Patreon Fee Change (Patreon)

Important Notice which you've probably no doubt seen everywhere on Twitter/FA etc

But Patreon are changing how they handle processing fees from December 18th, by shifting them onto you PER PLEDGE rather than the previously per transaction from me. The rate is 2.9% + $0.35, which is bad for lower tier pledges.

More details from Patreon here:

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

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

What this means for patrons:

A $5 pledge now costs $5.50

Of which I'll get $4.75

(Approximately 86.36% of what you pay in total, as opposed the the 90.5-91.5% I usually get of $5 [i.e $4.50]. A monetary increase, but not one directly proportional to the price hike)

This is, of course, before tax if you’re anywhere that has VAT as well (like me in the UK! :D) But hey, at least it’s less than that!

Why are they doing this?

As it turns out, Patreon are changing how pledging works, rather than being pledged on the 1st of the month, any new pledges get paid recurring on the day that they pledge instead! Great, no more being double charged if you pledge on the last day of the month!

Note to all current Patrons: You’re still going to be charged on the 1st of the month since your previous pledge effectively means you started pledging on the 1st of December

Except...that makes my pay per month really awkward ‘cause I’m getting money constantly fed in rather than my usual lump sum, when this is supposed to ‘simplify things’ and give creators a more consistent paycheck.

And I can’t use my patreon balance any more to fund creators

Because before they were going to charge the new fee for me to get that money, and then for me to send that money to other creators, despite the fact that they already had it (ya know, double dipping and all)

But now you can’t do that, so problem solved. Simple.

So, Patreon are changing their business model from how they made money as a tip jar to a subscription service that funnels more money into Paypal.

Conjecture I’ve read around is from the recent prevalence of pay per post creators being rather popular, in terms of podcasts, videos etc. So it’s saving Patreon money there, I think. And being really really dumb pretty much everything else.

Things to take away:

You’re going to have to pay a little more for your pledge

But it’s not really that much extra, so don’t get too worried

Unless you pledge to several people on Patreon, in which case it’s gonna rocket up

I’m gonna see a little extra cash for your support (though not as much as the fees are going up by :/) (And as long as a bunch of you still stick around despite the increase)

$1 pledges aren’t really worth it anymore, with nearly half going into fees. I’m going to move the $1 tier up to $2, so it’s only a 20% service fee there.

v 0.3 Alpha should go up on Monday night

Given the general outrage, we may be seeing a mass exodus in future when a viable alternative exists, so keep your eyes peeled for anything new and promising and keep me in the loop~

Feel free to comment on any thing I've missed, or if just want to express your view down below~