The Murverse Mothership

Because it’s swirling all around me, I assume everyone has heard of the mind-boggling change to the Patreon fee structure. But since some of my followers just got the news I had a Netflix option (which has since run out; they had it for three years), I will spell it out for you.

• Before: You pledge $1. You pay a dollar. Patreon takes a fee (apparently it varied anywhere from 12-20%). I get the rest.
• Now: You pledge $1. You pay $1.38. Patreon takes a fee, I get the rest. (The math: where Y is your pledge, (Y x 2.9%) + $.35.)

Patreon is trying to sell it as the creator gets more money and we all want that, right? Under the new structure, creators take home 95% of the money. But they passed the fees on to you.

Well, 38 cents isn’t really a big deal, right? You can barely park in a city for 15 min on that. But here’s the catch: that’s 38 cents per person you support with $1.

Many people like to spread their support around, throwing $1 pledges at several creators. Before, if they supported 10 creators, they paid $10. Now they are charged a fee for every pledge, so they will pledge a total of $10 and pay nearly $14.

Now it’s starting to look kind of sketchy. OK. Really sketchy.

Choosing to increase your fees, or ask for more money, is a frightening job for creators. We are often on limited budgets, and are humbled and amazed that someone wants to give us even a dollar. And for me at least, the one dollar supporters add up. I make not-insignificant money from those dollars.

The result of this? My canceled pledges for the last day:

Supporters are leaving. I have lost a few, and many more have reduced their pledges. I know creators who have lost dozens. I don’t blame the supporters at all; I support many people and am going to have to look at my own pledges and decide how I want to spend my money based on my fee increases.

So what do we do? Let Patreon know we’re unhappy, that’s for sure. But I’m looking into other options. Currently, you can support me via PayPal Me and Buy Me a Coffee These are less than ideal solutions since they aren’t based monthly and a reward structure is MUCH harder to handle. But if you feel the need to leave Patreon but still want to support, you can. There are other crowdfunding sites I’ll be researching today, so I’ll keep you informed.

Thank you for all the support you give me.