New Patreon Fee

I am not happy with what Patreon is doing here.....

Thanks for letting us know, Mehdi. I think you can keep the extra 64c. You seem to go through a lot of consumables like transistors.

M. Eric Carr

If you ever have an alternative method of donation then please tell me and I'll happily keep supporting you, Mehdi.

Red

On their page: "Historically, Patreon set a flat 5% fee for our service, with an additional third party processing fee that ranged from 2% – 10%." Hmmh. So this new system is worse for all our small pledgers, as a smaller percentage of my money ends up in your pocket, Mehdi. And as far as I know, most patrons pledge around $1-5 per creators, so it seems like this change would mean that a smaller percentage of our money would end up in our creator's hands, for the majority of patrons. This will sure as hell lead to a lot of people increasing some pledges, while dropping others. I feel like charging the 1st every month is a much better idea, as Patreon could save lots of money. Now, all transactions will have to go through by themselves. It would be much better if I only had one transaction each month, and you only received one paycheck each month. Then the cut made by third parties (banks & such) would be much smaller overall for all of the transactions that Patreon carries out.

I thought the whole point was to collect all the pledges into one transaction, so they don't need to pay that many small transaction fees to the banks. But this new system leads to more money in the hands of the banks and Patreon themselves. I currently pledge $1 + $1 + $1 + $2, and now I will have to pay a total of $6.55 per month. That means that 23.6% of my pledged money ends up as transaction fees

I'm in the same boat of small donations, and just started finding content creators I'm willing to donate to. How do we get together and let patron know we oppose this change?

Sucks that Patreon can't figure out that this is eventually bad for the creators because it drives away potential sponsors. My pledge won't change because of this, I will continue to support creators for whatever amount I have previously pledged and I will accept the extra fees that Patreon will be adding....not everyone will so willing however. Hope, Patreon can fix this so everyone is happy and benefits in the end.

Yeah, I guess they realized how many low $ pledges they have, and came with this simple accounting trick..

I just started supporting creators on Patreon last month. I was pledging $1-$2 per creator. I figured you were getting something like $0.80-$0.90 for a dollar pledge but this new system kills it for people donating small amounts to multiple creators. I wouldn’t mind if it was only one $0.35 fee for my total monthly transaction but not one for each creator which is what it seems to be. The bigger issue here is that Patreon wanted to raise their fees but to ask more from the creators would be suicide so they shifted the cost around. Next thing you’ll see is that they will start taking 6%, then 7,8,9,10% from the creators. It won’t look as bad as the old 12%-20% they used to take. This is just the beginning and they think they can get away with it because they have taken over the market. So I cancelled all my pledges until they change their policies. I will look at alternative ways to support my favorite creators.

From my crude calculations: fee to platform by % is higher for every pledge lower than $17. Of course in meantime overall income automatically increase.. Maybe this is true reason. I don't mind to give You more money, but key word is "You". Personally I'm accepting changes, but I guess there are people, which are supporting many channels, like 50x $1. They have to pay more money and smaller chunk will go to creators. Can You also explain to me why creators were loosing 7-15%, as they claim in mail?

I don't honestly care as long as you are still getting to the money donated

Gabe Smith

#PatreonFacePlant (Patreon trips up and falls on its face with new patron charges), #PatronPurge (Patrons flee/reduce the number of pledges and creators they support due to new fees charged to them.)

Rav

The big hit is the .35 cents per charge. Would be nice if the lower pledges could buy packs. 10 episodes at once at $5 per comes out to $51.80 vs $54.95. To offset this, you could offer 10 episodes and the 11th one free. Just one way to RECTIFY it! Anyway, keep up the great videos!

Maybe the issue is.. the charge itself is not a problem.. but rather. with the shift in policy, they should be charging people *one* charge a month covering *all* donations, rather than making X number of separate charges each with the processing fee...

Exactly, I have many small donations and I'm deleting half of them now and make bigger donation to fewer people. Not happy about it.

Gabriele Bonetti

I've already had my say, and gotten my positive response. At the end of the day, its a notional charge. I'm just selfish and want more content :P And now that this weeks video is SPONSORED BY RODE (GOOD AUSTRALIAN COMPANY!! ;) )... I expect more. hahahaha. Keep up the good work Mehdi.. We all supported you in your lifestyle shift, and did so to help our enjoyment. Even my non-nerd friends enjoy laughing at your videos. But I do appreciate you taking the time to 'make it right' with your supporters.

Yeah, that's pretty bullshit, I do a lot of small donations rather then few big ones and this would mean 35% fee over my all donations. For some reason they want to discourage small donations.

Gabriele Bonetti

This has to eventually get fixed. The whole point of Patreon was to accumulate micro pledges and then benefit from the per transaction fee part being applied once. So (100 x $1) x fee% + $0.xx. Their current wording makes it no better than just using paypay 100 x ($1 x fee% + $0.xx). I suspect this decision will get reversed. But the damage has already been done to many creators who have had patrons cancel.

Rav

I don't think that's possible. Any sort of money transfer service would charge something.

ElectroBOOM [Mehdi Sadaghdar]

I've asked the other creator I support on patreon this: is there any other platform I can support you on so that it's a 1:1 payment:received ratio? I'm a $1 donor but I'd be willing to go up in that of I know it's all going to you without fees.

This world is falling to pieces like crap from a bunny.

Or you could move over to LibrePay. It does not have all the reward tier stuff, but it is transparent and non-profit. The bennefit of LbrePay is that you can make a one time deposit to an account and pay a transaction fee on that, and then from that pot you can dole out donations to your creators. So lot's of small donations don't cost you lots of overhead (which in the case of patreon will be going to their bottom line, not creators).

Damn it! Pay attention! you were supposed to reduce it! :')

ElectroBOOM [Mehdi Sadaghdar]

is that true? That makes it much more tolerable I presume.

ElectroBOOM [Mehdi Sadaghdar]

I make sure the entries remain the same if you choose to reduce it for the fees.

ElectroBOOM [Mehdi Sadaghdar]

(yup I'm wrong, came back and edited) If I pledge $1 to 100 creators then it is one transaction of $103.30.

Rav

Aye.. it is a creeping cost. I often think I should rationalise...but never get around to it hahahaha.. it gives me content I want.. it's more than my wife knows I spend.. but screw it.. the pain is offset by good content I love at this stage :)

I raised to 5. Thank you :)

I thought it was per CC/PayPal transacion.

Rav

I'm just going to leave it as it was.. but a stupid self interested question.. if I did reduce it.. would my "entries" in your giveaways stay the same? It is largely irrelevant because a: I never win anything and b: I pledged what I did to improve my chances on the keysight giveaway and it never helped but screw it I left it the same... lolz. I'm just asking for clarity.. I won't change it anyway...

my last post yesterday??

ElectroBOOM [Mehdi Sadaghdar]

Thanks for the heads up. I imagine some people who support a lot of creators will notice this change more than others.

John Chuckran

Where are the Videos

Whatever, I won't change anything on my side :p

lululombard