volezor
patreon
About Patreon's new fee system
🕑 Added 2017-12-11 01:04:05 +0000 UTC Greetings to all!By now, I'm sure all of you have already heard about the new Patreon fee system (if you haven't, you should have received an e-mail from Patreon explaining the system).
To summarize, Patreon up to this point has always charged Creators with the additional transaction fees and internal taxes (Patreon's fee, Paypal's fee, bank transaction etc etc), meaning that what Patrons pledged actually only reached about an 85ish% to the Creators. I've been completely fine with this system, because you're already giving what you can, why would I accept that you get charged more on my behalf? That's unfair.
The new system says that starting on December 18th (but on January in the case of my Patreon, since the pledges are once a month), Creators will only have to pay for Patreon's fee which is only 5%. That sounds great for us Creators, right? Not! Because, of course, like with alchemy, there must be an equivalent exchange and someone has to be charged instead. But this is a very very bad equivalent exchange, since it charges you even more than us Creators were supposed to be charged before.
Every pledge that you have, will now be charged an extra 0.35 cents + 2.9%. So, if you pledge, let's say $5 to a Creator, now you'll be charged around $5.50 with the new system, so that's half a dollar extra, and consider that it gets charged for EACH pledge you do, so if you're supporting a lot of Creators, or you're supporting Creators that charge per creation (which could be several times a month), you will be charged that extra 0.35 cents + 2.9% each time. So if you're supporting 10 Creators with $5, you're actually paying $50 now, but with the new system, you'll be paying $5.50 each, and will end up paying $55, which means you could have been paying an additional 11th Creator! But instead, if you have to keep your budget, now you'll be able to pay only to 9 Creators.
What I think personally of all this is that this is terrible. I don't like this new system at all. First, because it was imposed, even though they said it was "surveyed", I haven't seen a single person, nor Creator nor Patron, being happy with this change, so it's definitely imposed, because it's obviously an easy money grab. Second, this fee affects especially those that pledge very low amounts, such as $1 (which now will be $1.37, that's a 37% increase!!!), and I know there are many people who want to support many artists with a $1, but now will be forced to rethink what to do about this new fee (many have decided to withdraw some pledges, and some have withdrawn completely all of them). And third, the maths are not fair at all, both for Creators and Patrons, I'm not a math expert but a lot of people have made the calculations so far and this is definitely not a benefit for anyone; if they think this is for the best, it's the complete opposite, and for the same reason, a lot of people will leave, which doesn't benefit anyone!
... Sorry for the long rant, but I wanted to put my thoughts in the table. Let's speak about this Patreon. I won't think anything bad if you decide to retire your pledge, as this was imposed, and definitely not something anyone could be prepared for, so if you have to look for your budget, please do! You all know my stand, and I would hate it if it would cause monetary problems to anyone to keep supporting me. You guys make all this possible, if it weren't for you, I would not be able to work on all these comics, art and animations that I do, I wouldn't have been able to grow as an artist if it wasn't for your help. But, even though your support is the most important thing for me, before me are you, and you have to look for yourselves, and I will completely understand it.
For now, I'm not leaving Patreon as I haven't found any other platform that works better than what it is being offered here (Please don't suggest Drip, since it's currently invitation-only, and since it's by Kickstarter, I don't know if it will support my country :( ).
I highly suggest you do the same as me, and voice your opinion to Patreonthrough this form: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new (make sure you put to "get help" since they won't answer "feedback" mails). Hopefully, since this system still has some days before it starts applying, Patreon realizes they have made a very bad decision, and bring things to normal, or at least let Creators opt out, since if it was an option, I would remain as I am right now, no extra fees.
Once again, I deeply thank you for your support, and hopefully, what I can only ask is that you keep supporting me as much as you can. As always I'll do my best to keep doing what I do, and become better and bring the best content to you.
Cheers (and a big hug!!!)
Comments
Janus169
There was one fee patrons were already charged with each pledge: 20% VAT, which will now be calculated on the basis of the pledged amount PLUS the extra fees. So going from your example, a formerly 5$ pledge was actually 6$, but now will be 5.5$ (6.6$ VAT included), so a Patron who formerly pledged 50$ total (60$ with VAT), will now get charged 55$ (66$ with VAT) And like you pointed out, it especially snowballs out of control for the per creation pedges. DX
