How Patreon's Changes Hurt Creators (& You) (Patreon)

Patreon is a significant leg of support for our business. Our viewers, readers, fans, and supporters know that we’re not afraid to challenge product manufacturers on poor designs, and that means sometimes leaning on generous viewer contributions to fund our efforts. This means of support critically enables us to remain headstrong in our journalistic efforts, and avoid invasive advertisements and fully sponsored content.

We also still believe that, even with the new changes, Patreon is the best solution for us to solicit viewer support. But the new changes are bad, and will ultimately hurt growth in ways which the Patreon group doesn’t seem to have thought through.

Here’s what’s happening: Patreon is now imposing a $0.35 USD processing charge for every pledge, charged to the backers, not to the receiving party (GamersNexus). On top of this, Patreon is passing the normal ~2.9% credit card processing fee also to the backers. We used to pay those fees out of our cut, but now, you’ll be paying them.

If that doesn’t sound like a big change, let’s look at it in percentages:

If you pledge $1-$3, which many of our backers do, then you are now paying between 14.7% and 38% more on the old charges. This means that a lot of low-amount pledges (which are very important to our overall revenue) will drop-off, because people can’t shoulder a 40% increase spread across 10 creators they like. It makes more economic sense for those backers to support just a few creators, but at higher dollar amounts.

Here’s the thing: When you support 10x creators at $2 each, you are pledging $20 total to the creators. What Patreon suggests is billing you $0.35 for each pledge, then the 2.9%. The crazy part is that it isn’t any more work – accounting, electronic, or otherwise – to process 10 pledges at $2 versus 1 pledge at $20. This is all automated stuff. If Patreon really wants its fee, we believe they should:

- Charge just once per account, not per pledge

- Pass the burden on to the content creators, not the individual backers

We, as a business, would rather shoulder those fees than force individuals to pay them. It is our belief that the supporters of GamersNexus are giving us financial backing because they believe in what we do; as a business, we can afford those fees. It is cost of doing business. As an individual, the money means a lot more to you. We get it – breaking tone, I get it. When I’m supporting someone, that $5 is thought through a lot more carefully than when, for instance, I’m buying something for the business. We might drop $200 on a tripod without batting an eye – that’s the cost of operating. Likewise, we’d pay service charges without batting an eye, because the backers are ultimately enabling us, and as long as the take-home revenue is still at least 90/10, we’re in good shape. But, as an individual, spending the extra money is more impacting than as a business, and so we disagree with Patreon’s decision to:

- Charge per pledge, which seems crazy

- Pass fees on to backers, rather than Creators

Patreon, please revise this decision. We still love your platform. We just want you to think about our perspective. This was all under the guise of “helping creators,” which is awfully nice PR spin, but keep in mind that backers dropping $1-$3 pledges like flies will only hurt in the long run.

An extra couple dollars won't help us now. The long-term growth potential of having more supporters, even if we pay their fees, is far more important. This is a long-term decision, and has wide-reaching business impact. Focus on that, not on the immediate $90 difference in our monthly pay. We want to enable as many people as possible to support our work.