[Important] Patreon's new service fee (Patreon)

Today, Patreon sent out an email to creators letting them know that there's going to be a change in the way they process payments.  Their email is set to go out to patrons tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know since people are already talking about it.

Like any company that processes payments on behalf of a seller, Patreon and the credit card companies each take a cut of the earnings in order to keep themselves up and running.  This money has always come out of your pledge before reaching me.

This is a typical cost of doing business, and a cost of using an external service to collect money, and I was fine with that.

Today I was informed that Patreon is changing their fee structure starting December 18. Since I'm a by-month creator, this would affect your January 1 payments:

"Starting December 18th, Patreon  will apply a new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 to each of your individual  pledges. This service fee helps keep Patreon up and running and  standardizes my processing fees to 5%."

This is roughly what it looks like for people pledging to my tiers (if my math is correct) :

• For a $1 pledge, you'll be charged about $1.38
• For a $2 pledge, you'll be charged about $2.41
• For a $5 pledge, you'll be charged about $5.50
• For a $10 or $10.01 pledge, you'll be charged about $10.64
• For a $20 pledge, you'll be charged about $20.93
• For a $50 pledge, you'll be charged about $51.80

Meanwhile, I will continue to pay 5% of my income to keep Patreon up and running, instead of the 10-15% I used to pay.

Patreon makes up a significant amount of my income and I depend on it to pay the bills, so it means a lot to me if you're able to stay despite the fee increase.  But I also know some of you guys are supporting me with the only dollar or two you have to give, and that added $0.40 is a big loss, especially if you're supporting multiple creators.

I've posted to Patreon's community feedback site and am sharing the feedback I get from my patrons so Patreon can take it into account.  I'll keep you guys updated if anything changes.

[12/9 Update] Patreon has released more information.  They are increasing their fees because they're changing their payment schedule (which I can explain if you'd like), and the change will actually result in them incurring more fees.  I like the current system, but I understand that the new system will solve a lot of problems that currently hit some people harder than others.

While I don't like the idea of patrons paying fees, I admit that it would be incredibly difficult for me to shoulder the burden of the new fee structure all on my own.  But if the fees can be spread across 270+ people, it's a smaller hit for each of us.  If you're willing to give that extra bit for me and your other creators (as I will give for the creators I support), it'd make a huge difference. 

If you as a patron are okay with the added fees as stated above, there's nothing you need to do.  I owe you more gratitude than ever before, and I will try to make it up to you by creating the best work I can create.  

If you're not okay with the fees, there are a few things we can do until all of this is sorted out.

• You won't be charged again for my campaign until January 1, so you can chill and enjoy my content as always until then.  Patreon could still change its mind on many things, so it's best to see how everything plays out.
• You can lower your pledge.  You are allowed to pledge between tiers if you want. For example, if you can only afford $10 max, you can lower your pledge to $9. This would put you in the $5 reward tier, though.
• You can cancel your pledge. I'd be very sad to see you go, but I'd understand.  If you're canceling only because of the fee, please consider periodic donations to my ko-fi instead.
• If you pledge $1/month to 10 creators, you can rotate between pledging $10/month to 1 different creator each month, and this will drastically reduce the fees you pay, but it'll also mean you lose access to the other creators' content during your off months.

There's also one thing I can do on my end.

Right now, I'm only about $15 above the milestone goal required for me to post comic pages publicly.  If we were to drop below it, I would have had to revert to patron-only comic pages.  However, since you guys were all blindsided by this change, I really can't fault you if you need to cancel or decrease your pledges.  So, in the event that I drop below the current milestone goal this month, I'll still continue to post public pages at least for the next 2-3 months.

Obviously, I'd love it if all of you guys stayed, but your financial stability comes first, and I don't want anyone to be hurt by being charged more than you were expecting.

And if we don't drop below the current goal, I'll see if I can reduce the thresholds for my future goals to make them more accessible.

Anyway, Patreon will send their own official email to all patrons tomorrow, so keep an eye out for it.  And please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.  You can comment here or email or message me, or you can come to the new Discord server and chat with me and other patrons in real time.

Thank you guys so much!

[12/13 EDIT: Patreon has listened to user feedback and decided not to implement the new fee discussed in this message!  I'm keeping the message for the sake of having a record, but please note that this information is outdated, and there will be no new service fee!]