Marketing and future development (Patreon)

I had a lot of conversations with a fellow lewd dev's recently about patreon marketing. I'm worried that I can't breach the $1k income wall and my patreon payouts slowly going down. It's quite annoying and slow down the actual development, enforcing me to do marketing&advertising instead of doing my development job. Nevertheless all of the people I was talking to, advice me not to give away any game versions for lower than $5 pledge. I believe they have reasons, but I'm also willing to hear from you - the people!

So, limiting $1 pledge to news&pics&vids and giveaway the PRO game build starting from $5 is...