December Art Vote (Patreon)
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I wanted to take a moment to talk about Patreon fees.
UPDATE: December 13, 2017: I'm happy to report that Patreon listened to everyone's feedback and cancelled the fee change plan! My original post about why I didn't like the proposed change is below:
As you may have heard, Patreon has announced they intend to start charging each of you a flat 2.9% +35 cent processing fee for your pledge to me, instead of deducting the processing fees from my share like they currently do.
In this new scheme, a $1 pledge would become $1.38, a $5 pledge would become $5.50, and a $10 pledge would become $10.64. I think this is dumb, so if they move forward with this change, I will be lowering the price for most of my tiers to account for the added fees. I was perfectly happy paying the fees myself, and I priced all my reward tiers with them in mind!
Unfortunately, I can't set an actual tier below $1, but backers are allowed to pledge lower amounts, and I will continue to share all $1-level rewards with all backers pledging more than 60 cents. Trust me, I am used to paying the disproportionately large fee that comes with small payments online and am happy to be the one one taking the hit. (I've been doing it on here this whole time!)
I'm sure there are some backers that would be OK with covering payment fees so I don't have to, but in my opinion it should be their choice, not a requirement. As always, I heartily encourage everyone to only pledge what they are able, and never begrudge anyone who needs to adjust or cancel.
I find this all extremely frustrating, because Patreon has been such an enormous positive change in my life. I hate seeing them torpedo goodwill with this kind of misguided change because, uh, I need this money to live, and I want my backers to be happy and feel respected. My hope is that they reconsider this decision based on our feedback, but if they don't, I will fix it for them.
Thank you!
-Sam Logan