When Patreon launched in 2013, the company positioned itself to help solve a problem that has only gotten worse in the years since. The internet, and social media in particular, has given artists of all stripes a greater ability to reach large audiences and position themselves as self-employed full-time creatives, at the cost — worse in some fields than others — of driving down people's willingness to pay for people's output when the internet itself is so awash in free "content," for lack of a better catch-all term.

Jack Conte, Patreon's CEO, co-founder and one half of the band Pomplamoose, had found traction on YouTube with his music, but found that neither advertising money nor lump-sum crowdfunding for large projects fit his style of work and scale of audience. Conte correctly diagnosed that this problem was not limited solely to creators like him, and if anything the original, barebones version of Patreon launched by Conte and co-founder Sam Yam made it easier for people making different kinds of content to see that their audiences, too, might be amenable to providing consistent income through small donations.

Investors also saw the potential, and Patreon has since raised millions of dollars in venture capital. It has grown to accommodate 3 million users and will surpass $1 billion in total payouts this year, but according to Conte the business model Patreon operated under was not sustainable as-is. Patreon has sought to alter its payment policies in the past, with one canceled rollout still fresh in creators' minds, but this week the platform is introducing its biggest change since its humble 2013 launch: it is abandoning the one-size-fits-all approach in favor of three creator plans, each of which is targeted to different archetypes of users — and, starting today, May 7th, will take larger percentage cuts from pledges made to any newly-created accounts (accounts made before May 7th have been grandfathered in at lower rates).

In light of these changes to Patreon's business model and competitive moves from companies like Facebook, Kickstarter, Substack and YouTube that are seeking to make their own small creator-driven subscription plays, I interviewed thirteen Patreon users to get a sense how they feel about the platform and the state of crowdfunding more generally. I tried to speak with users across a wide range of creative output and Patreon income levels — though, I'll admit, folks whose work concerns video games are perhaps overrepresented, which is a byproduct of my own interests and of who answered my emails. Those interviewees are:

I also reached out to Patreon for comment and spoke with Wyatt Jenkins, Patreon's head of Product. Excerpts from that interview are included at the end of this article.

Skip ahead to:

Why Patreon?

Patreon's Place Amongst Crowdfunding Models



Building Community Versus Bringing Community



Tinkering With Tiers



It'd Be Nice To Have [Blank]



Who Gets To Create On Patreon



Creating Exclusively For Patrons



Is It A Subscription, Or Is It Support?



What, If Anything, Could Come After Patreon?



What Patreon Is Doing Now, And In The Future (Comments from Patreon's head of Product Wyatt Jenkins)

The first question I asked was the simplest: why this? Some started their Patreon accounts more or less on a whim. Others viewed the platform in terms closer to the historical idea of patronage from which the platform takes its name. Some rolled out their accounts with detailed business plans built around a subscription model ready-to-go from day one.

I started a Patreon and I didn't take it super seriously as a thing to sustain me, it was just "I need extra income." I'd been doing all this blogging for free, essentially, and it was great that I was able to do what I wanted to do without someone telling me I can or can't do X or Y, so having some support with that was cool — but I never expected it to sustain me. A few months later I got kicked out of the place I was living in, I was like "oh fuck, I don't have a plan." I was looking for work and another place to stay; I tweeted about it, and my Patreon went way up. I felt kind of mixed feelings about it, to be honest, because I didn't want it to seem like charity or something.

—Liz Ryerson

The main reason I went for it was Greg [Miller] and Kinda Funny were first over the wall — they left IGN, similar to how I left GameSpot. So it was proven at that point that somebody could do it, that there was an audience. The gaming audience, or the gaming media audience in particular, has been kind of used to paying subscriptions. For me, it was almost an ideal fit for what I wanted to do.

—Danny O'Dwyer

I started it after I had two video essays up, and at least one person called it 'hipster welfare.'

I went with Patreon because it was the thing that existed, y'know. I don't honestly know off-hand of any other services that are doing something like Patreon. When I started it out, it was just to make a couple extra bucks when I was doing "Cities: Skylines" assets. It didn't really take off until after the video series. Before I started the video series, I was making something like eight bucks a month.

—Justin Roczniak

In 2015, it was more unusual to have a Patreon, so I waited a few months. I started it after I had two video essays up, and at least one person called it "hipster welfare." I had a little bit of an audience, probably a few hundred people, and at that point I was in the process of getting laid off, which is why I started the channel in the first place.

—Shannon Strucci

Initially, my thought was that my Patreon would be how I bill clients. I'd advertise my Patreon, and the draw of it was that I could have a $1 tier that'd basically be a mailing list, and then higher tiers all the way up to online coaching tiers from $75 to $125. I could do everything at once, a range from readers to full-time clients, based on what people needed.

—Adam Fisher

Podcasts in particular have found a home on Patreon. With advertising only being a viable monetization plan once a show's audience numbers in the tens of thousands, Patreon is well-suited to let smaller podcasts thrive. Conversely, the expectations around podcast release schedules and around bonuses provided through Patreon tiers can set podcasters' concerns apart from those of other Patreon users.

With Zero Suits, Patreon felt like a good fit. I discovered it through this musician I know, Dj CUTMAN, who has a video game label — I was supporting him for about a year or so before I knew anything about Patreon, and so I think I contributed one or two dollars. Then I think I had a conversation with him, and he shared that it was a huge part of his income that enabled him to pursue music full time. Right around that time, I was still trying to figure out what it meant to be a full-time artist and whether it was something sustainable. I was like, this is perfect: a subscription-based model, so I can have some measure of stability versus touring which is sporadic, or freelance opportunities to do voice overs, that kind of thing. This felt like something I could do more consistently, so that's how the podcast model came about.

—Sammus

I started What A Time To Be Alive before Wrestlesplania. I do the show with two other comedians, Patrick Monaghan and Eli Yudin, and Stand Up NY is a comedy club here in town that has a podcast network and production company. They approached Patrick about doing a podcast, and he approached Eli and I. [The network] does production for us and they get a cut of the Patreon. We talked to Stand Up NY about doing ads or having another source of income for What A Time To Be Alive — and they produce a bunch of other podcasts, so they have experience in this arena — and they basically said ads are something we could maybe do down the line, but to make it worth your while you need upwards of 10,000 listeners a week. That was not an initial number that we'd be able to hit by the time we started the Patreon.

—Kath Barbadoro

We didn't launch our Patreon when we started Wrestlesplania. We waited a couple months: we started the podcast in February 2018 and we launched the Patreon later in June. The reasoning for that was, as women we were already going to be heavily scrutinized for anything we do online, basically, but especially anything where we're asking for money. We wanted to make sure we had a proven product, that we were able to do the show — that's the other half of the point.

—Rachel Millman

Depending on how a creator structures their Patreon and the nature of their work, relying solely on Patreon's model of support may not be sufficient. The simplicity of Patreon's monthly and per-release donation features can be an upside to some creators and an obstacle to others. Some creators have dabbled with one-off goal-oriented crowdfunding solutions, either separately or in concert with Patreon support.

Indiegogo and Kickstarter were there, but I wanted something ongoing that I would have to keep producing material for. I didn't know how much money I was going to make, and nothing I do costs that much — my video essays cost me time and effort. I wasn't interested in the model of "raise a whole bunch of money at once, then crank out a bunch of videos." Merchandise, even now, isn't really viable for me. I have a very committed fanbase, but it's very small. I don't really brand myself in a way where merchandise would do great. For PayPal donations, I don't have a very good website set up. To me, at that time, there weren't really alternatives.

—Shannon Strucci

My dad and I went with Indiegogo for "Line in the Street" [a documentary about gerrymandering reform in Pennsylvania] because with Kickstarter you have to hit the whole amount, and I was terrified of us not hitting that goal. With the original parameters we set, we wouldn't have made that money, so I'm very glad we went with Indiegogo.

—Rachel Millman

I did a Kickstarter for one of my projects, a concept album about the video game "Metroid." I think I asked for three or four thousand, which in the Kickstarter range is on the smaller end of things. It went really well, it was successful and people supported it. I also started working with this crowdfunding platform Withfriends after the Patreon debacle where they started charging patrons quite a bit for supporting with one or two dollars. I still have a profile with them, but I haven't really developed the page because shortly after Patreon came back and said "we're sorry, we're fixing everything," so then I concentrated the efforts on Patreon again.

—Sammus

In Patreon-land, unless you're providing a very specific reward or levels of rewards, it doesn't feel like your Patreon will be as viable.

I began to migrate away from Patreon, and there are two main reasons for that. One is that the cut Patreon takes is a bit larger than the cut Paypal takes for large payments. Where Patreon shines the most is with lots of smaller donations, because that'd be a nightmare to manage in Paypal. It's more user friendly than Paypal, where the process for setting up a recurring payment is much more tortured. The other reason is inconsistency with billing people. At least, the way it used to be, Patreon only billed people on the first of the month. That was really frustrating, because it meant that if I had someone who wanted to join as a client on the 15th of the month, my two options were either to prorate them for the first month by sending them a Paypal bill, or basically to write down their start date and then their end date, then settle whenever they cancel however many months in the future.

—Adam Fisher

Our GoFundMe is us saying we already have one revenue stream where folks are supporting us on a monthly basis, but if everything were to work in the way we'd like, we'd not be doing Patreon, to be honest, because of the expectation for content that happens on a platform like that. In Patreon-land, unless you're providing a very specific reward or levels of rewards, it doesn't feel like your Patreon will be as viable. So, the GoFundMe is our way of saying we're already giving stuff to the world, we appreciate the support, but we'd love to be able to see a larger amount of money come in so we know it's there. The ups and downs of Patreon support is super nerve wracking, in a lot of ways.

—Kahlief Adams

In a blog post explaining why Patreon doesn't have discovery features, Patreon head of Product Wyatt Jenkins states that each user "truly own[s] the relationship with patrons; [creators] have their contact information and can reach them via a number of channels." Patreon doesn't want to be in the business of matching creators to new potential patrons — at the same time, the company benefits from the work creators put in on other platforms to build their own audiences there. Creators on Patreon can also choose to donate to other Patreons and display links to those creators on their pages, in a way not dissimilar to old links sections and webrings. I asked creators for their feelings on Patreon's community features (or relative lack thereof) and whether or not they identify strongly as a member of a broader Patreon community.

Mostly, I know folks who I think are cool, and they all have something I can support. Maybe I can go to a show, or I've already bought an album or a book, so I can support them with a couple bucks a month or something, and those connections feel really strong. I would say because most of the Patreon creators I know, I've known off the platform before I knew they were on it, it's not as important of an identity point that we're Patreon folks. I think it's a cool thing to find out about somebody, but it's not a super strong identity thing for me. We've looked at our supporters, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was this way with a lot of smaller folks, but a lot of it is just sloshing money between accounts. We give money to certain folks and they kind of give it right back to us, so it just seemed like a very friendly place to try something new or different.

—Lanre Akinsiku

I think I mentioned this in Fake Friends — a lot of their suggestions push you towards cultivating a parasocial relationship to make money, which I think is kinda gross. There was a time when I had an issue with Patreon, and I clicked a link that was supposed to help me — and it sent me to a Dropbox file I didn't have access to. I think all of us who use Patreon to make income are in the same boat, whether it's Chapo [Trap House] making a ton of money, or me, or someone who makes just a little bit of money off of it. I don't know anyone who's super happy with the platform, I think everyone is always frustrated with it.

—Shannon Strucci

For a few creators, Patreon's approach to community has helped them foster an ongoing relationship with their audience. Though it isn't an exclusive feature per se, Patreon's integration with the chat app Discord has made it easy to bundle Discord channel access with a donation tier. All of the creators I spoke to who set up Discord integration spoke highly of it, at least in terms of fostering their own communities if not feeling like part of a broader Patreon group.

I don't really interact much with the community side of Patreon, mostly because some of my work is not safe for work stuff and it's in a moral gray area for Patreon. I think they're being very supportive given what they have to work with, like SESTA-FOSTA, in trying to let adult creators make their stuff but stay out of legal trouble. I'm actually very thankful that they've been doing that — it's the one thing about policy I really like about them. So, I don't really interact with Patreon as a community, but I do use it to build my own. My Discord is honestly the best part of my Patreon.

—Alex @dirtbagboyfren

People really appreciate having a space to talk [on Discord] that's supportive and tolerant.

The Discord for What A Time To Be Alive is free, but I think we get patrons through that because people feel very invested in this community of listeners. For Wrestlesplainia we have a Patreon tier that's just the Discord for a dollar a month. That's been really helpful because a lot of spaces where people talk about pro wrestling are not super welcoming. There's a lot of sexism, homophobia and transphobia, and those things affect a lot of our listeners. People really appreciate having a space to talk that's supportive and tolerant. That's the lowest tier we have — the money basically just keeps people out who'd cause trouble. I think the Discord community inspires people to go for the higher levels because they feel like they're part of this world.

—Kath Barbadoro

From its launch, one of the distinguishing features of Patreon has been users' ability to set different tiers of support, as well as funding goals. Some creators carefully plan their tiers according to their means and reach, others set up their tiers with jokes (Justin Roczniak's bonuses are static across all tiers, all named for increasingly fancy beers the higher the pledge) and some do both (if someone ever commits to Wrestlesplania's $1,000 tier, Rachel Millman will train to become that donor's kayfabe manager). Especially now that Patreon's cheapest offering of its new plans will come without tiers, how a Patreon account structures their tiers does a lot to define their identity relative to other creators on the platform.

Ages ago — and I think it's notable to say all the people asking were not men — I had friends launching Patreons who said "hey, I wanna make sure this looks good and that I can make money off of it, can somebody take a look at this?" I had to very gently tell a friend of mine "You're asking for way too much money for what you're giving. You need to figure out what you can give and how, according to what you're organized for and can handle." It's hard to pinpoint what makes a good Patreon, but you know what makes a bad one. If you have $20, $25 and $30 tiers, the person who can do $25 will do $25 — but that's a little messy, and how big of a discrepancy is there between $20 and $30? You'd have to take out the middle, and hope that if you have $15 and $25, a person who can give $20 will go with $15, but that's okay, because they still want to take in what you're creating.

—Rachel Millman

Because, for us, I know it's so much about our friends, people who've been to Sammus' shows, people who I've written with or have read my books, it's much more personal — the tiers, in a lot of ways, don't matter. What we do is find ways for people to support us at a level where they feel comfortable. I'll use myself as an example: I really like The Doubleclicks, so I, to my budget, can give $2 a month, or $5 bucks a month. Whatever kind of incentive they give to the $5 a month contributors is nice, but for me it's like "this is what I can give, I like them, here's what it is." In that sense, for us it was just about creating tiers where people can feel like they can slide in to support us. I think that was the main idea: to make it as inclusive as possible.

—Lanre Akinsiku

What I've found is, you end up having the most loyalty at the higher tiers.

For $5 you're basically getting a bunch of extra video, which I thought was in line with other people in the space. Then, above that, you're getting to "oh, there are people with the means to chip in more money," and the stuff at that level isn't costing me any more, but people will be happy to put in an extra amount and I want to give them something for it. There are people who chuck in $100 a month — we don't have any tiers above $30. I don't want to incentivize people too high above that. What I've found is, you end up having the most loyalty at the higher tiers. You'd think it'd be the opposite because it's costing them more.

—Danny O'Dwyer

We can put out extra shows, but we have a limited amount of time per week, per person for getting any more content out. It's one of the reasons why, for our particular show, we haven't done as well on Patreon. We've tried to lean towards lower tiers, with the possibility of having higher ones for the sake of saying "if there are folks who really want to do that work" — but we've tried to keep all our content in the lower tiers so that people can feel like they're not coming out-of-pocket super heavy while getting stuff they actually want.

—Kahlief Adams

Patreon has been criticized for having an easily replicable business model with few features, and other companies are certainly trying to follow Patreon's lead. Facebook's early rollout for Patreon-like Fan Subscriptions was met with disdain because of terms in the agreement that would let Facebook claim ownership over creator's content, along with up to 30% of their pledges. Kickstarter relaunched the subscription service Drip in 2017 as their answer to Patreon, starting as an invitation-only platform; in late 2018 they announced that they'd be retooling the service from the ground-up with the assistance of XOXO founders Andy Baio and Andy McMillan. There are also more specifically tailored solutions: at VidCon 2018, YouTube soft-launched paid Channel Memberships as an answer to both Patreon and Twitch subscriptions, and premium newsletter platform Substack has been gaining a foothold amongst writers with large followings on social media.

Understandably, creators wouldn't say "no" to features and guidance from Patreon that apply to their particular mediums, but most of the creators I talked to had one request that came before any features: consistent and transparent payment processing.

I've been trying to say "I'm going to stick over here in my corner, I'm not gonna bother anyone, no one's gonna bother me." The only thing is: the payment processing difficulties. They seem to have them every month, they're annoying, I'm at the point where I have enough money where I can float a month of rent if I need to, but I imagine if you're not at that point of financial security, that really affects other creators.

—Justin Roczniak

When they tried to make the fee changes a while back, that led to a lot of people leaving the platform, and a lot of them didn't come back. In that sense, I do think there are things Patreon has done that have gotten negative attention and clearly had an effect, but at the same time they have this inclination to try to support users. They do a lot of events — I can't take part in them because I'm a busy guy, but the zine idea came about in part because they had this promotion for a special offer, and I didn't follow their model for it, but it gave me the idea of what I wanted to do and a bit of structure to work with. I found a bit of success with that. I think Patreon, when they take a role of offering help to creators to maximize what they do, that's definitely something they're quite good at.

—Ernie Smith

There was a couple months ago where they didn't process people's credit cards until the 5th. It was a nightmare!

I'd like larger images within posts, or multiple images and videos within posts. Currently, if you do a video post, there'll only be one embedded and the rest show up as links. They don't really have a seamless Twitch integration — they've got integration with CrowdSource, which you have to subscribe to. If they had something native that'd allow me to be drawing and livecasting to a particular tier, that'd be wonderful.

—Eli Valley

I know there's a lot of moving parts there that I don't have a lot of familiarity with, but it's very frustrating. We don't even clear $2,000 from this per month — not that I'm complaining — and I still need that money to help pay my rent. There was a couple months ago where they didn't process people's credit cards until the 5th. It was a nightmare! I think, for a platform that can't maintain consistency with what they offer currently, it's a little early for them to be doing [new creator plans]. Like I said, Kath and I didn't launch our Patreon until we knew we could maintain our product; Patreon should maybe take some of my notes and maintain a consistent product.

—Rachel Millman

Features-wise, just stop! I think it just works! Please stop adding features and telling me it's for my benefit. The only feature I can think of is: allow me to post more than one photo per post — it's still not a thing.

—Alex @dirtbagboyfren

I think, from the perspective of someone who is giving, there's not a concerted effort towards their profiles or pages. It's like, here's the Patreon pages, and contributors have a cute avatar or whatever, but there's nothing that connects them in the way that Instagram or Twitter has features where people are building community independent of supporting someone.

—Sammus

I would just want communication, and some kind of input as a creator. Even people make way more money than me — like, way way more money — are just as frustrated with the lack of communication and with Patreon clearly caring more about profit than each individual retaining their audience.

—Shannon Strucci

Though Patreon leaves most audience building and content distribution to the discretion of creators themselves and, thus, other platforms, it faces the same kinds of big decisions that platforms like Facebook and Twitter do when it comes to moderating content. Regarding hateful conduct (where private companies often quite free to decide what speech they wish to host) and adult content (where companies are often pressured by business partners and legal compliance), Patreon has taken actions that have alienated patrons and raised questions for creators who remain on the platform.

On the matter of hateful conduct, Patreon's move to ban racist rightwing personalities Carl Benjamin a.k.a. Sargon of Akkad and Milo Yiannopoulous from its platform late last year prompted the voluntary exit of users including Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin and Sam Harris. Harris and Peterson were amongst the top site-wide earners prior to their exit.

Patreon has also taken action against adult content on the website. Just as Patreon was either generous or lax in its enforcement of its own policies regarding hate speech prior to banning Benjamin and Yiannopoulos, they were lenient in enforcing a policy banning pornography from the website — but, following the trend of payment processors cracking down on explicit content, Patreon's removal of several adult content creators from the platform in late 2017 prompted a response from affected creators and sex workers (to which Conte offered a response). A few months after the passage of SESTA-FOSTA, another group of adult content creators were banned from the platform.

The fact that they do sometimes make steps to moderate what content they consider acceptable is concerning to me in a moral sense, because it's mostly things like sex workers. It's very hard for those people to make a living, so politically and ethically a company that makes it harder for those people is not great to me, but it also sets a precedent that I'm not super comfortable with. I rely on this platform for money, and granted, people are giving money because of the stuff I make, but it would not be nearly as easy if there were not a platform like this. I dunno what I would do if Patreon decided that what I do is not acceptable to them. Relying on a third party where I have no input in its success or failures, or its policies, for my money, as somebody who has tried to design their career around having as much control over what I'm doing as possible is very stressful to me.

—Kath Barbadoro

Nothing has happened that made me feel like this is a platform that I wouldn't want to use. The two that stand out to me are the pornography issue — from my understanding, that has a lot to do with their business relationships in terms of the partners they have, the financial services they use. I don't know what the reality is there, but I imagine that's something they had to do rather than a decision they made. Then, we're in such a weird place in the online discourse when it comes to this use of free speech as a way for rightwingers to get away with being jerks on the internet. I don't think Patreon's going to… well, put it this way, Jordan Peterson said he's going to make a Patreon equivalent, like, a month after he left the platform. I'm not sure if himself and Dave Rubin are still learning CSS at the moment to pull that one off. I get it if people leave the platform for their reasons, I support their freedom to do what they want — I also think that platform holders should be active in eradicating hate speech from their platforms.

—Danny O'Dwyer

Given how big Patreon is, it feels like they're the only platform that's still trying to fight for adult creators.

I feel gross about any of these platforms kicking off sex workers and anyone making adult content. I don't know exactly what their policy is, and most websites try to do that. The thing with Nazis on the platform, I understand that people use that as a metric, but it's a symptom of a larger problem. I see YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as being more responsible for those things, because they have allowed people to exploit and game the system. It's all about money at the end of the day, and the money's going to favor whoever is the largest cash flow. I don't feel good about it, and knowing that if [a troll] is one of the big users on the platform, that they're the kind of person they'll try to serve, but I don't have a lot of faith in any of these companies to not do that kind of stuff.

—Liz Ryerson

They've definitely fucked up a lot, and they screwed over sex workers, but that's not what I do. Sex work is work, and those laws are stupid, but given how big Patreon is, it feels like they're the only platform that's still trying to fight for adult creators. Most folks are waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I know that people working at Patreon have been pushing to keep supporting adult creators. The thing is, with SESTA-FOSTA passing, it's a legal liability now. They already said "no porn," a rule from day one that they were lax in enforcing, but with SESTA-FOSTA and all of this payment processing stuff it's a mess. It's a very small market, and it keeps getting smaller. For my niche, which is I think called "artistic nudes," it's just the right niche where I'm okay.

—Alex @dirtbagboyfren

The other side to Patreon's tier feature is the onset of norms concerning tiers and what they grant. Though people are free to structure their Patreon offerings according to what they can offer their audience, if similar creators have set expectations for what patrons will receive, there can be a push to follow suit. Especially for projects that live primarily off-of Patreon, this raises the question: how much is a creator willing to spend time on something that only patrons, not their entire audience, will see?

Every three months or so I build an exclusive zine for patrons: anybody in the $3 or higher tier gets a PDF while anyone who offers $5 or more gets it in the mail if they want it. It's a full issue of Tedium done up in a zine format, and it's an interesting experiment. I try to find things that wouldn't necessarily make sense on the website, or I feel like I could do them better in a print format. I think that one of the challenges I find with Patreon is that, since I spend all my time writing and trying to build this thing, trying to find a suitable patron offering that isn't limited simply to "here's a Discord channel where you can chat with me… as opposed to using Twitter for free," is that at some point I kinda realized, for how much I write and how often I am writing, it makes sense to do something a little more tangible that I can time out every month or every couple of months.

—Ernie Smith

I retooled my tiers after I got a full-time job two years ago because my time chunk for Patreon a month was five hours of work. If it takes more than five hours, it was not worth it for what I was pulling in. Or my photosets, because I put a lot of work into them, would take a whole day. I would work, for that day, and make between $700 and $1,200 a month on top of my full-time job. So, I structured it so that I could do it without dying from doing two jobs at the same time. Now that it's my full-time, I'm in the process of restructuring again because I have all this time to make stuff! I need to approach it differently. I used to say if it takes more than five hours or a day, it's not worth it — but now if I work for one day, and make over $2,000… that's not too bad. If I just refocus on creating for the internet, which is sadly what I'm good at, I could probably make more out of it. It's just the fear, when you're about to try something new and you're not sure how it's going to work.

—Alex @dirtbagboyfren

A lot of creators see [Patreon] as a way to monetize content, whereas for me it's a way to monetize 'making content to find clients to do other work.'

I talked to a friend and he pointed me towards a couple example Patreons I could use as models in terms of low threshold to entry. I'm not really good at individualized mailing stuff — I'm bad enough at updating my website, so doing that would really take time and resources away from the actual creativity. I was hoping to do something where it'd be more seamless, in terms of complementing the art itself. Putting up works in progress and actual footage of me drawing would be low threshold, not a high barrier to entry.

—Eli Valley

I made content for a long time — realistically I was blogging twice a week at my high point — and that's not what made the money. That was a way of getting attention, forging relationships and finding clients. I have a very different relationship to Patreon than a lot of people, because a lot of creators see it as a way to monetize content, whereas for me it's a way to monetize "making content to find clients to do other work." So I'm not just marketing content, I'm marketing a skill that I make content to advertise.

—Adam Fisher

Of the more complicated subjects I discussed with these creators, the pressure Patreon creates to deliver content to patrons was the most varied in terms of people's experiences and approaches to dealing with it. Podcasts are widely expected to follow consistent release schedules for main and patron-only episodes; some creators have their pledges take off after something unexpectedly finds its audience, then must decide whether or not to stay on that course; some try hard — or not at all — to impress upon their audience that a rigid schedule is not guaranteed. Creators may find that, in addition to supporting them monetarily, their patrons would sooner float them through a tough spot than see them work overtime to put out bonuses.

You really have to be consistent with releasing your episodes in order for people to pay for it. If they don't know what they're getting, it's more of a gamble. There was a month for Wrestlesplania where we didn't release the number of bonus episodes we normally shoot for, and we lost some patrons. We gained them back the next month, but it is borne out that if you do what you promise and make specific [schedules], being able to say that and deliver on it, people feel a lot more comfortable giving you money.

—Kath Barbadoro

No matter what, we put something out. We've noticed that the connection works both ways: people support us and like us, but they also want a thing. We want to be able to deliver, and it's happened in the past where we were lax early on and people stopped supporting, so it was critical to us that we make sure an episode is out on the first, and if it isn't out we send an email explaining exactly when it would be out.

—Lanre Akinsiku

I think on top of any kind of problem you have when you're relying on your audience for money, your audience has certain expectations: when I stopped doing the Film Nerd videos, my income dropped a lot, and it took me a long time to get back to $200, then $300. Then I did Fake Friends 2 and it tripled. It was like, "oh man, this really is dependent on my output in a way I don't like," because I don't want to just do parasocial videos. First, people were just here for one thing, then another.

—Shannon Strucci

Since reaching this sorta level of money, I haven't really changed my workflow. I've tried to release some more topical stuff, like the Elon Musk tunnel video. I haven't really felt much pressure to change — maybe that's a bad thing. I suppose now that I've got this much money I should be putting the content out more consistently. I just haven't done that.

—Justin Roczniak

I never had a model of "I do a certain amount of things per month." I was nervous about creating a situation where people would get mad at me for not delivering a month, and I've had some months where I wasn't really doing anything and I was expecting people to get angry, but I think because I never promised something, it just has gone on like that pretty steadily. For a lot of people I know who deserve more support on Patreon, [it's difficult] if you're trying to start it now or even in the last few years, because more people are on there and it has solidified into a content delivery model, not "you do whatever you want and people support you if they want" — that's what patrons do in my mind.

—Liz Ryerson

Whenever I do a bunch of posts in one week, I either get a personal message or someone in the comments saying 'make sure you're not burning yourself out.'

My patrons are so chill. On the Discord I'll apologize if a set is late, or if I'm too depressed and can't do a set that month, and I said "you can pause your pledge." And they went "eh, we're supporting you, and the rewards are just gravy." That's one thing I've really noticed with Patreon, is that the people who will support you — I have 8,000 followers on Twitter, but only about 200 something patrons — the people who support you want to support you, and they generally couldn't care less about the rewards. If it goes one month, two months without, it's fine. If they can't support anymore, they'll come into Discord and say "sorry, I can't support this month, something happened" — and I'll say don't apologize to me, I'll apologize to you, no worries.

—Alex @dirtbagboyfren

There have been times where I eased off the gas, where I was finding it a bit too hard, just to see if the wheels would fall off the wagon. I spent some more time on myself, my personal health and my mental wellbeing, and just kept an eye [on the numbers] and realized it was fine. You lose some patrons because you're not creating as much output as you did in the past, but most people are there to support you. Whenever I do a bunch of posts in one week, I either get a personal message or someone in the comments saying "make sure you're not burning yourself out." I think getting comfortable with that takes a while.

—Danny O'Dwyer

Some of the creators I spoke expressed feeling that Patreon offered a largely unprecedented and beneficial way of funding creative work when they first discovered the platform — nearly all of them confessed that they have a hard time imagining what they would do without it. Now that the platform exists, leaving it would be difficult for many reasons, but you can understand it being difficult to imagine alternatives when imagining the existence of a platform like Patreon would have been difficult before it existed. Maybe at some level it's easier to imagine a model like Patreon's going away completely, reintroducing the void nobody knew it would come along to fill — and weighed against that prospect, most would rather stick with Patreon than take a chance on something untested.

Right now, all things being equal, I'm not really looking for an alternative — which probably says a lot about how satisfied I am with Patreon. I think the cut they take is unbelievably small, considering the cost of processing transactions on the internet. Taking 5% off of some of these creators is — I don't want to use the word "generous," but it's a really good deal. I'm locked in now with the rate I had previously, so for anyone else to undercut that is really the most important thing at this stage, because all my work lives on YouTube. They'd have to come in at an astronomically low amount, and I don't even know if that'd move the needle enough for me to skip. I'd probably lose more people [switching platforms] than I'd gain from the lower percentage. I think I'm in a really lucky, privileged position to have a steady amount of patrons.

—Danny O'Dwyer

If I thought there was a viable platform that I could actually move all my patrons over to, and it would be more stable, I'd do it immediately. [laughs] I have no loyalty to Patreon. I've thought about Ko-fi, but I've heard that they're not as kind to creators who do erotic art [ed. note: here is Ko-fi's policy regarding adult content], and there's just not the audience there. Same thing as if I tried to move off of YouTube — no matter what I'd lose a certain amount. I think Patreon would have to get a lot worse for me to jump ship.

—Shannon Strucci

For me, it's more about survival than looking for a savior.

Withfriends doesn't have the cachet that Patreon does, so it was really hard in those weeks or so when I was trying to get people to migrate over there, even with the frustration over what was happening with Patreon. I think I would want to sit back and wait and see how many folks in my community were moving over to another platform before I made my choice. It'd take a mass exodus from folks in my community, both creators and supporters.

—Sammus

I'd need full transparency in what a service would take from what we make each month, I'd need consistency in when and how you get that money. I'd want breakdowns of "this was taken out for fees, this was taken out for taxes, to pay this and that." I'd want to know how the platform is paying its employees and treating its employees. On our end, we'd have to prepare our audience for us jumping ship. We'd need guarantees from patrons that they'd follow — and they more than likely would. We're so lucky and blessed to have such wonderful listeners, but there's people who wouldn't and I get it — this doesn't affect them, and they'd wonder why they can't keep giving us $5 a month through Patreon.

—Rachel Millman

It's certainly not something we'd jump on right away, and I'd be open to multiple channels, like keeping Patreon and doing something else as an experiment. At the end of the day, it's my money and I need it, and I wouldn't want to put my ability to receive that money in any more jeopardy than its already in.

—Kath Barbadoro

If we were to go to another place, we'd need someone to supplement the amount we're currently at so we could already know we have guaranteed funds coming. Then, if people came to support, we'd be fine with that, being what it is. It's "do you know that you have money to pay down bills" — crowdfunding being so fickle, you never know. That guarantee is the thing that'd cause people to actually move.

—Kahlief Adams

I don't believe in one big savior that's going to fix things: there might be certain platforms that are better, but I guarantee if they grow to the size Patreon will, they'll either get bought out or they'll be doing what Patreon is doing now. That's how it is right now. Maybe things will change culturally, but it's a long road ahead. I'm content to stay with where I'm at right now, provided it doesn't get significantly worse. For me, it's more about survival than looking for a savior.

—Liz Ryerson

I spoke with Wyatt Jenkins for half an hour on the morning Patreon launched its new creator plans. Jenkins had the opportunity to see anonymized versions of most of the excerpts included above. The statements below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On Patreon's stance regarding discovery and social network-like features:

A lot of people want us to be a marketplace or a social network, where we have two sides; where we broker a deal between creators and fans. Especially creators who are at $100 a month, $200 a month, $500 — their number one request, at that small tier, is "can you help me find more fans?" Our position is "well, not really." We like to have a symbiotic relationship with those other platforms, where you build your fanbase anywhere else, in a lot of other products, and then you have a really close relationship with your fanbase on Patreon. At the end of the day, those ad platforms that seek eyeballs are always going to be organically better at generating audience. The whole mousetrap is built for that.

On creators' distrust of big platforms, Patreon included:

I think what you're hearing is fear, and rightfully so. If you're a creator on the internet today, you've really been jerked around by the big platforms. Facebook, YouTube — they've all demonetized, and changed rules, randomly kicked people off. I hear this every day from creators: "Are you going to do something bad?" I walk into rooms full of creators sometimes, especially with like 18+ creators or groups like that, and I feel this, like "are you going to do something, what's going to happen?" Gosh, that's why with this pricing rollout, we spent 10 months carefully planning the messaging, giving 60 days notice, grandfathering in all previous creators — we kind of had to go above and beyond the call of duty, I'd say, in a research and messaging perspective to land it, because these audiences have a lot of fear about what platforms are going to do. I tell a creator "Follow the money." If you follow the money on YouTube or Facebook, you see that what advertisers care about is what the platforms care about. If you follow the money on Patreon, it's creators, because we take a percentage of creators' earnings. If a creator makes $0, we get 5%, 8% or 12% of $0. At the end of the day, I try to tell creators our interests are highly aligned, 100% — both from a business perspective and the fact that folks like myself and Jack Conte are former creators. That's a message we have to keep pounding the pavement on. I hear that all the time, so I empathize.

On how some creators feel as though they cannot easily leave Patreon with their audience intact:

We have funnel network effects, yes, and there are a lot of shared patrons on the platform, but I wouldn't call it lock-in. Creators have the email addresses of patrons, they have the information. On other platforms, they don't have access to their end users, but on Patreon they have all the data. They have their mailing address to send them merch, their email addresses in the CRM, it's all theirs. So, yes, there's some scariness, though, if you went to your own website with a PayPal button and try to recreate this, there's a high likelihood it'd take a long time and be very hard.

On the pricing of the new creator plans and Patreon's commitment to building more robust membership tools:

When you need to manage a fan over a 5 or 10 year period via a robust CRM, and deliver benefits, then track whether those benefits were delivered to that fan, understanding the fan's history across multiple tiers, pricing your tiers… if you get into the details of how this stuff works, it's a pretty robust membership platform, that probably never even should have been priced at 5% of creators' pledges. 5% was a great intro rate for what's essentially "put up a page, get some recurring funding." All the other stuff we've been building for the CMS for the last few years, that we will be building for the next few years, it's this robust technology to support ongoing memberships.

On whether users who are not as concerned with tier rewards and/or putting out content on a regular schedule should switch to Patreon's new entry-level tier, Patreon Lite: