Patreon Creators Will Now Receive 95% of Patron Pledges

Update (13/12/17, 19:45 GMT): as of today, Patreon is no longer changing its fee system, as we reported on here.

Patreon has reshuffled the way that its creators receive pledges, meaning that people will now get to keep 95% of all pledges made to them by patrons.

Patreon sent the following e-mail out to its creators today:

Dear creator, 

In order to continue our mission of funding the creative class, we’re always looking for ways to do what’s best for you – creators. 

With that, we’re writing to tell you of a change we’re making so that all Patreon creators take home exactly 95% of every pledge, with no additional fees. 

Aside from Patreon’s existing 5% fee, you may notice that your income on Patreon varies because of processing fees every month. Your patrons may not even be aware that you actually take home a lower percentage of their intended pledges because of it. Our goal is to make your paycheck as predictable as possible, so we’re restructuring how these fees are paid. 

A new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge starting on December 18th. This streamlines fees for both creators and patrons to ensure that you pay no more than 5%.

While some people are welcoming the changes, excited that creators will be receiving more income from Patreon, there are also a few problems with this new payment model. Firstly, smaller pledges such as the $1 tier will now cost patrons much more than they did previously, as there’s a new 2.9% (plus $0.35) transaction fee per pledge. This will be paid for by patrons, and will mean that creators’ incomes will be more consistent throughout the months. As Patreon explained: “In the past, a creator’s income on Patreon varied because of processing fees every month. They could lose anywhere from 7-15% of their earnings to these fees. This means creators actually took home a lower percentage of pledges than their patrons may have realized.”

Another problem is that there is no way for creators to “opt out” of this new system and continue paying the higher processing fees themselves, which may affect them negatively overall if some patrons decide to stop pledging due to the increased processing fees that they’re now required to pay. Patreon suggested that creators send the following message out to their followers in order to let them know of the changes:

In the past, I was covering Patreon’s 5% fee and all of the processing fees in full for all of my patrons. This meant that every month I saw anywhere from 7-15% of my earnings taken out to cover those processing fees.

Starting December 18th, Patreon will apply a new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 to each of your individual pledges. This service fee helps keep Patreon up and running and standardizes my processing fees to 5%.

This ensures that creators like me keep more earnings in order to continue creating high-quality content. I hope you understand and continue your pledges on Patreon. You can read even more about the service fee here.

These changes are set to take place from December 18th 2017, and Patreon users will see these new rates implemented automatically.

What do you think of these changes to Patreon’s fee system? Are you a creator or a patron who regularly uses Patreon? How will this new fee system affect you or your work? Let us know in the comments below!