Proposed Patreon Reward Tier Changes (Patreon)

Hi friends! I've been muddling over these Patreon changes and I think it's become pretty clear that $1 pledges aren't going to be very popular anymore. The fee changes mean a 38% increase in expense on every $1 pledge, which is both bad for Patrons (because it costs you more money), and bad for me (because it discourages $1 pledges, and discourages splitting your money between different creators.)

Because of this, I've come up with a plan to merge the $1, $5, and $10 tiers into two tiers instead of three. This will have the added bonus of making reward delivery simpler for me. Here's what I'm thinking:

$3 — Youngling ($3.50 with fees)

• Access to Patron-only Instagram ($1)
• 25% off prints ($1)
• Monthly livestream ($1)
• Desktop & mobile wallpapers ($5)
• Mp3 downloads of new songs ($5)

$8 — Padawan ($8.75 with fees)

• Behind-the-scenes video from a photo/video shoot or convention ($5)
• Tutorial (video or blog format) ($10)
• Timelapse photo edit or drawing video ($10)

The number in parentheses indicates which tier this reward currently belongs to. The Apprentice and Jedi Knight tiers would remain the same. The following rewards would be eliminated:

• Twitter shout-out (This is just hard to manage cleanly, and most people don't seem interested in it)
• Access to polls (I'll still post polls to relevant tiers, but I don't do this often enough to call it a "reward")
• Bonus photoshoot (This has become one of the most stress-inducing and time-consuming parts of monthly rewards)

So that's what I'm thinking! I would love to hear your feedback on this. I know there are a lot of you in the $1 tier, so I realize it may be frustrating to hear that I am considering eliminating your tier, but I think scaling up to a $3 tier would be better for all of us, and I could provide you with some cool new rewards without forcing you up to the $5 tier.