Patreon Changing It's Fee Processing, So What Does That Mean? (Patreon)

So, I had been working on a post to talk about how my actual Patreon payout this month was about $100 less than what the posted Goal Total had listed (this was so I could talk transparently about the Discretionary Goal and how for most of the month it looks like we've hit it but then over a three day period we drop way below it when it counts).

However, as I was about to write that post I got an email from Patreon saying their fee structuring is changing so that Creators will have more predictable payouts. But part of that is because the fees that were being taken out of the Donation Pool would now be paid directly by my Patrons each month, accounting for a small additional fee to you all each time your donation is processed. You can read more about what that means here. From what I can tell, it means that if you are pledged for $5.00 you'll be paying $5.50 starting at the end of this month.

So, first of all, we all have different needs - especially at THIS time of year - so I want to make sure people know what is going on. If we're doing Pros and Cons I do feel that charging Patrons more for what would feel like the same material is a Con.

However, I have been doing some math. Let's stick to that whole $5.00 to $5.50 thing, as I have more Patrons in the $5.00 level than any other. Yeah, you'll be paying an extra $0.50 per month. But, if I understand all of this correctly, the reason for this is change is it should mean that on my side I am going to be getting $32.00 more per month than I had previously for the same number of pledges.

And $32.00+ could easily be the difference between affording that extra page per month, or not. It looks to me like what we may be seeing is that you each will pay a little more, but you will all be getting more art as a reward.

I can say this for two reasons; 

1) Pretty much everything I get from you all goes right into artwork that I have to pay for, this isn't art work that I do myself. That's not $32 that will ambiguously disappear into some "X number of hours of my time" - I will literally be able to say, "$XX extra money per month can pay for X" from my artists.

2) I charge per month, not per item. If you have artists who charge per post, and you get 5 posts per month, that will be $2.50 extra for that, and then ANOTHER extra $.50 if they can post an extra item with these funds. With the monthly charge, if I can add another page because of this change you'll all still only get that extra $.50 charge (in the $5 Pledge category).

That's how I THINK all of this will work, anyways. I'm figuring it out as much as you are. Like I said, if these changes mean you can't afford to support me anymore I totally understand. I thank you for your support thus far and I hope we can come together again in the future.

Meanwhile, for those of you who can afford to hold on and see what happens, I hope this means more for all of us. I will certainly do what I can to make that happen.

~dS