Heights Platform vs Whop: The Best Alternative to Whop

What is Whop?

Whop is best described as a marketplace where creators can set up a storefront and sell different types of digital products.

Within Whop’s ecosystem, you can offer courses, community access, e-commerce products, and more by installing different apps.

Payments are handled by Whop directly, which means they act as the Merchant of Record and control customer transactions.

While this marketplace approach gives you access to potential discovery, it comes with limited branding options—there is no true white-labeling, so your storefront always looks like it belongs to Whop rather than being 100% your own.

What is Heights Platform?

Heights Platform is an all-in-one course and community platform built for creators who want to run a complete learning business under their own brand.

With Heights, you can design and sell online courses, memberships, communities, and digital products, while also building your website and sales pages.

The platform includes powerful marketing tools, flexible payment options, and Heights AI, a suite of advanced AI tools that can generate entire courses, websites, and personalized coaching plans.

Unlike a marketplace such as Whop, Heights is fully white label: you own your platform, your brand, and your customer relationship.

Key Differences Between Heights and Whop

The biggest difference comes down to ownership and control. Whop is a marketplace with heavy reliance on its apps and fee structures, while Heights is a standalone platform that you can make 100% your own.

Pricing and Fees

Whop takes a percentage of every sale plus processing and payout fees. Heights charges a flat monthly or annual subscription, with no transaction fees. Everything you earn is yours, minus standard Stripe or PayPal processing costs.

Marketplace vs White-Labeling

Whop storefronts are tied to their marketplace. Heights gives you a fully branded platform with custom domains, design freedom, and complete ownership.

Focus on Learning

Heights specializes in course creation, memberships, and communities—with tools like projects, gamification, and certificates to help students learn

Whop’s course app is basic and not designed for a deep learning experience.

Payments

On Whop, they handle the money, take their cut, and send payouts. On Heights, you get paid directly to your Stripe or PayPal account.

Online Community

Heights offers unlimited community channels with AI moderation, post suggestions, and even public channels discoverable by search engines. Whop’s community features are limited.

AI Tools

Whop has no native AI. Heights offers a suite of AI features: course generation, AI business coach, AI sales pages, SEO analysis, student engagement tools, and more.

Website

Whop only allows storefront customization. Heights includes a complete website builder with AI-powered page generation.

Whop Fees Explained: Is Whop Really Free?

Whop promotes itself as free to start, but in practice, you pay through transaction and processing fees.

Since Whop acts as the Merchant of Record, they control pricing structures and take cuts on every sale.

All the Fees You May Encounter on Whop

• Platform fee: 3% (applies to automated payments such as Discord/Telegram automations)
• Payment processing (cards): 5.2% + $0.30 per order if international cards with currency conversion are used
• Financing fee: 15% if a customer pays with Klarna/Afterpay or other financing options (replaces card processing fee)
• Orchestration fee: 0.8% per transaction
• Billing fee: 0.5% per transaction
• Tax & remittance handling: 0.5% per transaction
• 3D Secure: $0.03 per transaction
• Fraud Radar: $0.07 per transaction
• Payout fee: $23 for a bank wire payout
• Chargebacks: $15 per dispute
• Early dispute alerts (RDR): $29 per alert

Here’s an example:

Let's say that you are selling an online course on Whop, and you decide to price the course for $100. In one month, you make 10 sales, which means you gross revenue is $1000.

There are many different fees that Whop charges creators depending on which set up they use. For this example, we will go with a classical scenario, but the amount you pay in Whop fees can be different.

The fee that you cannot avoid on Whop is their 3% platform fee, which they charge on automated payments.

In our example, that is $30 per month, which would not too bad, if that was the only fee you had to pay.

With Whop’s additional fees (international cards, bank wire payout), you’d pay around $127 in fees — keeping $873. That’s a 12.7% effective fee rate.

It could get worse if your customers were to use financing options like Klarna or Afterpay. In this case, fees could climb to $221 on our total of $1,000 earned — leaving you with $779. That’s a 22.1% effective fee rate.

In comparison, Heights Platform charges no transaction fees!

With Heights, you keep 100% of your earnings: you only pay a flat monthly or annual payment for using the platform.

Heights AI: Scale Your Business With AI

Heights AI is like having a full team of assistants built into your platform. You can generate entire courses—including lesson outlines, titles, and cover images—in minutes.

The AI Coach sends you personalized weekly tasks to grow your business, while other tools can build sales pages, optimize SEO, generate marketing emails, and even create quizzes for your students

This is far beyond simple copy-and-paste AI; Heights AI was designed specifically for course creators and integrates directly into your platform.

Marketplace vs Private White Label Business

Choosing Whop means being part of their marketplace. The advantage is potential discovery from their marketplace traffic—but it comes with trade-offs. Whop charges up to 30% on marketplace sales, and getting featured is competitive.

Choosing Heights means running your own independent business. Your website, your brand, your community—all under your control.

While you’ll be responsible for your own marketing, Heights provides tools to help: public communities that drive organic leads from Google, built-in affiliate programs so students can promote your courses, and Heights AI Coach for guidance on growing your audience

Run Online Challenges to Engage Students

One of Heights’ standout features is the ability to run cohort-based challenges—time-sensitive courses designed around fixed start and end dates.

With challenges, lessons are released on scheduled calendar dates, so your students move through the material together as a group. This shared pace boosts accountability, encourages interaction, and makes learning more engaging.

Students receive automated email reminders when new lessons go live, can comment directly under each lesson, and progress side by side with their peers. This creates a strong sense of community and momentum throughout the program.

Best of all, challenges are easy to run again. With a single click, Heights can regenerate the entire course with new dates, allowing you to relaunch successful challenges again and again without extra setup.

Gamification Tools That Keep Students Engaged

Heights makes learning fun with built-in gamification: points, badges, certificates, community and rewards that motivate students to progress.

In Heights, you can go beyond lessons by letting your students apply knowledge through Projects, a unique feature that encourages peer sharing and practice.

Whop’s course delivery is minimal—more of an add-on app than a true education tool.

Customer Support

Creators consistently praise Heights for our friendly, responsive support. Our team is dedicated to helping you succeed every step of the way.

Heights is The Best Alternative to Whop

So which is the better online course platform?

At the end of the day, choosing between Heights Platform and Whop comes down to what kind of business you want to build.

Whop is a marketplace with limited customization and a long list of fees that eat into your earnings.

It may offer some discoverability through its marketplace, but you sacrifice control over your brand, your customer relationship, and your profits.

Heights Platform, on the other hand, gives you a true white-label solution that you can fully own. You keep 100% of your revenue, customize every detail of your platform, and access powerful tools designed specifically for course creators—including Heights AI, your built-in assistant for content creation, marketing, and growth.

If you’re serious about building a long-term, profitable knowledge business under your own brand, Heights Platform is the clear choice.

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