UPDATE SEPTEMBER 28TH: Hey folks! Wanted to update this post again here at the end of the month and bring this topic back to your attention. The model switchover will be occurring next week and nothing has changed since the original announcement (which you can read about below). Please reach out if you have any questions!

If you are already a patron, feel free to stop reading here! Nothing about your membership is changing: you will continue to receive the same access you have been and will be charged the same amount on the 1st of each month.

Hello all!

There is soon going to be a change to the way Patreon handles our billing and I wanted to give all of you plenty of head's up as well as a proper explanation of what it means.

Starting next month (October), Venatus Maps will be transitioning to a monthly membership model due to a change Patreon is making to the way its billing operates. For existing patrons, your current pledge tier, access to content, and existing payment arrangement will all be honored by Patreon through this transition.

Let me say it again: existing patrons will experience no changes to what they can access or what they pay each month. You'll continue to have the same access you've always had, for the same price.

Why the Change?

I launched this patreon in 2017 and at the time, the pay-per-creation system made a lot of sense. The scope of what I was doing was fairly limited (i.e. I had no idea what I was doing) and it made sense to keep the exchange similarly limited: I'd make a map and patrons would help support that particular release.

Nearly a decade later, Venatus Maps has grown exponentially in so many ways: the support from you all, the amount of folks I get to share my work with, and of course building an enormous library of maps, asset packs, tokens, adventures and other resources, and the things I've come to be interested in making don't always slot cleanly into identical "creations" in that pay-per-creation model.

Nowadays, a month might contain an enormously-mapped dungeon, a collection of multiple smaller maps, asset packs of diverse themes, token sets of new and familiar creatures, adventures from creative collaborators, and all of the ongoing maintenance work I do for things like our download compilation page, the asset database, and our Virtual Tabletop preparations.

This monthly model fits much more comfortably onto the dynamic shape a given month's content may take and further allows me to focus on creating things that I think are worth making without worrying as much about how cleanly it fits into my "1 of 5 paid posts".

And crucially, this is not a change to how much I intend to produce. I've been releasing five paid posts every month since the beginning and I have absolutely no intention of reducing the scope of my work. The difference is simply that the number of releases in a given month won't dictate what you pay.

What isn't Changing?

Existing patrons will:

Keep your current tier

Keep the same access to the content here

Continue paying the same amount through the transition and afterwards

Not need to do anything to make the transition happen

The pricing I'll outline below applies to people looking to join us under the new system starting next month. Existing patrons are being carried through the transition with Patreon honoring the terms of your existing membership. So if you've been happy with your pledge tier, nothing is changing, you don't need to do anything, and you aren't being asked to pay a new or different amount.

What is Changing?

Because we are transitioning to a monthly membership model, the way our pledge tier pricing is communicated needs to change. Starting next month, a visit who was not already a patron will see these new standard monthly prices:

Pilgrim tier: $5/mo

Strategist tier: $10/mo

Explorer tier: $15/ mo

Adventurer tier: $25/mo

Archiver tier: $50/mo

These will be for new patrons joining after the transition--in other words: not a repricing of your existing membership.

When is this happening?

The transition to monthly billing will take place during the week of October 5th.

Naturally, I'll be posting a couple more reminders as we get closer, but again: existing patrons do not need to do anything. I mean... anything.

I'll continue making all the same types of things in the same amounts that I've been making for years. The way Patreon structures our billing is changing, but the work you've been supporting here is not.

As always, thank you for being here and the support you've extended me. Next spring will mark 10 years of creating for you and your players and your stories and none of it would have been able to happen like this were it not for your help! I am grateful.