Changes in Patreon Pledges
Added 2017-12-08 08:07:18 +0000 UTCSo there's been news about Patreon changing how you guys are charged for the creators you support and I wanted to take the time to address it quickly. I'm not big on numbers, so the intricacies of all this is above my head by quite a bit, but I'll do my best to explain things and convey my stance.
This really affects you guys the most, so I want to make sure you know that you'll 1) be paying more per pledge to patreon (not me) and 2) I'll be listening to you on how to proceed.
First is the change to how much you're getting charged, which is more of the "bad" in the scenario. I put "bad" in quotes because, while it's shitty you're getting charged more, it's not as bad as other services you could be supporting me through. At the end of this, it's ultimately up to you to decide how you want to proceed which is why I want to be transparent, myself.
Essentially (as of this post) there will be a flat fee of $0.35 plus 2.9% of a pledge tier added to the base value of the pledge itself. So the $20 tier would have an added (.35 + (20).029) = $0.93 if my math is right, there. This shows itself much much more in lower tiers like the $1 because it's essentially adding 1/3 of the pledge to fees. For people pledging to 10 different creators at $1 a pop, it starts to add up.
In contrast, twitch.tv takes half of the sub money I get, while granting a much higher percentage from things like bits, and everything from flat donations to my paypal.
A bonus to this is that they're changing the pledge system so that if you pledge halfway through the month, you wont get charged at the start of the next month, but halfway through that next month (aka 30~ days later).
Second is how it affects me. The fees I would pay on the money you guys pledge is being subsidized by these new fees for you. I don't have an option to accept this method or deny it to my knowledge. This is just how Patreon is going forward. So it's kinda good for me, but not good for you, which isn't really good for me in the long run.
Ultimately it comes down to what you guys are comfortable with. I can't do much with the lower tiers, but if it makes it easier to understand I can push the tiers down a couple dollars to make it roughly even out around what it says you'll be paying. If it's insignificant for you, let me know and we'll keep chugging along as usual. I still wanted to inform you all so you're not blindsided by it when new payments roll around. Think it over and let me know.
Love you guys!
Comments
well im one of the few who puts the bigger pledges so im gonna be feeling it more, but tbh ill manage, if it helps with making more content for me to enjoy i can deal :)
2017-12-13 17:42:28 +0000 UTCI'm one of those with a bunch of small pledges, so I'm grumbly about the change but not enough to cancel any. My biggest question was whether or not this means we should change platforms, but your explanation says Patreon is still good against its competition. I don't think you should alter your reward tree; that's too much work on you and doesn't really solve the bigger issue. But I'm happy you're very open about it and open to talking it over with us.
Crisu
2017-12-08 17:39:41 +0000 UTCAll businesses do this. Some of them just raise fees to make it part of the base price.
2017-12-08 14:36:40 +0000 UTCI understand why they're doing it (to offset the credit card charges) so I'm okay with it. However, I'm not sure thag what they're doing is legal, because they're supposed to offer alternative methods of payment that aren't CC that have no fees. But a business like Patreon that doesn't accept cash or check to begin with probably has no means. Ultimately this will benefit creators and I think that's a good thing. I might feel differently if I were making a dozen different small pledges.
2017-12-08 14:35:01 +0000 UTCThe main reason Patreon's probably doing this is to discourage small donations like $1 since the flat processing fees eat a bigger chunk of that than they would for a larger donation. It's a really passive aggressive way of going about it, they could just set the minimum donation level to $5 or whatever breaks the most even for them but that's the basic reason and it's putting the cost and sadly, the blame, on the audience for not thinking about their poor card fees. That being said, a couple of extra cents at the $1 tier isn't heinous and if you really care about a content creator, you'd be donating more than that small amount and therefore the extra fee would be a more minor part of your payment. I'm not so spendthrift in life that small nickel and dimes like this would affect the way I spend my discretionary budget. If I was getting my entertainment value from supporting folks like Drak, I'd pay a dollar or two more to keep supporting him without having to worry about not being able to pay the bills on time or not being able to eat. Keep going forward and get your revenue where you can. Sadly, online platforms are not your friend and never will be, they have to do what they need to satisfy the beast same as you.
MCBiohazard
2017-12-08 14:03:44 +0000 UTCI cannot speak for everyone in terms of cost but I am not going anywhere.
Apoc1216
2017-12-08 13:11:09 +0000 UTC
