Patreon's New Processing Fee System (Patreon)

You may or may not have heard, but Patreon has announced they are changing their processing fee system on the 18th of December. I got an email from them today talking about this, and they included the chart above to illustrate the change.

In the current system, your pledges are a flat fee that is stated upfront. From your payment, patreon takes a 5% cut and credit card/paypal processors take between 7 - 15% of the payment. This is how it is with most service-based things (ebay, for example).

In the new system, they are cutting the fees down and pushing some of them to pledgers. They want to have you pay 2.9% + $0.35 on top of that. Their intent seems to be to give creators and patreon more income by making the pledgers pay the processing fee burden. For instance, a $1 pledge is now $1.38. $5 is now $5.50, etc. 

I know many of you pledge to multiple patreons. You may set aside a certain amount each month for that, and now with the fees added, you may feel the need to lower or drop support for some patreons. 

I reached out to patreon about this, and politely asked them to reconsider, as I feel this will result in more people dropping support, and that I - and many other creators - are more than happy to pay the processing fees and not put that on our pledgers' shoulders. They emailed me back with the response they sent everyone else who talked to them, which effectively says they think it'll be fine. We'll see.

Many creators, myself included, are raising concerns about this, and are saying that we are more than happy to pay the fees and not burden you with them. I frankly feel they are forcing a solution to something that wasn't really a problem. But then again, I just use their service, so I don't know what the behind-the-scene reasons are for the change.

So, a few points:

1) Despite them saying this is to help creators, I don't know if I will really gain more income from their system. Maybe a slight amount, but it's not worth it, I think. To me, the system is fine as-is and I don't think it needs to be changed.

2) If you are concerned about this change and that it may make it likely you will drop support for patreons, I suggest you POLITELY email patreon, which you can do here. I do emphasis politeness.

3) I don't know yet how exactly how or if I will be changing my patreon to adjust to this. I have considered lowering Tier costs a bit to compensate for the increased fees, but those fees will only be based on how much the Tier is, so it may end up severely hitting me financially for not much change overall. I admit I'm not too good with numbers, so this is just a thought at the moment.

4) I also am considering if there's something I could add to the patreon to compensate for the slight price increase. However, I already upload almost daily, with multiple projects, and I'm honestly worried I'm already overworked. I'll think about it, though.

5) Lastly, patreon has been life-changing for me. It wasn't until this service that I was able to really make a reliable, stable living off my art, especially to the point where I could live the life I wanted to, where I wanted to. I have tremendous gratitude for patreon for making a platform like this, but by far, YOU are the reason I can do this, and I am eternally grateful for you supporting me. I really would not be here without you.

I care about you all, and I am doing what I can to get patreon to reconsider this fee system change. But if it still happens, I want you to not feel like it's a burden, and I want you to continue being satisfied with the content you are supporting. <3

If you have any other questions, patreon put together an FAQ: 

https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005631963 

Otherwise, you can discuss this with me in the comments below.

UPDATE:

Patreon has gone into more detail for their reasoning behind the new payment system. Make of it what you will:

https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/