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And another follow-up on the Patreon fee situation (Patreon)

Published:
2017-12-11 12:29:02
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I promised last week I'd have an update for you on how I'll proceed regarding this whole Patreon fee mess. Here's what I've decided on for now, after some long and hard thinking over the weekend.

First of all, I've added additional pledge tiers to this campaign that are adjusted to eat up the new fees (e.g. instead of paying $10 for the sticker level plus fees, you now only have to pay $9.10 plus fees for the same perk, which comes out at $9.97). That way I'll basically pay the fees instead of you. So, if you want to continue to support me here but don't want to pay more than you used to for the same perk, switch your pledge over to this new tier (identified by "fee-adjusted edition"). You can switch your pledge by selecting "Your Pledges" in the menu hidden in the upper right corner of the Patreon page and then clicking "Edit Pledge".

I couldn't do the same for the $1 tier - Patreon simply doesn't allow me to add a pledge tier for something less than a dollar. And it didn't make much sense for the $2 tier.

However, I've added a new option to the Support OctoPrint page at octoprint.org: Liberapay. Liberapay is a fully open source donation service targeted at people who want to support (and get support for) open source projects but also other kind of public work. You can read more about their mission statement here. Liberapay does not offer adding perks of any kind, but it works really well for small recurring donations due to the fact that it doesn't do those as microtransactions but instead you load up your Liberapay account with some funds and those then get used to finance your pledges. I hope that this is a good alternative option for those of you at the $1 and $2 tiers that cannot or do not want to pay those insane fees that Patreon is currently planning to add (and again - I fully understand you).

I wanted to also add PayPal subscriptions to the support page but had to find out that this is not supported by PayPal on German accounts unless you have at least 25000€ per month coming in - I don't see this happening in the near future ;) so PayPal subscriptions are out for the time being. I'm still looking into offering Stripe as a payment provider and hopefully add recurring subscriptions through them though.

Apart from these steps, I'm going to observe current developments a bit more for now (and try to figure out what I'll do with my own pledges, something I haven't yet gotten around to...). If Patreon insists on this ill conceived new fee structure even with the huge backlash it currently receives from all sides, I'll look into further alternatives come January. I hear a competitor from Kickstarter called Drip is about to launch publicly, and then there are also other options that are currently ramping up their game to fill the niche that Patreon just willingly moved out of. And if I find a way to accept recurring payments myself, I might also still look into just building up a support platform on octoprint.org myself, based on existing solutions. 

But for now, I think rash decisions to abandon ship would be unwise on my part. Again, I can understand if you don't want to support Patreon and vote with your feet in this - but in that case please consider to take a look at the Liberapay or PayPal options. However, if I can ask this of you, if it's possible for you at all, please delay cancelling or replacing your subscription with a one-time payment, because recurring payments are what keep the project running and let me sleep at night :)

Last but not least, let me thank you again for your support, your encouragement and simply for having my back! 

Gina

Comments

Robert Klauco

Excellent decision. I took the same point of view - I'll wait a month or 2 and when the fees are extensive as I expect them to be, I will look for alternative options such as direct SEPA payment or Liberapay or something. For me it is just not possible to comprehend why does not Patreon does exactly the same think as Liberapay - get the whole payment for all supported entities at once and deduct the fees only once, not per pledge - even now they are deducting the payment once in a month in bulk, not per pledge... Looking forward to your decision, I'll make sure to follow your recommendation.

Paul McMaster

If your web site is WordPress based you should consider the "wp full stripe" plugin for easy subscriptions. Also the membership plugin would allow you to have perks right on the site

foosel
>>8821912

It isn't, it's a static Jekyll based page. But I'd be willing to switch (it's one of the options I was looking into these past few days). However, even Wordpress + some membership plugin won't solve the issue since as mentioned above, PayPal doesn't offer subscriptions in Germany for small fish like me, so a big part of the equation would still be missing.

Paul McMaster
>>8821912

Hmm. If you could use a stripe based plugin to get people subscribed and it gives them a certain user role on the wp site, then many plugins would work to filter availability of content to only those user levels and above.

Anonymous

It would be very great to implement Stripe payments soon. Paypal is not an option for me, because after what many stories I witnessed I consider them fraudsters. I recommend you to keep as little money in their system as you can, because they can take it at any time. Liberapay refused to accept my card. I will try again soon.

foosel
>>8821912

If I can, yes. But the jury is still out on that one. I'll keep looking into this.

John S. Fetzik

Thanks for the update. I too will be waiting a couple months to see how things shake out.

David Bonner

Thanks for adding liberapay as an option...heading over there now.

Anonymous

Yeah, let's wait how this turns out. :)

Anonymous

I just received the following reply after my complain some days ago. Maybe, there is some hope... "Hi there, First, I want to apologize for this canned response to your email regarding fees. This fee restructuring was meant to help creators by giving them more clarity and security regarding take-home earnings. That said, we've felt and seen the impact to creators and patrons, and we have much more to absorb and learn from the feedback received. As you can imagine, creative businesses are full of passion, and so are the creators and patrons that keep them running. We are experiencing a high volume of support tickets as a result of the announcement and will be working to respond to you with a personal response as soon as we can. We hope to respond to you within the week and will update you as we progress. All the best,"

Anonymous

It would be smarter for them to offer the option to collect a year's worth of $1 and $2 and distribute it monthly. That reduces the service fee on the contributer and keeps the recurring income flowing steadily for the creator.

Caoimhe Chaos
>>8821912

If there are going to be perks of some kind, such as these announcements and discussions here, I personally would prefer if they were not an island solution which I'd have to follow and log in and out of just for Octoprint alone.

Anonymous

Thank you for the information, I would have missed that. One question I have to ask, though I am not a big spender: Is your effective income higher on the liberapay platform? Or do they have similar percentages of fees? If the first question is true, I will move there. If the second question is true, I will increase my pledge on patreon. I also have to make another statement I already made at Thomas Sanladerers patreon page: My first impulse also was to completely cancel my pledges with patreon, since I don't like this kind of badly communicated business move. But seeing so many people here that indeed do cancel their pledges, I am wondering if this is the right move, even if patreon messed up here. In the end, it mainly damages the fixed income for the creators which they need to keep going and being able to plan ahead. That only applies of course, if you canceled and did not find an alternative way to source the creators some cash. I will wait and see what happens next.

foosel
>>8840076

Liberapay funds itself through itself and doesn't impose fees on the creators on there. I do plan on backing their own campaign however based on the amount of pledges I'll get there. I have to admit that I don't have any real experience with them so far myself, but they were what was most recommended to me since this whole Patreon madness started last week and looked good based on their FAQ, general approach to things and such. Also thank you for that statement. As I said, I can fully understand if people pull their support here on Patreon, but it DOES hurt me a lot, and it's now got me pondering on how long this is going to continue to work at all. I'm not sleeping well these days.

foosel
>>8835808

A whole ton of things would be smarter than what they decided to do there. I still can't grasp why they came to the conclusion this would be the best move forward, which makes me think we might not have the full picture (which of course would be on them). Between what Sebastien wrote above and what I've been hearing through the grapevine, maybe we'll get some more answers or mitigation this week. Too late though for a lot of creators out there, and I'm also fairly sure that I've lost a lot of those currently 86 patrons who cancelled their pledges for good, and that sucks pretty hard, especially if the trend continues.

Anonymous
>>8840076

Thanks for the clarification. For the time being, I will remain on patreon and keep the pledge and also start with Liberapay with the same amount as on patreon. Since I only pledged 1 $ here, the second dollar does not hurt me. If in the future Liberapay plays out well, I think I will eventually move there completely. I can completely understand you are not sleeping well. That is exactly what I meant. For people like you, who dedicate their complete workforce to the community and make this their full time job, situations like this are a horror. Who knows how long it takes until the storm is settled. Nevertheless, I wish you all the best and hope this all turns out good in the end.

Anonymous
>>8840076

For anyone interested: On Liberapay I selected 1 € per month. You can choose to pay in advance for a select amount of months. I chose 1 year and the cheapest is wire transfer. It cost me 12,56 €. The other payment methods are roughly 3 € more expensive.

Mike Jackson

Well, I am more than willing to pay the fee to keep Octoprint/Octopi going. I love the work you've done and are doing. To show Patreon, I upped my donations! LOL actually I upped it to help with the people who are leaving.....

Anonymous

Very nice of you to put the new tiers in!

Anonymous

Thanks for adding the Librepay option, I've been looking to close my Patron account but stuck around because it was the only way to support Octoprint :) Catch you on the flipside!

foosel
>>8867512

Yes, just saw it. Also got messaged by my Patreon rep. Gonna post another update ASAP.

Mike Jackson

Ha! We showed them! Guess my upping the pledge made them come to their senses.......LOL Going to keep the pledge up, since I have budgeted for it and to show "the man" he can't mess with Octopi or my favorite home town programmer Gina! (I was born in Frankfurt).....