Thread by @Calliethulhu: "What fresh hell is this? whew So... 'Lite' does fuck all, it's just a monthly tip jar service. 'Pro' is what Patreon is now, but you've got […]"

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What fresh hell is this?

whew

So... 'Lite' does fuck all, it's just a monthly tip jar service. 'Pro' is what Patreon is now, but you've got to sacrifice 3% more of your revenue (unless you're a 'founder') in exchange for 'creator-led workshops' and 'priority customer support' (🤮)

And then 'Premium' is for huge creators who wanna sell merch and lose even more revenue. OK lol

This isn't as bad as I'd feared but it's still some grade-A bullshit in action. Needlessly bloating a platform with features no-one wants in order to justify stripping more revenue from creators. It's a shitty trend and this sacrifices the simplicity that made Patreon good

Literally yes. If you want to use Patreon at any point in the future you should get set up as a creator now, to make sure your account has founder status and you can keep more of your revenue whenever you actually start creating

That Pro tier is actually such a joke. They're taking 3% more from new creators in exchange for... literally nothing. 'Creator-led workshops'? Nobody wants that. Literally no-one wants your shitty webinars. 'Priority customer support'? What does that even mean?

'Priority customer support' presumably means that anyone using Lite gets completely fucked over if there's a problem. But most people will be on Pro anyway. So everyone gets 'priority' support? Lol

Absolutely cannot get over the extent to which

NO-ONE

ASKED

FOR

THIS

Wait oof they really tried to bury the story here. New payment processing rates for non-founders. As far as I can tell, these are dramatically worse than the current rates (please correct me if I'm wrong?)

On a $1 pledge, you're paying 5% + 10c. That's 15c. That's a 15% take for the payment processors. What the actual fuck

If you're a new creator then you get the 8% rate on Pro too. So on your $1 pledges, you'll be losing 23%. 23%. That's huge

Compare that to now, where it's 5% to Patreon, and roughly another 5% on payment processing depending on the specifics of your pledges (plus payout fees). $1 would tend to incur higher payment processing anyway, but still, this seems... really bad

There's no way to be specific about how your take-home percentage as a creator would change because right now payment processing fees aren't consistent, but these numbers seem worrying to me, as does the fact they've tried to bury the change in an FAQ of a much larger change

I also find this level of vagueness and equivocation about a crucial question a little concerning

Like it's fine if there isn't a straightforward answer but you ought to be able to tell us more than that....

Overall, personally? I'm very glad to be shielded from all this mess, as a 'founder creator'. But I'm worried that they will try and coerce founders into opting-in to the new rates and tiers, which they could easily do by e.g. not supporting founder payment processing properly

lol

I can say with absolute confidence that I was never asked to do a survery, was never invited to a meetup or roundtable, never asked to participate in a focus group, and certainly never approached for a 1:1 conversation. And I haven't heard of anyone else who was

PRETTY SURE WE WOULD HAVE HEARD SOMETHING IF THIS HAD BEEN HAPPENING HUH?

I know I'm just a dirty smut-peddler but Patreon happily takes 5% of my earnings each month, and if they're doing that then it seems like they should, yknow, care

Btw as much as this sucks, if you support people on Patreon I would ask you NOT to commit to some kind of boycott or en-masse pledge cancelling as a protest. I don't want that to happen, to me or anyone. Creators need your support, now more than ever ><

And to reiterate, since this thread is getting shared a lot, the biggest takeaway should be MAKE YOUR CREATOR PAGE NOW, if you think you might ever want one. There's no cost, and having access to founder rates can only be to your advantage

It makes me mad as hell that what always made Patreon good was that it's a simple, lightweight service to help creators and supporters connect. That's all. And now that's getting ruined, because shareholders wanted to take 3% more away from the creators

'Cause tbh I really believe that everything else is a smokescreen for that. No-one has asked for these other features or changes, ever, and at the end of the day we know that Patreon is beholden to venture capitalists, and all they care about is money

Napkin maths on new processing fees:

I have 92 patrons at the $5 tier, and 14 at the $1 tier. Last month, when I had a few less patrons, I paid $21.21 in processing fees according to Patreon. That's 4.25% of my total revenue from patrons

Under the new charges, 2.9% +30c on 92 $5 pledges = $40.94. 5% + 10c on 14 $1 pledges = $2.10. In total, that makes for processing fees of $43.04. Double what I currently pay

Only approximate numbers because I'm rounding all my patrons to $1 or $5 pledges. Still, a huge rise...

This should be the real story, imo, now that I've looked at the numbers. Not the new tiers. The new processing fees. This is a huge rise for new creators, without clear justification, with the details buried in an expandable FAQ at the bottom of the page. Unacceptable

Btw there's also no way that all that extra money is all going to payment processors. I don't believe that. I've been paying processing fees at cost for months and it's half of what Patreon now wants to charge people. That does not add up. Patreon is gonna be pocketing that cash

Anyway uh

Muting this thread now, but if you feel like supporting me, well, my Patreon page is what I got, ironically. I write kinky, trans-friendly erotica! If that sounds like something you might be interested in...

patreon.com/Kallie