Robin Brooks

So This Patreon Mess

Added 2017-12-09 17:45:04 +0000 UTC

Hey gang,

So most of you have already heard about this, either from Patreon's e-mail, or from the Twitter shitstorm around it, but Patreon is changing their fees.

Previously, if you pledged a dollar, you paid a dollar. Patreon took out their fee, paid any credit card transaction fees, and passed the remainder to me as the earnings.

Starting December 18th, (or effectively on January 1st since that's when existing pledges are paid), they will instead add 2.9% + 35 cents on to what each of you pay. Which means your $1 pledge will cost you $1.38. Which is... dumb, since I and basically every other creator was perfectly fine eating the fee cost if it was simpler and easier for you to give your support.

What is even more dumb is that these fees are per pledge, since they are planning to split billing to recur on the same day each month as when you first pledge to a creator, as separate transactions. So if you pledge $1 to multiple creators, you'll be paying $1.38 per creator you support.

They have a bunch of reasons they say this is good, but pretty much all of them come off as either misguided or blowing smoke up everyone's asses to try and spin this as a Great Idea™ .

Lots of people are telling them this is, in fact, a Terrible Idea, (you can too, say you're looking to "Get Help" since they seem to have completely removed "Send Feedback" from the menu) and they say they're "listening to feedback," so they may pump the breaks on this plan.

But for now, I'll be reducing the cost of the $5 and $15 tiers so that the cost to you is the same after the fee changes (you'll need to adjust your pledge amount to match the tier to end up paying the same amount). Unfortunately, $1 is the minimum, so I can't take that down any.

If this change means you need to reduce or stop your pledge, I understand. You gotta take care of you, and I'm grateful for any support you've already given me.

Depending on what Patreon does in response to the backlash, and on what alternatives are available, there may be more changes as far as supporting Experience Boost in the future.

Thanks again for your support.