(Partially) Leaving Patreon in 2024 (for real this time) (Patreon)

Hi waviiies!!!! 🌊 After a little business meeting with Shane, we have some super exciting news today!

So basically... we will be leaving Patreon in the new year, and moving Ocean Club monthly physical rewards to www.oceaninspace.com!
I know I said this once before, but it's for real this time! And HERE'S WHY it's a good thing:

(skip to the line of ♥'s if you want to skip my complaining lol - tl;dr is also at the very bottom)

~

As I've mentioned before, we recently moved over to Subscription Billing this year, which has caused a whole bunch of problems for the way we operate our Patreon. Now, I changed over to this billing format because I thought we would still be able to export things the same way we did previously - but for some reason, we can't. Once we switched over to this billing model, we were no longer able to export bills per a month-by-month basis, which kind of makes no sense, given this is a monthly subscription service..?
So if I wanted to see who paid what for the month of September 2023, yeah I just can't see that anymore, for absolutely no reason at all it would seem...

We tried several times to reach out to Patreon about this and they've given us no feedback or way to solve this issue (told us "we'll get back to you about this", and just never did), and on top of it all, once you change billing methods, they do not allow you to change it back. Even if I launched a new account, we would be stuck with the same billing method.

Due to this problem, we've had up to 5% of our Patrons missing items they've paid for in recent months, simply because Patreon does not export any of our information in any useful way whatsoever, making it a lot harder than it needs to be to run this thing...

And on top of it all! There's many other little things plaguing this system, including:

1.) We can only refund patrons up to 3 months
2.) We can't give Patrons partial refunds, only full refunds
3.) And most importantly, refunds are actually taken from our 'internal Patreon balance', rather than out of something like our PayPal. So say for example, we withdraw funds for the month. Patreon also doesn't allow us to do partial withdrawals, either - so that means our internal balance is now at zero. So at that point, if someone needed a refund for a missing item or "I didn't want to get charged for this", we're now unable to given them a refund because we have no funds to pull from. I can't even pull them from my PayPal which is connected for withdrawing money into...😂

It's a MESS... and I feel like that's just the tip of the iceberg with this platform... and honestly I'm sick of paying money for a service that doesn't listen to it's users or provide any solutions, but instead, pushed everyone into this box until we can't move.

Ree!

~

From an objective perspective (I typed this part when I was less mad LOL) it seems Patreon is trying to shift into a paywall service for creators who offer monthly digital rewards - but for offering physical subscription items to be mailed on a month-by-month basis, this platform is unfortunately useless to us. :(
So... I've decided I'm done with this place! At least for the physical rewards aspect of it. Au revoir!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Now, here's why this change is going to be a good thing FOR EVERYONE... get ready because I'm suuuuper excited about it~♥

Basically, we will be moving all monthly Ocean Club sets to our shop (www.oceaninspace.com) as a regular monthly pre-order item.

And here's some other perks as well!:

• 1.) You will be able to combine monthly Ocean Club sets with other shop items if you choose.*
• 2.) You can buy multiples of sets during our pre-order period.
• 3.) Packaging will be more consistent with less damaged items.
• 4.) Tracked shipping will be automatically available with every shipment.
• 5.) And most importantly, there would be no more signing up through Patreon. So that means no switching tiers, no confusing rules, and no delayed payments entering into the following month. It would just be a product in my shop, and you would just *BUY IT*.

*Haven't heard back from our fulfillment center if they are willing to take our monthly shipments, but we're hoping lol.🤞

And some perks for me which will in turn, benefit everyone:

• 1.) I'll be able to take breaks with Ocean Club hassle-free whenever I want, and can now make my own schedule with it, basically!
• 2.) I can change pricing whenever I want (I haven't been able to since 2021, and the cost of everything has really gone up since then, and we have been losing money as a result)
• 3.) Patreon will be taking no cut (yay)
• 4.) We will be spending less time responding to customer service emails and replacing missed items that are caused by Patreon, and spending more time on making more art and working on new projects!!

Regarding the "Secret Shop" and some other uncertainties:

My main concern at the moment is if it will be possible/beneficial or not to create an actual "subscription" type item for everyone. I know a lot of people just like signing up for one month based on the set, and then I know others like to keep the subscription going for a long time. So we still need to look into how/if we can implement that and have it doable for all parties (us, you guys, and my fulfillment center).

Regarding the Patreon shop, I'm not sure if I will be making the Secret Shop public yet. I still want "Ocean Club" itself to have specific club-like perks, rather than just making it a public free-for-all. So for things like the polls, digital rewards, etc, maybe I could move all these things to like... a Discord?

I always wanted a better chance to create a community with you all, somewhere where we could even talk about shoujo series or share our art♥ So I think that could be nice!
Maybe I'll even keep my Patreon in my back pocket for digital rewards only? I'm not sure yet! Really just mulling over some things now.

Everything I've said so far has all been a ground plan, but is not yet set in stone, and we wont know until we start making the move. All I know is I'm definitely moving things over to my shop, in some form or another, and I wanted to let you all know what's to come!

If you guys have any input or comments, please do let me know!

As always, thank you for your continued support.... and! The ironic thing about this is I just got an email October 1st saying this is my "Patreon anniversary month" (oop)🙃 I guess 5 years was enough. LOL

Thank you wavies, you mean the world to me❤

~

TL;DR: We are moving our physical rewards tiers (basically leaving Patreon) in the new year because the way the internal system has changed has made it very hard to run this operation. Therefore, we will be moving everything to a monthly pre-order service directly on www.oceaninspace.com. This will be easier for everyone involved because we'll have more control over how everything is processed and exported.
Not sure if or how we will still be keeping the Secret Shop private, or how we will be offering digital rewards (might still be on Patreon), or how the subscription part of the service will ultimately work, we are still going over that part.
Thanks for all your understanding. :D