Patreon Billing Changes and Membership Reward Ideas

Hello! I am bringing you some news and updates - there are gonna be 2 points of this post, first is an official update from Patreon, second is a small pondering on my own membership rewards. (LONG READ AHEAD)

1. General Patreon Update

You may have noticed my billing is set up to the first day of the month - meaning no matter which day you became a patron you get charged on the 1st day of the next month from then on each month. I liked this set up, this way I could make it the most fair whenever I decided to take a one month break cause I could just pause the billing for everyone at the same time.

But from November on Patreon is forcing creators to switch to a subscription billing model. Meaning if you are a new patron and sub for example on 15th of September, the next time you will be charged is on 15th October. This might not be a new concept for you, pretty much every other service like Netflix for example works like this - you get charged the day of the month you sign up. Still this is a change for me and my future patrons, so I wanted to let you know and make it clear this is gonna happen from November on.

This is for new patrons. If you are currently a patron of mine you will keep being charged on the 1st of each month as always. (If you cancel and decide to come back and sub later, you will however get switched to the new billing model explained above)

In a nutshell:

If you wanna know more info and the reason of the change, this new method is the only one Apple can support so they are reforming the whole billing system because of it. Also with this change new memberships purchased in the iOS app will be subject to Apple's 30% App Store Fee. If you can, set up your billing through web or an android device instead of an Iphone to avoid the extra fees. You can read more about it here: https://news.patreon.com/articles/understanding-apple-requirements-for-patreon

2. Membership Rewards Update

Lately I've been thinking to revamp my membership rewards, especially struggling to figure out how to reward my highest tier the ✨ Superstar Tier✨. I don't even know if everyone knew, but we used to have some events in the highest tier where the members could add ideas what I make, then when we gathered enough, I chose my faves and made a poll and members voted on their fave and the winner idea got recreated by me. Some examples of the past events - poll options and winners:

I always enjoyed these events but the platform was not reliable, the shared Pinterest board kept breaking, no matter which link I shared to it, it somehow always expired and it made me (and I think the participants too) frustrated. If you have any suggestions how I should revive this particular idea, please let me know!

(Another thing I could do is move the 'exclusive look at WIP projects' to this highest tier, as I think most people in the middle ✩ Idol ✩ tier are there for the early access CC only. But I am wondering if I can come up with a new reward idea instead.)

Please if you have any idea what you'd like to see as an extra reward for the highest tier, let me know! I'd also like to launch any possible new rewards or changes by November.

Sorry for the long post, but thank you if you read it through!! I appreciate you and have a lovely day! ^^

Trill