Patreon fee structure
Dec. 7th, 2017 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxofdelightsYou may have heard that Patreon is changing their fee structure to charge the service fees to patrons instead of creators.
If I understand correctly, Patreon is actually using that change as a smokescreen for the change of charging each patron one service fee per donation, instead of one service fee per month. So a patron who gives 20 creators $1 each will now be paying 20 $0.35 minimum service fees, plus the 2.9% service charge on the whole $20. Patreon gets to keep the difference between (the service fees patrons pay to Patreon) and (the service fees Patreon pays to its bank), and that difference just got a lot bigger.
This is on top of the 5% of the total that Patreon takes from creators, which is not changing.
I'll sponsor my creators in other ways, or go back to Patreon if Patreon reverses this change, but for now I am on strike.
There is also a petition asking Patreon to change back here: https://www.change.org/p/patreon-patreon-drop-the-external-service-charge
If I understand correctly, Patreon is actually using that change as a smokescreen for the change of charging each patron one service fee per donation, instead of one service fee per month. So a patron who gives 20 creators $1 each will now be paying 20 $0.35 minimum service fees, plus the 2.9% service charge on the whole $20. Patreon gets to keep the difference between (the service fees patrons pay to Patreon) and (the service fees Patreon pays to its bank), and that difference just got a lot bigger.
This is on top of the 5% of the total that Patreon takes from creators, which is not changing.
I'll sponsor my creators in other ways, or go back to Patreon if Patreon reverses this change, but for now I am on strike.
There is also a petition asking Patreon to change back here: https://www.change.org/p/patreon-patreon-drop-the-external-service-charge
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 08:32 am (UTC)Wooow.
If they aren't aggregating small payments to minimize transaction fees, I don't understand what value they think they are adding.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 08:56 am (UTC)And various other services that individuals could arrange for themselves, on their own websites, without notable expense.
I expect they really are overestimating the value of their platform as compared to the micropayment features that they're killing.
ETA: Forgot to mention - it's widely suspected that the real reason for the change is that they collected a whole lot of VC funding, and need to start creating superprofits in a hurry.