging, photography, writing, podcast, acting etc. So chose 2-3 that describe you so people can find your page easier.
Write a little bit about you and why you started your ko-fi page. Maybe you're a student so it's hard for you to get money for materials so cosplays takes a very long time. Maybe you do this professionally and want to give back to your followers. Either way, you're aiming at your target audience.
Who is your target audience?
Target audience is your "perfect follower". How old are they? What social platforms do they use (you should use those to advertise). What time a day are they most active?
These are all questions to ask yourself to better understand what you want to do on kofi - because you are selling a product. And who will be "buying" it? That way, you will know what kind of tiers you should set up, price range for your shop and type of benefits.
If you have a younger audience, they most likely do not have a well paying job and thus, the tiers should be a lower price so they would be able to afford it and still support you.
If your audience is between 20-40+ years old, these are people who usually have a better paying job, are financially independent and can afford special perks you are offering.
Something to consider also is what you can provide for them. We all cosplay at different pace and have different strengths, some people are better at crafting (not me lol), some at marketing, some at wig-making etc. Lean into your strength. If you are doing this professionally, you can raise the price of donation as you are also having to pay bills etc. Consider where you and your followers are and determine.
Now that you know who is visiting your page... let's go over all the possibilities that is provides for us!
Single Donations:
When people visit your page they will have an option to "buy a coffee" for you. This is a one time donation and it will show on your page that somebody supported you. They can chose if they want to be anonymous or not.
You can set the minimum amount of a single donation. Some people keep it at 5 euros, I like to keep mine at 3 euros because it's more affordable and it's a nice symbolic price for a kofi date ♥. Besides, people can always donate more if they want to.
When someone donates to you, they will receive an automated message from you. Use that custom message and give them a discount code for the shop or an invitation to your discord - telling them they have a special role now (we will go over that later in the text).
Important: Make sure to tell your supporters to connect their kofi and discord - this way kofi-bot can assign them roles automatically.
Kofi Memberships:
Memberships are monthly donations. Supporters can set up a custom amount they would like - or you can set up your own tiers.
You can set up multiple tiers, with some rewards for your supporters that you think would be beneficial for them. You do have to think it through, is it worth it for them to sign up as monthly supporter?
For smaller creators, I suggest having 1-3 tiers that you can focus on so it doesn't take up a lot of time, and monthly supporters can still have their money's worth.
Having too many options also makes people anxious to pick and usually end up not picking anything. So, start small and expand if needed.
For someone who does this as a living, you will have more time to create content and you can add more special tiers. Opt out for 4-5 tiers.
Most common perks include: getting unedited cosplay pictures, behind the scene photos/videos, discord benefits, photosets, discounts in the shop and similar. But you can also check out my kofi page for inspiration as well.
Important: Personalize your tier photos. Be consistent through your page, use the same colors, imagery etc, as we already talked about above.
What else can I do with discord?
Kofi and Discord are connected and kofi has a bot that you can add to your server to auto assign special roles to your supporters ( you can and should set up a special VIP place only for supporters).
Make sure to tell your supporters to connect their kofi and discord - this way kofi-bot can assign them roles automatically.
You can set up a role for one time supporters, and also separately for monthly supporters while setting up tiers.
If you are any type of content creator and are building a community, you have a place where you engage. For me, I like to use discord for that because it's casual and cozy.
We like to organise movie nights, co-working hangouts where we all work on our cosplays together and keep eachother motivated, game streams etc. And so, this makes sense for me to include discord benefits as we hang out there all the time.
VIP channel also has VIP only streams and hangouts, so this includes anyone who donates (for 30 days), nitro boosters (while nitro is active) and all monthly members.
This is in terms of special roles for everyone who supports (kofi-llamas) than open up VIP general chat and suggestions.
I use the same role for monthly members to be able to tag everyone in the VIP channel with one role if I need it to.
Additionally, when setting up monthly tiers, they get assigned different roles according to what tier they are at, so they have access to more channels than one-time donations. And top tier has exclusive content.
It does take some more time to set everything up, but it's very worth it, and you only have to do it once.
How do I get paid on kofi?
You will go to settings, then payments.
You can connect Paypal or Stripe. I personally use Paypal, as it's more widely spread and it's easier to receive money. It's also another thing that separates my card from having direct contact with people.
Something to keep in mind is that the email that you use for receiving payments over paypal will be visible to your supporters. For me, I use an email I only use for that and nothing else, you never know if people have bad intentions. And so make sure you have double authentication on all your devices.
KOFI doesn't take a fee on regular donations, but it takes 5% off of memberships, shop and commissions. For instance, my monthly tier is 10e, but I get 8.61e (so they take 1.39e) This is also something to consider when picking the price of a monthly tier.
I used to use dollars since most of my supporters are from the US, but I switched to euros since dollar has been going up and down currency wise and it changed my ko-fi income based on that. Euro has been the same exchange rate for years regarding my local currency so I switched back to euros.
This is also something to consider when making kofi.
After you pick you preferred paying option, you will be able to pick a currency, minimum donation and wording. If you opt out for kofi gold, you can change coffee to anything (a pizza, bread, sparkles..) to make it more personal.
What is kofi gold?
Kofi Gold gives you multiple benefits, BUT if you are just starting, I wouldn't recommend getting it as it's 8$ a month (96$ year), or 6$ if you pay yearly (72$ year).
If you don't know that you will be able to cover the cost of it through donations through the year, then it's not worth getting, but in time as you grow your account you can get gold since the benefits of it are really good. You get to customize your page colors so it fits your brand (this is very good considering all we talked about brand wise), no fees on commissions, shop or memberships and all the other benefits on the picture above. If you have a lot of memberships, the money you save (since you don't have the 5% fee) will be able to pay off for the kofi gold.
Personally, I try to avoid kofi gold as long as I can since I would rather use those 96$ for something cosplay related, BUT, I do lose 5% off of shop, commission etc . Gold members do have more aesthetically attractive and personal pages- which does incline people to donate more. So think about it if you find it useful or not.
How often should I post?
Focus on what you want to grow - for me personally, I focus on building a community where people can hang out and help each other out - I organise co-working hangouts, movie nights, game nights and similar on discord for followers and friends so a lot of my benefits include discord rewards, access to a supporter only channel, supporter only streams etc.
If your goal is to grow your Instagram, you can offer to add supporters to close friends stories, or if you are filming for YouTube as well, you can offer to post supporter names at the end of the videos, or they can vote on what video you should film/post first.
Balance is key - Ko-fi sends an email notification to your supporters every time you post, so make sure to post enough so you are on people's minds, but not too much so you start to spam and people ignore you completely.
Try to keep a balance between a supporter only content and free content, because you want people to see what is behind the paywall to consider becoming a supporter.
Keep things organised in albums, so new people can easily find what they are looking for. This will also make it easier for you if you want to delete something later on. Start organizing right away, so when you start uploading more content you already have a base where things should go.
Kofi Shop:
A Shop is exactly what it sounds like - you can sell your products. This is a form of a passive income. You just need to make the product once - and it will stay in the shop available for anyone to buy. Make sure to describe the product correctly so people know what they are getting.
You are able to sell physical and digital products. I always choose digital products as most of my supporters are in other countries and shipping items can get very expensive - this is also something you should consider when picking products to sell (bath water, anyone?)
Stick to a similar theme through your ko-fi, same colors and textures. This is the most important thing whens setting up. Put your logo (if you have one) on the cover etc. The shop is in the same theme so people always look for the same things. Teach your followers where to look, that makes it easier to shop.
You can limit the amount of the item you are selling. I like to do these for holiday or special sets. They are limited in time and also in amount.
This ensures that the people who want to buy the set, do it fast since there is no "I can always buy it later" mindset.
What I really like is that you can set up categories - it makes things so much easier!
Going back on the thing we talked about above - balance is key - don't set up too many categories - people won't be able to decide on what they would like to support, and having too little will give off an impression that you are not trustworthy since you don't have a lot to offer.
Having 3-4 categories is a good option, and you want to set up 1-2 items in every category in the long run.
From time to time, offer limited photo sets or deals around certain holidays or around your birthday for instance.
This way, you will have focused content and it will be easier for you to figure out what to make, by seeing which category sells the most.
Setting up discounts for your shop
This is something that you do not have to do - but I like to reward my supporters a lot, so all monthly supporters have a 30% discount off of everything in my shop. This is also a really good way to prompt people to become a monthly supporter.
Discounts are a great way to surprise your supporters around the holidays for certain sets. During Valentines day - you can set up only cute shop items and have them on sale for 50% off for a week or another limited time. During winter holidays, anything holiday themed etc.
After a while you can unpublish shop items that have been there a long time, aren't being brought as much etc. They will still be saved on kofi so you can republish them again next year - or you can delete them completely.
How do I set a goal on ko-fi?
Why make a goal?
Well, people like to help their friends and people who they follow. When people have something to work towards they will. Perhaps you have a cosplay your followers/friends would love to see. Or you are planning a themed photoshoot and want to get props but can't afford them.
For instance, I do a lot of scary cosplays and makeup on tiktok and I wanted to get some Halloween props that would make the photos better - so something beneficial for both me and people who follow me.
Use smaller goals, as they are usually faster to fill up. Up to 100 euros. Or if you have to split a cosplay to several goals that is also better than having a big goal. People get overwhelmed.
If you have a high goal then separate it into: Wig for Yor Forger 20euros, 60euros costume for Yor Forger etc. Also, if you have anything you can invest into this cosplay add it as a starting amount so people know you will be contributing as well.
After you set up the goal, make sure to post an update to your feed announcing you have a new goal (remember, kofi notifies your followers when you post, but doesn't notify when you make a new goal), if you have a picture of the goal you're going toward, post it with an explanation. This way, people will know what they are donating towards. A good example of this is my halloween props goal, or my Yor Forger goal
If there is anything else you guys need help with that I didn't cover in this post, please reach out to me anywhere and I will gladly help you out.
If you found this post helpful consider donating a kofi to help the blog running and share this post with your cosplay friends ♥
If you decided to make a kofi page after reading this, please send me the link on my instagram, I would love to see it :3
Read next: ♥ How to fix an old cosplay wig / ♥ All posts
Find me: Instagram / Ko-fi / TikTok / Discord