boxofdelights

Each transaction costs them money, and they have been taking that money out of the patron's donation before passing it on to the creator.

If I understand their statement, they are making two changes. I think the first one is just fine. That is adding the processing fee to my pledge, so, if I pledge $1, Patreon takes ($1 + processing fee) from me and gives ($1 - Patreon's 5%) to the creator.

[The old way, if I pledged $1, Patreon took $1 from me and gave ($1 - processing fee - Patreon's 5%) to the creator.]

The other change, which I think they are trying to cover up by making the first change at the same time, is that they are adding their processing fee to every pledge. They only take money from me once a month, so they only pay one processing fee for that one transaction. But they will charge me one processing fee for each pledge, so if I give one creator $20 at one time, I pay Patreon $0.93 (2.9% times $20 plus $0.35), but if I give twenty creators $1 each, I pay Patreon $7.58 (2.9% times $20 plus 20 times $0.35).

Either way, the creator(s) also pay Patreon 5% of the money they receive.