Topmate is great if you are a mentor or consultant who wants a tidy storefront: booked 1:1 sessions, webinars, courses, and a Priority DM inbox, all behind one link. It's less great if the thing you actually sell is live, right-now access — a call that starts the moment someone taps your link, bills by the minute, and rings your phone like a real phone call. That is the whole comparison in two sentences, but the details matter, so let's go through them.
What Topmate is
Topmate is one of the largest creator monetization platforms to come out of India, and it has grown into a genuinely global tool. It gives experts, coaches, and mentors a storefront where they can sell scheduled 1:1 sessions, host webinars, sell courses and digital products, bundle services, and answer paid questions through Priority DM. Sessions are calendar-based: a buyer picks a slot, Topmate handles the booking, and the call itself typically happens over an integrated meeting link. As of 2026, Topmate's published rate is a 10% commission with no monthly fee — you keep 90% of each sale before payment processing. Third-party breakdowns note that processing and currency conversion can push the all-in cost higher, particularly on international payments, so your effective take depends on where your buyers are.
Credit where due: Topmate has real scale, a large expert community, social proof baked into profiles, and a discovery surface where buyers can browse experts. If you are a career mentor, a design reviewer, or a startup advisor whose buyers are happy to book a Tuesday slot four days out, Topmate is a strong, mature choice — and honestly, it may be the right one for you.
What Cheddify is
Cheddify comes at the same problem — turning your audience's attention into paid time — from the opposite direction. Instead of starting with a calendar, it starts with a phone call. You set a per-minute rate, flip a toggle that says you're available, and drop one link in your bio. When someone taps it, they can call you right now. Your phone rings through the native iOS or Android app with real system-level ringing — the same full-screen incoming-call experience as a regular phone call, not a push notification you might miss. You answer, a live meter runs, the buyer's funded minutes tick down, and they can tip or send gifts during the call. When it ends, you've been paid for exactly the minutes you were on.
Buyers never install anything. They pay as guests in the browser — no account, no app, no sign-up wall between tapping your link and being on a call with you. That matters more than it sounds: every extra step between "I want to talk to this person" and "I am talking to this person" loses impulse buyers, and live access is an impulse purchase.
Booking exists on Cheddify too — scheduled sessions and fixed-price time blocks are there when you want them — but they are the upsell, not the default. Paid DMs round it out: set a per-message price and your inbox filters itself. If you have ever priced out Calendly plus Zoom plus Stripe to approximate this, Cheddify replaces that whole stack — except it's live, per-minute, and the call itself is part of the product.
Side by side
| Platform | Fee (as of 2026) | Per-minute live calls | Native call app for sellers | Paid DMs | In-call tips + gifts | Guest checkout for buyers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheddify | 20% + $2 per call (buyer pays ~3% processing on top); DMs 20% + ~3% card fee | Yes — core feature, with call-now availability toggle | Yes — iOS/Android app, real system ringing, live meter | Yes — per-message pricing | Yes | Yes — pay in the browser, no account |
| Topmate | 10% commission, no monthly fee (plus payment processing) | No — scheduled sessions | No — calls via integrated meeting links | Priority DM (paid questions) | No | Booking checkout; buyer books a slot |
Fees: the honest math
On pure percentage, Topmate is cheaper. 10% beats 20% + $2, and there is no way to spin that otherwise. If you sell a $100 scheduled session, Topmate leaves you roughly $90 before processing; a comparable transaction on Cheddify leaves you less. If your business is high-ticket scheduled consulting and price-per-transaction fee efficiency is your top criterion, Topmate wins that column.
Here is what the Cheddify structure looks like in practice. Say you charge $4 per minute and take a 15-minute call: the buyer pays $60 (plus about 3% in processing, which is billed to the buyer, not deducted from you). Cheddify takes 20% ($12) plus $2 per call, so you keep $46. There is no monthly fee, no charge to claim your link, and payouts go through Stripe. What you are paying for with the extra margin is the infrastructure Topmate doesn't have: the native calling app, the ringing, the live meter, funded-minute billing, in-call tipping, and guest checkout — the machinery that makes "call me right now" possible at all. Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on whether spontaneous live calls are something your audience will buy. For a lot of creators — readers, advisors, coaches, personalities — they are the highest-converting thing on the page.
What the buyer experiences
Fees and features are the seller's view; conversion happens on the buyer's side, so walk both paths. A buyer arriving at a Topmate page sees a storefront: services, prices, testimonials, and a calendar. They pick a slot, check out, get a confirmation email, and meet you days later at the appointed time over a meeting link. It's professional and familiar — and it asks the buyer to commit future time, which is exactly right for a $200 mentorship session and exactly wrong for a moment of impulse.
A buyer arriving at a Cheddify page sees a person who is available right now, a per-minute rate, and a call button. They tap it, pay as a guest in the browser — no account, no download, no confirmation email to dig out of spam — and within a minute they're on a live call while the meter runs. The window between "I want to talk to this person" and "I am talking to this person" collapses from days to seconds. For traffic coming off a TikTok or Instagram bio, where attention has a half-life measured in minutes, that collapse is the entire business case. If your buyers plan ahead, Topmate's flow serves them well; if they act on the moment, every day of delay is revenue that quietly evaporates.
Who should pick which
Pick Topmate if...
- Your sessions are scheduled, structured, and often high-ticket (career mentorship, portfolio reviews, consulting).
- You want webinars, courses, and digital products in the same storefront.
- You value a large existing platform with discovery and community social proof.
- Fee percentage is your deciding factor — 10% is a genuinely good rate.
Pick Cheddify if...
- You want people to be able to reach you live, right now, not next Tuesday at 3 p.m.
- Per-minute billing fits how you work — short calls, variable length, meter running.
- You want your phone to actually ring when a buyer calls, with tips and gifts available mid-call.
- Your buyers are impulse buyers from social — guest browser checkout with no account requirement is built for them.
- You want paid DMs, booked sessions, and fixed-price blocks alongside live calls, under one link.
Plenty of creators could reasonably use either. The question to ask is simple: when someone in your audience wants you, do they want an appointment or a phone call? Topmate is built for the first answer. Cheddify is built for the second. You can read more about how the live flow works on the how it works page, or see the full fee breakdown on pricing.