Reconsidering Patreon (Patreon)

In case you hadn't heard yet, on December 7th, Patreon revealed a complete overhaul of how their fees and payment plans work. As far as I've understood it, fees that were previously shouldered by artists are now being tacked on to the patrons instead, increasing the amount you have to pay by a small percentage to cover the cost of credit card transactions. Additionally, they're de-aggregating payments, meaning that instead of having all payments process at once at the beginning of the month, payments will process on the monthly anniversary of when you additionally pledged. This means that the way I dole out rewards, high-res copies, PSD's, etc, has to be completely reworked.

That being said, I'm not ready to jump ship just yet. There's a lot of momentum on social media to perform an exodus from Patreon in retaliation, but it feels like a repeat of when furries "left" FurAffinity, found that there are no real viable alternatives, and then returning. Until an actual alternative comes around, is proven as friendly to adult content as Patreon has been, and gains momentum, I'll be sticking around here. And I've said this before, but Patreon, and the incredible support I've gotten from you folks, has allowed me to explore personal subjects in drawing that I don't think I would've otherwise been able to explore. I want to keep going as long as this system will let me.

So this also raises the question, "how will I be changing stuff around here?" Firstly, once the changes take place, I'll likely be switching over to monthly pledges instead of per-update. Treating it more like a subscription service with an upfront fee means that I can post PSD's and high-res copies alongside Patreon updates without the worry of people nabbing content for free. However, this means I'll likely have to change pledge amounts from 1/3/5 per update to 1/5/10 monthly, just to make sure I get somewhere near the same amount per month. Rewards and tier-locked content will likely stay exactly as-is.

And for those of you sticking around, I really do owe you a great debt. If the fees are too much and you need to remove your pledge, I also completely understand!! An unexpected additional percentage tacked on to what is already a generous donation can make or break it for some people, and if Patreon ever gives artists the option to soak up those credit card fees themselves, I'd switch over in a heartbeat.

Please, if you have any suggestions, questions, concerns, hit me up in the comments!!