Patreon's new service fee
Added 2017-12-07 00:54:51 +0000 UTCPatreon has announced that it will be adding a service fee starting next month. This will add 64¢ to your $10 pledge — $10.64 total.
- $1 pledges will be charged as $1.38
- $5 pledges will be charged as $5.50
- $10 pledges will be charged as $10.64
- $20 pledges will be charged as $20.93
- $50 pledges will be charged as $51.80
You'll get an official notification tomorrow morning, but I figured I'd open the dialogue here and answer any questions or concerns that you might have right now.
Hit me in the comments — or tweet me @guigar — and I'll be happy to answer anything that's on your mind.
This new charge will not take effect until the end of the month, so you have plenty of time to adjust your pledge if you decide it's necessary.
Update: Friday, Dec. 8
Patreon has provided a little more information on WHY they made the decision that they made. It's definitely worth a read. I understand the situation much better than I did yesterday. I'm not sure I could have come up with a better solution on my own... however, I sure wish they had offered that backstory yesterday when they first made the announcement.
Why are they doing this?
From Patreon's e-mail to creators...
In the past, a creator’s income on Patreon varied because of processing fees every month. They could lose anywhere from 7-15% of their earnings to these fees. This means creators actually took home a lower percentage of pledges than their patrons may have realized.
A new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge starting on December 18th. This restructuring allows creators to take home a greater portion of their earnings, which is core to our mission of getting creators paid.
Again... for the reasons behind this decision, please read the blog post.
Comments
Maybe a better analogy would be putting a dollar in the hat of a street performer, and being told there's a fee for using the hat. People understand there has to be a fee for using the platform. But it was behind the scenes, to paraphrase the "wizard of oz" no one paid attention to what went on behind the curtain. Now Patreon has pulled aside the curtain, and shown a spotlight on it. Nobody likes paying late fees on credit cards or similar. Before, on a $1 pledge it seemed like 80%ish was going to the creator now it seems like .95/1.38=68%ish is going to the creator. that kind of break down would get an "F" from most charity watch websites. And no matter how Patreon tries to spin it, it just feels like a whole lot more money is going to the processors.
John Brinkman
2017-12-09 22:54:04 +0000 UTCI don't disagree with you. And I'm not thrilled with the effect this has on people who support multiple creators on Patreon. CEO Jack Conte has tweeted that he's reading and listening to people who are upset by this. I'm confident they'll do the right thing.
Brad Guigar
2017-12-09 22:32:06 +0000 UTCWhen I donate $X to something, I don't expect to be told there's a fee on top of that. It's like putting a dollar in the salvation army bucket and santa saying that will be an extra 25 cents please. before the creators were able to say "pledge as little as a buck"
John Brinkman
2017-12-09 22:25:14 +0000 UTCBy the way, folks, Patreon has provided a little more information on WHY they made the decision that they made. It's definitely worth a read: <a href="https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/">https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/</a> I understand the situation much better than I did yesterday. I'm not sure I could have come up with a better solution on my own... but I sure wish they had offered that backstory yesterday when they first made the announcement.
Brad Guigar
2017-12-08 20:33:13 +0000 UTCOh, now THAT I can address from personal experience. See, I used to process credit cards at comic conventions before the days of Square card readers that worked off your smartphone. There are TONS of different fees that apply to different types of transactions. The fee for each credit-card transaction type is determined by both the kind of card used, the way it is processed, and the time it takes the merchant to batch the transactions for processing. So, I could get three different fee structures on three consecutive transactions that happened one-after-another at my table during a convention. In that regard, that 7-15% comment is verifiable.
Brad Guigar
2017-12-08 20:29:46 +0000 UTCThe part that makes my brain hurt is "They could lose anywhere from 7-15% of their earnings to these fees." They make it sound like it comes from random chance. Like your processing cost is 3d3 + 6 %, save vs paypal...
Paul Jan
2017-12-08 20:04:06 +0000 UTCI’m lucky that my Patronage pledges don’t impact me much financially, so I don’t have any plans to change. I totally understand if other people reach a different decision.
StLOrca (pronounced Ess Tee Ell Orca)
2017-12-08 03:26:15 +0000 UTCSee, that's my concern as well. My only request is for you folks to wait until next week to make any hard-and-fast decisions. That still leaves you plenty of time to alter your pledges before the new system kicks in. I'm going to be very surprised if Patreon doesn't respond the the amount of negative pushback they're receiving.
Brad Guigar
2017-12-07 13:58:12 +0000 UTCYou won't be impacted by this, but my $1/mo pledges w/ no real benefit except helping an indie comic survive are going out the window after this change.
RoofPig
2017-12-07 13:54:42 +0000 UTCPeter and Oliver: I’m going to take these concerns directly to my contacts at Patreon. They’ve been very responsive in the past. I have to believe there’s a sensible solution to this.
Brad Guigar
2017-12-07 09:11:55 +0000 UTCFor this change.. I require .35 cents more Miss Match in every strip !
Taylan
2017-12-07 08:45:34 +0000 UTCI fully agree with Peter, and there is not much sensible about how this is done. My Patreon bill is already sizable, with lots of 1$ pledges that already are not 1$ pledges because of VAT. Together with the fee, 1$ pledges will be closer to 2$. Having said that I went through the list of my pledges and reviewed each and every of them, and cancelled several, reduced some by the expected amount, and got only more frustrated with Patreon since I had to find out they had eliminated the below-a-dollar pledge, even for artists who charge per item. I have now the choice of changing those pledges and set ridiculously low caps on them. I can no longer give an incentive for producing more content per month unless I'm willing to even pay for the 5th, 7th, or umpteenth monthly release with a dollar. I want to see some money heading the creators' way for every item they make, even if they do six or more items a month. But all they will get now with Patreon is a greater reluctance to enter 1$ pledges and very low per-item caps. I bet that feels great for creators to release the third work in a month for peanuts only. I bet that model goes away soon, too. All of this is of course no fault of yours. Some creators will end up with more. Especially those where the rewards are where it's at. I back you this highly for the extra content, and I am pleased with what I get, so I bet you will actually benefit from this. Which is okay to me, really. But I think many smaller, part-time creators will now see reductions. If Patreon really negotiated to bill each pledge individually, that's just silly. That's getting shafted on a deal you didn't need to make.
Oliver Korpilla
2017-12-07 08:06:03 +0000 UTC
