Patreon is making changes

by **ArtSavage** » Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:37 pm

This is rolling around tumblr at the moment, but patreon is planning to change their fee structure.
Instead of taking operating costs from the pool the creator gets, they tack the fee onto the donor.

Fast version: if you pledged to give $1, they're gonna charge your card $1.38. Per creator.
They're selling it to the artists by saying "oh, but you'll take home 95% of the pledge"

Snarky version:

Spoiler: show

You can find more details elsewhere, but basically they're trying to make themselves look pretty for investors.
Purge the really violent porn, and now drive out the one dollar armies. They're trying to filter it down to only the big marketable success stories.

This is just my interpretation, so be sure to do your own research.
-A. Savage

by **zoozoo** » Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:05 pm

Is it a fixed charge (a 1 dollar pledge and a 100 dollar pledge both have a 50 cent fee) or a percentage increase?

by **ArtSavage** » Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:31 pm

Both.

A new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge

$1 patrons get charged $1.38
$5 = $5.49
$20 = $20.93

The flat 35 cents is the issue.
Basically if you have a pledge tier that costs less than a pandora subscription, you're gonna get a big slice of pie taken out.

by **RediQ** » Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:57 am

I'm not gonna back out of who I support over this, but I haven't seen anyone at all who's happy with the change. It's also sad that adult and fetish artists are likely to get hit worse than most.

Patreon is kinda-sorta implying that it's to account for charge fees, but the problem (lie) with that is that patrons are billed in one bulk charge for everyone they support, and I'm told creators get paid in bulk too. But Patreon wants to make this fee per pledge, not per charge. So someone with ten $1 pledges is gonna pay $13.79 even though their charge only goes to patreon once.

I've seen plenty of bigger creators say they're gonna push back against this if they can, and a good suggestion from smaller creators has been changing their support tiers to account for it (so making their $5 into $4.50, making their $2 tier into $1.60, etc).... but unfortunately that still doesn't help how awful this is for people whose support comes mainly from a lot of $1 backers who might leave them.

Edit - Also, somebody just found this: https://brianbalfour.com/essays/patreon ... ing-growth

It's a mess of tech-business-investor speak, but there's a lot of points there at which they mention their business model is based on big successful creators or people bringing in a big fanbase from somewhere else, and kinda..... confirms that patreon really doesn't care what happens to creators who are small and struggling.... and that they view creators who aren't doing well as something that should get "weeded out". It sucks.

by **RyanC** » Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:39 am

Patreon nonsense. They're too aware that they're the best option.

by **AlluringPredation** » Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:37 pm

RedmanQ wrote:but the problem (lie) with that is that patrons are billed in one bulk charge for everyone they support

Which is what is changing. Because of the rampant pledge/cancel and fraudulent credit cards they are going to be billing people as necessary immediately rather than 1st of the month basis in a lump sum. It'd be nice if they could enable an option to prebill and/or bank some money to avoid multiple fees. I'm not interested in seeing multiple charges and associated fees on my card/paypal

by **jaggedjagd** » Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:54 am

.................................

by **ArtSavage** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 3:01 pm

Update:
I've just gotten an email saying they won't be rolling out the changes.
Looks like the underestimated the number of $1 patrons.