Patreon Fees Update
Added 2017-12-07 00:41:06 +0000 UTCHey Everybody, I just heard the news that Patreon has changed the way that processing fees are worked, and this may affect your pledges.
From the 18th of December it will now be the Patron, not the Creator, that pays the pledge processing fees for each donation.
Beforehand, as the Creator, the processing fees were being taken out of the money I was receiving from Patreon, but now on it'll be applied to the person making the pledge.
The fee is apparently, 2.9% + $0.35 per pledge, so if you were pledging $1 to me before, it would now cost $1.38. If you were pledging $10, it would now be $10.95... I think, they have set up a Q&A to answer questions here,
https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005631963
From what I can tell (and have heard from others) is that this will affect those who pledge low amounts to multiple Patreon Creators most. Like if you pledge $10 to one person, an extra dollar isn't that much extra, only about 10% more. But if you pledge $1, it'll now be 50% more per pledge, so if you pledged $1 to ten people, you'd end up paying $5 extra... which sounds pretty bad, like their squeezing the many people who pledge a little amount to many creators.
Of course I might be reading all this wrong, there's a reason I do art and not mathematics. It might be that the deduction happens from the amount pledged, and isn't added onto the amount pledged as an extra charge (like VAT is).
In any case I encourage you to check out the Q&A, and email the Patreon Help desk if you have any questions that aren't answered there. Also the changes take effect this month, so the first charges you'll notice it happen on will be on the 1st of January, make sure to check out your pledges page, and if you're not sure how it'll affect you, it might be an idea to dial back your pledges for a month to one or two, and see what happens to them.
In any case, as always if you have a problem with a pledge or a pledge reward, just message me for a full refund.
Stay safe out there folks.
Comments
Damn dude, I was kinda hoping I'd just read it all wrong and I'd made a mistake. Hopefully this won't discourage people from supporting the creators they like, a lot of people survive on mostly small $1 pledges like this.
Obhan
2017-12-07 06:33:41 +0000 UTCDangit! I must've gotten lost in the calculating and somehow added in the 35 cent standard twice or something, my mathematics homework was always filled with those kind of mistakes :( Ahh but I got the basic idea right, that's good (yay math) and bad, because, well it's going to cost a lot more to Patrons to support the creators they want. I'm not sure why they're keen to do this, sure it's more money for them, but adding hidden fees on top of what was supposed to be a simple low level donation will surely discourage people making these donations, right? I think I'll come to prefer it back when I as the Creator was charged for the fees. Sure it meant less money for me, but it was be easier and simpler for the Patron to pledge to someone and not get surprise fees added on top.
Obhan
2017-12-07 06:30:01 +0000 UTCOh I'm right with you there, kinda like the VAT additions, I support a number of folk on Patreon at $5, but it 'costs' $6 to do so already :(
Obhan
2017-12-07 06:22:44 +0000 UTCNp dude, I don't want folk getting surprised by the changes :)
Obhan
2017-12-07 06:20:38 +0000 UTCthanks for the heads-up.
Anthony Docimo
2017-12-07 02:37:36 +0000 UTCno offense. but I always hate it when taxes are added on top of the sticker price of something. I do understand though.
Grisha
2017-12-07 01:29:37 +0000 UTC
