Kick Founders Launch Club Platform

Key Points

• Club reached 100,000 beta members in under two months with no paid marketing at all.
• The founders paid $10 million for Club.com, one of the ten most expensive domain sales ever recorded publicly.
• Club charges creators a 20% commission, matching OnlyFans, despite Kick being famous for its generous 95/5 streaming split.

What is next after creating a streaming platform that threatened Twitch, acquired the biggest celebrities, and achieved 100 million members? For Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven, it seems like they do not have any other choice but to create another one and invest $10 million into a domain name before even starting tests for their product.

On 19 August 2026, Club finally debuted their brand and mobile app following the beta version which brought success in weeks that took other platforms years to achieve. As claimed in an official Club press release, within two months since the launch of the platform, Club managed to acquire 100,000 members completely organically with no paid marketing. But how could the company get that kind of traction by investing nothing in the acquisition of users?

One Platform, Every Revenue Stream

Most creators today are spread thin. They post on one platform, collect tips on another, run subscriptions somewhere else, and handle fan DMs through a third app entirely. Club was built to collapse all of that into a single product.

These include subscriptions, tips, paywalled content, paid direct messages, and in-app currency known as Club Cash. Creators get the ability to create gated communities, publish exclusive content, make money from recurring memberships, and communicate with their fans who pay them without having to leave the app. The platform also comes with built-in discovery tools; unlike competitors such as Patreon, which have been unable to create this feature effectively. On Patreon, creators still rely on external traffic for growth because they haven’t got effective discovery tools yet.

In the launch announcement, Henrik Pohlmann, CEO, and the third co-founder of Club explained that “Club was built to bridge that gap with the tools creators need to get discovered, communicate with their community, and earn meaningful income.”

Why the Patreon Comparison Only Goes So Far?

Every outlet that covered Club’s early days reached for the Patreon comparison. Tehrani addressed it directly, pointing to features that separate the two products: custom emotes, badges, Club Cash tipping, improved pay-per-view mechanics, and live notifications that alert fans when a creator goes live on Kick or Twitch. That last detail keeps Club tied to the streaming world Tehrani and Craven already built, rather than asking creators to walk away from it.

Patreon was designed for writers and podcasters working on a schedule. Club is built around the live creator ecosystem, specifically streamers who need a community home between broadcasts. The two products serve different people, even if the subscription mechanic looks similar from the outside.

Where Club does mirror both Patreon and OnlyFans is in its cut. According to Dealroom, Club takes a 20% commission on creator earnings, matching OnlyFans and sitting double Patreon’s current flat 10% rate. For the team that built Kick on a 95/5 streaming split, giving streamers 95 cents of every subscription dollar, the 20% figure is a notable contrast that creators will not miss.

The Beta Numbers That Actually Mean Something

Not all beta metrics carry equal weight. A platform can manufacture sign-ups with giveaways and call the result strong growth. Club did none of that.

It is mentioned that the number grew organically without any kind of marketing efforts from the company’s side. The Beta Access program is invitation-only and was launched through the existing network of Kick creators. The network of one of the creators exceeded 30,000 users prior to the official launch of the platform. The creator retention rate is around 90% at Club, which means that there were almost no users who left the platform after their registration, which is rare for a consumer product at such an early stage of development because people often leave within the first week.

According to Dealroom, 3,000 creators have registered during the beta period of the platform. The team manually reviewed each application in order to take the same approach to its product as in the case of Kick’s early program.

As far as the main announcement of this article goes, the company has also launched a new feature called Communities, according to the official press release.

$10 Million for a Domain, and What That Tells You

When Kick launched, the signal of serious intent was a run of expensive streamer signings. For Club, the equivalent statement is a web address.

Club.com was purchased for $10 million, confirmed by domain broker Andrew Miller of Hilco Digital Assets, who closed the deal via Escrow.com in early 2025 before disclosing it publicly this year. Domain tracking from Instant Domain Search places Club.com among the ten most expensive domain purchases ever publicly reported. Spending that sum on a URL before a product exits beta is not a practical decision. It is a declaration, the kind that tells the industry this team intends to be here for a long time.

Kick’s Shift From Splashy to Sustainable

Club’s timing aligns with a shift at Kick itself. The streaming platform spent three years building its audience on a bold promise: no ads, generous creator splits, and liberal content policies. That worked. Kick reached 100 million active users and logged 1.5 billion hours watched in Q2 2026. Now the platform is converting that scale into revenue. Kick officially launched mid-roll advertising on 6 August 2026, opening streams to brands for the first time. Ed Craven had signalled the move months earlier, telling users to enjoy the ad-free experience while it lasted.

The pattern is consistent across both businesses: grow the audience without monetisation pressure, build genuine loyalty, then introduce a revenue layer once the community is established. Club is following that exact path.

Expert Analysis: The 20% Commission Is the Real Test

Club’s launch numbers are strong: six-figure membership with no marketing spend, a $10 million domain, a ready-made creator base from Kick, and a CEO who articulates what creators are missing.

The 20% commission, though, is where scrutiny will settle. Kick’s reputation was built on giving creators more than any rival. Club enters a market where Patreon takes 10%, and where the same founding team’s most famous product charges streamers just 5%. Creators who know those numbers will ask why Club costs them four times more than Kick. If Club’s discovery tools genuinely outperform what existing platforms offer, creators will pay the premium. If those features disappoint at scale, the fee becomes the story. The app is live, the communities are filling, and the answer will not take long.