dreamertooth
patreon
[META] Vote - Charge Up Front?
🕑 Added 2020-04-04 14:05:19 +0000 UTC[This post has been translated by locally sourced british speakers, just to make it easier to understand, because the topic is quite complicated]
Hi there everyone!
Thanks for your support last month! I honestly never expected to receive so much support - both in terms of your feedback, your likes, comments, and favorites, and in terms of money - and it is always an honor to make stuff that you guys enjoy! I'm working on part two of the synth x protogen animation, and after that we should have some lycanroc stuff. I also want to do some 2D absols and some felines too... There's so much I want to do!!
With that said, I have a controversial decision to make, and for that, I wanted to ask you guys what you think. I'm sorry to interrupt your normal porn stream with gritty financial stuff, but at the same time, I don't want to make changes without asking you guys first.
My patreon does NOT charge people when they join. Instead, it adds them to a list of people to charge at the 1st of the NEXT month. If the person then removes their pledge before the end of the month, they are removed from that list, and effectively have got the content of the patreon for free. HOWEVER, the 'amount earned per month' statistic shown on the main page doesn't update until that patreon fails to pay their next bill to ANOTHER creator. The result of this is that even though you see ~$2000 in the "amount per month" at the moment, that's not actually true: last month, over $500 worth of pledges were made and then removed before the month ended, but taxes and platform fees are calculated based on this origional $2000 figure; the reality is that $500 of that wasn't paid, but was taxed; Instead, I received about $1000
This is still waayyyy more than I ever expected, BUT it doesn't seem very fair to you guys, since it means some people have been gaming the system to get for free something that you've paid for.
Patreon does offer a feature called 'Charge Up Front' (CUF), which means people will be charged for their pledge the moment they make it. This would stop the problem, but the downside is that if someone pledges $5 on, say, the 27th of the month, they'll pay $5 on the 27th, and then $5 AGAIN two or three days later on the 1st of the next month. This also doesn't seem very fair on that person.
Another thing to consider is that once I've enabled Charge Up Front, I can't disable it.
I can't decide what would be better, and since you guys are the ones paying me to do this, I think it's reasonable to ask you guys what to do. If there was an option that meant that people simply had to make a minimum of one payment even if they remove their pledge, I'd go for that. Unfortunately, despite asking for this feature from patreon, it is not available.
So, what would you do? Do I enable charge up front? Or only charge at the end of the month? Please vote, and leave a comment letting me know what you think about this as well.
Comments
CryptidKion
Charge up front, if they want to see stuff early or extra stuff like advertised, they have to pay you
ButtNumz
CUF is definately the way to go. As everyone else has said and also my personal opinion, it should be the default.
Greywin Tarroc
You work hard on your stuff. You should get paid for it. Even as a hobby, this takes up your time. Time you could spend doing anything. So I would have been fine with a up-front charge.
I ordinary hate paying the full amount for just a part, but... As long as Patreon isn't managing subscriptions a good way, it should be better to charge up front...
Daovala
Your works are still released publicly, so it's fair that they have to pay to get the content early if it actually taxes you.
Draos
charge up front. your providing a service and its only natural that your customers pay for the service before they get the service. its everywhere like that
kj78aa
Charge up front. It's also not fair to you - the creator - to be taxed for fake income.
WaffyPup
Charge up front. Don't enable bad behavior that causes lost profits.
The way I see it, I'm contributing not only for the artist's content going forward, but also for content I've enjoyed by the artist via other sources in the past. Definitely charge up front!
Saphiros
I'm surprised this isn't the only option yet
MGlBlaze
Asking for a charge up front seems perfectly reasonable. It's not fair to you that people skip out on payment and end up screwing you over with taxes on income you didn't actually get. I'm already a patron so it won't affect me in any significant way, so do what's better for you.
TehAngryXeno
What Luxxy said ^^
Luxxy Reaves
People shouldn't be able to freely game the system and get access to stuff that you clearly spent time and effort on! You deserve every pledge that you get to actually go through; screw those people that steal and disappear. They suck and they deserve to be punished for it.
Minus Underscore
I'm already a patron to a few people who do this and it just makes sense. But. I must admit that I was mislead into thinking that I'd be charged for "the first month" right away, and then after that would be normal. I had no clue I was being double charged. That makes no sense and is a weird way to punish patrons. I'm still okay with it though compared to the alternative, that people can just come and leave. Patreon taxing you for money you didn't make, this platform sounds shadier and shadier with it's little tricks to get extra money out of you and patrons.
Dargon
I've been that double-charged person a few times. I would absolutely prefer to learn to deal with that and wait until the beginning of the next month than to see creators lose money. It should be the default option, honestly.
Tigersolder
Charge up front. People who sign up will still get the same thing and if it is late in the month they can wait until the first of the next month.
Mike Sterling
Enable charge up front. Believe it or not, you are providing a service, and people that come in, sign up, then immediately leave before they can be charged are gaming the system to get content for free, which is absolutely stealing, in my opinion.
Dracon
I Agree
Amaura
Please enable charge up front. It's only fair to you. People being able to sign up then leave before the charge comes in is bad
