Patreon Pledge Changes (Patreon)

Greetings my friends 

Patreon made a big change that starts on the 18th. It’s ticking off a lot of people. I’ve had a couple folks delete their membership already. I’m sad about that, but I don’t blame you. I also want to make changes to membership levels to reflect this change. But today turned into a snow day. The kids are at home and I won’t get any work done until Monday. I hope you’ll bare with me. 

If you didn’t understand the change when you read that email, you’re not alone. All I saw is that I, as a creator, would get 95% of all my pledges. Cool! 

But the change meant creative accounting for Patreon. Meaning they are passing on fees to you. And the less you pledge, the more it’ll impact you. And the more people you pledge to, the more it’ll impact you as well. 

That’s because they are charging something like 2.9% + 35 cents per membership you are signed up to. (Numbers are from memory so may not be accurate). But that’s for EACH Patreon account. 

That fee sorta makes sense for new sign ups. But for regular Patrons, that sounds shady. Patreon keeps that 35 cents per account. 

I say it sounds shady, but for me it just sounds weird. Patreon provides an amazing service to creators. So for them to keep that extra 35 cents sounds fine for me. Yes, it’s more money I will be paying to those folks I support, and I will think about whether it is worth the extra money. 

What it boils down to is, I, and probably you too, like the flat $1 per month payment. This screws that up. It messes with my promotion of it too. It just kinda sucks. 

But I can sort of fix it for you. 

I’ve decided to drop the basic membership to just 50 cents. That way you can be a member for under a buck. 

Again, give me a couple days to implement. I may make other changes as well. 

Stay tuned and please let me know your thoughts on the change.