IMPORTANT CHANGES FOR PATRONS (Patreon)

Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024. This means that starting in November, new memberships purchased in the iOS app will be subject to Apple's 30% App Store fee.

I am currently on a first-of-the-month billing model, but Apple's in-app purchase system only supports subscription billing. Apple has made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, Patreon will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.  

So, starting in November, patrons in the iOS app won't be able to pledge to me until I switch to subscription billing. And, as a result of Apple's mandates and in order to make sure that creators can continue getting new members in the iOS app, Patreon has started a 16-month-long migration process to bring all creators onto subscription billing by November 2025. This means that my current billing model will be automatically switched in November 2024, and completely discontinued in November 2025 at the latest. 

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Because of this, starting from the 1st of September 2024, I will be switching to the subscription billing model, which means new patrons will be charged when they sign up and then each month exactly on the day they signed up, instead when they sign up and then on the 1st every month.

If you are an existing patron, you will continue to be charged on the 1st of every month and won't pay any extra costs if you used the iOS app to pledge. New patrons will now be charged on the same day they signed up every month, for example, if they pledged on the 14th, they will be charged on the 14th of every month. New Patrons pledging using the iOS Patreon app will unfortunately have to pay the Apple App Store fee. Thanks Apple.

Unfortunately, everyone being charged at different times instead of all at the start of the month makes sending rewards difficult, as I use external hosting and the Patreon messaging system to prevent automated data scrubbing, meaning I would have to create and send new links just because a single patron's subscription has expired. I have decided that the best course of action is, still sending rewards through DMs, but instead of refreshing the links to the archives every month, I will do it every week (on Monday) (for patrons still pledged at the time of course).

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Overall, you will not have to worry about anything, rewards will still be sent as normal, a new archive link will just sent every week instead of every month for as long as you remain pledged. For new patrons, there has never been a better time to pledge, as you will ALWAYS receive at least a full month of rewards when you first pledge, which was not always true for the charge-up-front with 1st of the month model. (For example, a patron pledges on the 15th of the month, and then is charged again on the 1st of the following month. Now with this new system, you would be charged on the 15th every month and will never be short-changed).

Gumroad will stay the same, with archive links also being sent weekly instead of monthly.