By now you have probably heard of the changes Patreon is making to its fee structure this month. Patreon says they are changing the structure so patrons pay the fees and creators get a larger percentage of the pledge. The more accurate version is that they are having patrons pay the fees and adding a 35 cent fee to each pledge. So with this change, at lower pledge levels, if you include the fees in the math, creators are getting a lower percentage of the price a patron pays.
This is an especially big change for people that support a lot of creators for 1 or 2 dollars a month. If you make 20 $1 pledges each month your price will jump from $20 to $27.60. If this is a financial burden for you, you would need to stop supporting 6 creators to lower your pledges to the previous level. That’s 6 creators that are losing a piece of their community.
Here is a useful comparison chart posted by Ben Wolfe.
Here’s a visualization of what they claim (on top) and what it’ll actually do to small pledges (on bottom). pic.twitter.com/JYsxU6whaY
— Ben Wolfe (@wombatoverlord) December 8, 2017
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Because the changes are not as drastic for larger pledges I think this may be a bigger hit to creators’ communities than their finances, though that really depends on the distribution of their patrons.
Right now it looks like creators and patrons are upset about the change and many are looking for alternative ways to financially support creators. Hopefully everyone can find a way to continue supporting and creating. And if you do find yourself dropping support for a creator that you still enjoy, reach out and let them know that you still enjoy their content. For many creators, myself included, a kind word about their hard work is worth much more than a dollar.