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Patreon's new service fees (Patreon)

Published:
2017-12-07 14:42:12
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

UPDATE: The community response has worked. The fee hike has been cancelled!

--

Hey generous patrons, some unfortunate news. Patreon is changing how it handles payment processing fees.

Before, these would be quietly deducted from your pledge, and the remainder passed on to me.

Now, just in time for the holidays, Patreon is going to be charging these processing fees to you as a service fee - over and above the amount you agreed to pay.

The new service fee is 2.9% of what you pledge, plus $0.35 for every patron you support. This means that if you're currently supporting 10 creators for $1 each, Patreon will charge you $13.79 (not $10).

This is really.. unfortunate. Creators were notified about this yesterday, and in the creator-community threads about this there is an overwhelming response against it.

We'd rather pay the fees so you can more easily understand what you're pledging. Plus, the new fee structure charges credit-card-like rates even if you pledge using PayPal. (Actually, higher than CC rates.)

Patreon is spinning this as good for creators because creators will keep slightly more of the pledged amount, but that's just funny money - what really matters is how much you pay in total, and how much of that gets to creators.

In any case, it looks like it's going through regardless.

I'm very grateful for your support, but I can't stress enough that I don't want you to stretch to give it to me! If you've got to tighten the belt, put your money where it needs to go. I'll take a high five or a tweet instead and be thrilled.

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Comments

GardenGM

Ok, please help me understand. If I pledge $1 now, you get to keep $0.79 and I'm charged a dollar? And going forward if I pledge $1, you'll keep $1 and I'll be charged $1.38 (approx)? I wouldn't mind this system since you'd be keeping the full pledge amount. In aggregate, I might drop a pledge or two to keep my total monthly support around the same, so I can see that some creators might lose out, while others could end up keeping more.

Cederien

While technically I'm ok with it, the way they implement it smells like an attempt to simply increase their own revenue. After all they charge everyone the (higher) Paypal fees in effect overcharging everyone paying by CC. That overcharge will end in Patreons pockets. (Would be interesting to know the percentages of people paying with CC vs. people paying via Paypal.) At any rate that plan is violating EU regulations clearly stating that a trader (or service provider) wishing to charge extra for certain payment methods may not charge more then what it actually costs them to process the payment. It will be interesting to see what happens if they try to get through with that regardless. Patreon is a little big to fly below the radar. (And no it does not matter that they are US based, the regulation applies regardless, if you do business in the EU, which they clearly do.)

Michael Prescott
>>8733899

Eden - if you pledge $1 now, the amount that reaches is me is slightly complicated to work out, and depends on whether you pay by credit card or PayPal. Patreon keeps 5% off the top, and then they send me $0.95. Patreon passes on the processing fees for that, which are either 1.9% + $0.35 for CC, or 5% + $0.05 per transaction. For pledges under ~$10, PayPal has lower fees. Otherwise, CC is cheaper. On average between the two, for $1 pledges, the amount I get is $.86. That's 86% of what you paid. But yes - going forward, you'll pay $1.38 and I'll get $0.95. That's 69% of what you paid.

Michael Prescott
>>8734379

Cederien - the Patreon-PayPal processing fees are actually lower for small pledges (less than around $10). So for campaigns built on $1 pledges, Patreon is actually grabbing mostly from PayPal patrons.

Mark Watson

Hi Michael. Is there a different way for me to back your work in small amounts? Would an ongoing Paypal-thing work better for you?

Michael Prescott
>>8737152

Mark, nothing planned so far. People continue to be very generous here! Buy my book when it comes out? :P

Robert Miller

Yeah, I am sorry, but this fee system is BS. I am going to cancel all of my Patreon support. If you have a Paypal e-mail I can continue to support you through, I am willing to still do it directly. I just don't know how you can go about notifying me and connecting me to your new maps. I am currently supporting $40 to $60 a month (dependent upon projects done), and I find this over all increase to be unacceptable.

Scott Barrie

Creators get slightly more of the "pledged" amount, but a lower percent of the actual money handed over at any level of pledge. It's especially bad at the $1 level, though.

David Tannen

Well I can live with the situation. I believe Patreon could have come up with a better solution (IMO).

Michael Prescott
>>8749832

Well, thank you very much, David, it's appreciated. The one very clever solution I've seen is simply to pro-rate mid-month pledges to the remaining time in the month. Simple.

Lu Quade

I'm gonna stick around for a while and see if I go bankrupt ;)

Mathias Belger

Have you ever looked into other ways? Maybe like selling your stuff in a bundle on DriveThru? I am reevaluating all my pledges due to this mostly hurting the small time creators and tippers.

Michael Prescott
>>8781362

I'm actively looking now. At some point I do intend to put out a compilation. I'm also looking at other tipping options (e.g. Tipee) to see how they compare.

James Binnie

You're the reason I started an account on Patreon so you're the reason I'm sticking around.

Michael Prescott

Woah, they're not rolling out the new changes after all! The mass complaints from creators and patrons seems to have gotten through to them. That's great news! No more money talk when we could be talking about dungeons.