Patreon Fee Announcement

Update: December 13, 2017

Due to the high volume of negative feedback Patreon has received regarding this change, Patreon will NOT be going forward with the changes to the fee structure.  So basically, just ignore this entire post.  However, if you have already modified your pledge amount, don't worry about modifying it back, I will make sure that everyone gets the rewards that they are entitled to.

I'll post more about this in my next update to make sure that everyone is on the same page

Original post below:

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Firstly, I apologize in advance for this confusing situation.  If you don’t feel like reading all the details about what’s going on, I’ve provided a brief summary of everything you need to know in the following paragraph:

Basically, Patreon is now tacking some hidden fees onto your pledges.  This is dumb, so I have modified the prices for each tier to offset these fees.  I encourage all of you to modify your pledges to the new prices so that you do not experience an increase in how much you are being charged for each video I post.  Unfortunately Patreon will not allow me to lower the price of the $1 tier, as $1 appears to be the minimum value that can be entered in the box.  This means that if you are currently supporting me at the $1 level, the total amount that you are billed for your pledge will now be about $1.38, which represents a 38% increase in the price that you agreed to pay when you first started supporting me.  That is utterly ridiculous, especially if you are supporting multiple creators at the $1 level.  If you feel that you need to cancel your pledge due to this blatant display of price gouging, please do not hesitate to do so.

Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience.  If you are interested in learning more about this situation, feel free to read the rest of the post.

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Yesterday Patreon announced to creators that they would be updating their fee structure in a way that would force Patrons (a.k.a. you) to shoulder the burden of paying credit card transaction fees.  In the past, the Creator was responsible for paying these fees, which is only logical since I’m the one who is profiting from using this platform.  The transaction fees were simply deducted from my earnings, as is the standard practice for pretty much every merchant/reseller in the United States.

Under the new fee structure, Patreon would be passing these transaction fees on to you, the customer, in the form of a 2.9% + $0.35 increase to your pledge amount.

Not only is this a completely illogical and backwards way of collecting transaction fees, it is also totally unfair to current Patrons who are now going to experience a sudden price increase.  This is especially troublesome for Patrons who are pledging at lower tiers, as they are going to be disproportionately affected by this change.  Not to mention that it makes it more difficult for me to attract new Patrons to my campaign when Patreon is tucking hidden fees into my tier prices.

Since proposing this change, Patreon has been inundated with nearly 100% negative feedback from both Creators and Patrons alike.  Despite this, Patreon seems to be pushing forward with their fee restructuring plan.

So to address this change, I have decided to modify my tier prices.  The new tiers are as follows:

• The $3 tier is now the $2.58 tier
• The $5 tier is now the $4.52 tier 

I encourage you to change your pledge amounts accordingly.  If you do so, the price + fees should work out to what you were originally paying, and the net effect for both of us should be zero.

As I mentioned earlier, I am unable to modify the price on the $1 tier (believe me, I tried).  To address this, I’m going to see what I can do about cramming a little more value into the $1 tier, since it is now going to be more expensive with the transaction fee.  I’ve been thinking of adding more value to all of the tiers anyway, so now seems like a good a time as any to get working on that.  I’ll have more information on tier upgrades when I post my next update.  Just a heads up though, if it helps you to make any decisions, the $1 tier upgrade is probably just going to be access to a Discord server.

Ok, that’s it!  I’m sorry about all the nonsense.  I’m pretty upset that Patreon is rolling out such a massive change with pretty much zero prior notice to creators.  I had to scramble to write this post and figure everything out, as I was literally just notified about this change yesterday, and then Patreon apparently notified all Patrons of this change earlier this afternoon.  Sheesh.