Musician Amanda Palmer made a splash on Kickstarter in 2012, raising $1.2m from fans on the crowdfunding website for an album, book and tour. Now she’s turning to the crowd again on a different site: Patreon.

Palmer is inviting fans to pledge to pay from as little as $1 to more than $100 every time she posts a new song, video or piece of writing to her “patron-only” feed on the website.

“If you’re a fan of mine, and really want to support me in the creation of new songs, film-clips/music-videos, long-form writing and more random, unpredictable art-things (comics? podcasts? who knows)....this is your chance,” wrote Palmer in the introduction to her Patreon profile, which promises “constant communication” with fans who back her.

“I think Patreon is a revolution in music-release and art patronage: i’m planning to release pretty much ALL MY CONTENT for free: on youtube, bandcamp, my site, wherever. it’s yours, it’s everybody’s, you can take it, you can share it.



but i need support, true patronage, from you you YOU if i’m going to take the plunge and have money to live and make art.”

Fans pledging to pay $1 when Palmer releases a new piece of content will get access to the patron-only feed, while those paying at least $3 will be emailed “keepable, playable, readable downloads” each time too.

Fans paying more than $5 per item will be added to a “random surprise” group which will be emailed more personal blog posts, photos and poetry, while those pledging more than $10 will also be invited to monthly webcasts in which Palmer will perform and chat.

30 patrons paying $100 or more per item will become Palmer’s “inner circle” on Patreon, receiving all the above rewards plus guest-list entry to all her gigs; the promise of “weird postcards from weird places I wind up”; and cards drawn by Palmer herself.

It represents a move from Kickstarter’s model of one-off crowdfunding for specific projects to Patreon’s system of recurring revenues.

The company was launched by musician Jack Conte in 2013 as a way for creators of all kinds, from musicians to web-comic creators and YouTube vloggers – to build their incomes from fan donations.

By November 2014, Patreon was paying out $1m a month to its network of creators.

“I’ve been a full-time musician for 10 years: I have a million ideas in my little black book that I keep in my laptop case, and one of the pages in that book was ‘what if I charge my fans a buck per video?’,” Conte told the Guardian.

Conte is one half of Pomplamoose, a musical duo that first established themselves on YouTube. The band currently earns more than $6,700 per video from nearly 2,000 patrons on Patreon, and released 14 videos in 2014. He praised Palmer as exactly the kind of artist that the company wants to attract.

“I have so much respect for her as a businesswoman, as a creator, as an artist. The fact that she’s going to be communicating with her fans and hanging out with them using Patreon software, more than anything to me, is a tremendous responsibility,” he said.

“She’s going to push the boundaries of our platform, and find the holes where it doesn’t feel like being on-stage. We’re going to have to build things that satisfy her, and that’s a good way for us to step up.”

Palmer’s adoption of Patreon is not necessarily a rejection of Kickstarter. Musician Julia Nunes and web-comic author Zach Weiner are examples of creators who use Patreon to provide a regular income, but also turn to Kickstarter for one-off projects like albums and books.

However, the news is a big deal for Patreon, which raised $15m of venture capital funding in June 2014 to continue its expansion amid competition from crowdfunding services like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and PledgeMusic, and also Bandcamp which recently started enabling artists to charge monthly subscriptions.

Having Palmer on board could bring a flood of new fans signing up as patrons, who may go on to back other artists through the site, and it may also attract more musicians to use the platform in her wake.

“Here’s the key: THIS IS A HUGE EXPERIMENT,” Palmer wrote to fans on her Patreon profile.

“I’m really excited to see what happens with this, guys. whether you’re backing me for a dollar or ten dollars, i am so glad you’re here. every patron who’s supporting me is important to this community, YOU’RE who i’m creating for, and i’m glad you found me here.”