How to Move from Buy Me a Coffee to Your Own Page

Moving tip platforms sounds bigger than it is. One-time supporters do not care where the button goes. Monthly members are the only part that needs care, because a membership is a card on file with one company, and it cannot be carried to another.

This guide uses makerhandle's built-in support as the destination, since that is what we make, but the order of steps works for any move.

First: should you move at all?

Probably not, if:

you post for members, sell files in a shop or use Buy Me a Coffee's other tools
you get a few coffees a month, where the 5% is pocket change
your members are happy and you would rather not ask them to do anything

You can get most of the benefit without moving: put a support button on your makerhandle page in link mode, pointing at buymeacoffee.com/you. That works for everyone today. Connect Buy Me a Coffee's read-only token to a project and its income shows as verified revenue.

Moving makes sense when your support is mostly steady monthly members who want to back your work, not unlock content, and the fee or the separate page bothers you. On makerhandle Pro the platform fee is 0%; the makerhandle vs Buy Me a Coffee page has the full comparison. Built-in support is opening to makers in stages, so check the Support tab first.

1. Export your supporters

Buy Me a Coffee's FAQ says your supporters are yours and you can export the list any time. Do it before anything else. You need it to write to members, and it is your record of who backed you.

2. Set up the new button

In makerhandle's Support tab, switch to Built in, with Stripe, connect your Stripe account (Stripe walks you through it), and set up:

your unit and price, the same as on Buy Me a Coffee so nothing looks different
up to three monthly tiers, with the same names and prices your members know
a thank-you message

Payments go straight to your own Stripe account. You are the merchant of record, so refunds and disputes are handled in your own Stripe Dashboard.

3. Keep Buy Me a Coffee as a secondary link

Do not close your Buy Me a Coffee page. Under the built-in block, makerhandle shows a small "Also on Buy Me a Coffee" link, so anyone who prefers it still has it, and nothing you have shared over the years goes dead. Old links in videos, READMEs and posts keep working.

4. Ask members to re-join

This is the one step that cannot be automated. A Buy Me a Coffee membership is billed by Buy Me a Coffee; nobody can move the card or the subscription to your Stripe account. So members re-join, and only if they want to.

Write to them once, plainly:

what is changing and why ("more of each membership reaches me")
the link to your new support page
that their current membership keeps running until they cancel it, so there is no gap
how to cancel the old one, once they have joined the new one

Expect some to stay where they are, and let them. A member on the old platform is still a member.

5. Change where your button points

Once the new tiers are live, your page's button already takes payments on your page, and your link in bio, custom domain and every template show it. Update the "support me" links you control: your README, newsletter footer and website.

6. Keep your revenue history

If you had Buy Me a Coffee connected as verified revenue on a project, keep it. makerhandle keeps both histories, each on its own project and labeled by its source, so your chart does not restart at zero. Built-in support counts on the project you pick.

What does not move

Members' cards and subscriptions. They re-join.
Posts, Extras and shop items. makerhandle does not host members-only content or a shop. Keep those where they are, or move them to a tool built for them.
Yearly members. makerhandle tiers are monthly.

Done in that order, the move is quiet. One email, one toggle, and the old page stays as a backup.