How Katy Lipscomb quadrupled her Patreon community in 60 days

Katy Lipscomb is a professional illustrator from Athens, Georgia. Her work, which spans children's books, augmented reality, and fine art, brings vibrant creatures and lush watercolor landscapes to life.

Quips make it possible to reach new audiences through a public feed. But Katy had the same concern many creators share: would free content hurt paid memberships?

📝 What are Quips, anyway?

The answer surprised her.

In under 60 days, Katy grew her Patreon community by 400% and her paid members nearly doubled.

In this post, we'll walk through the strategies that drove Katy’s growth so you can do the same!

Would free content hurt paid memberships?

Rather than overhauling her strategy, Katy intentionally layered Quips into her existing workflow. These short, public posts on the Home feed offer new fans a look at her creative process, including works in progress and studio moments, deliberately chosen to draw people in.

Sharing freely didn't cannibalize her paid tiers. It strengthened them. While her Quips were visible to everyone for free, her paid memberships nearly doubled.

"The ability for us to easily share so freely without worrying about formatting has allowed us to be far more honest, and that authenticity has driven an enormous increase in paid members," Katy explains.

Katy didn't change everything overnight. She and her partner Tyler spent the first 60 days carefully reviewing their Quips, tracking performance across impressions, reach, comments, and likes. They compared what resonated and what didn't, noting patterns in everything from caption length to post format and content tone.

Generic announcements underperformed. Questions sparked conversation. Multi-image posts drove engagement while single images earned the most likes. Here's what their data showed.

Quips that worked: Data from 60 days

After two months of consistently sharing her work and engaging with fans through Quips, Katy and Tyler took a closer look at what was resonating:

Note: You don't need to use all of these tactics. Instead, just pick what fits your workflow.

Multi-image Quips had the highest impressions, reach, and comments. This behind-the-scenes Quip showing multiple angles of her creative process invited her fans into her world and sparked conversation. 

Single still image Quips had the highest average likes. This Quip demonstrates how a single strong visual can resonate.

Short to medium captions (140-280 characters) with a clear personal call-to-action had the best reach, while longer posts with first-line questions drove deeper discussions in the comments.

Short video clips opened new engagement possibilities. This brief video gave fans a glimpse of Katy’s process in motion: brush meeting paper, colors bleeding together.

“Quips bridge the gap between long posts and full videos, making them perfect for bite-sized, behind-the-scenes updates,” Katy notes.

Pay attention to conversions over engagements

Not every successful Quip had impressive engagement metrics. This understated post had quiet performance numbers—but drove significant paid memberships to Katy’s $30 per month tier.

The lesson? Impressions and likes don't tell the whole story. Some Quips quietly converted people browsing the Home feed into free followers and paid members.

Use Patreon’s Insights tool to track what matters: conversions to paid memberships, not just surface-level engagement. 

Focus on authenticity

Katy’s biggest insight from analyzing her 60 days? Timing mattered far less than authenticity.

Generic announcements without questions consistently underperformed.

“Beautiful, creativity-focused visuals get the highest attention,” Katy observed. “Personal, casual moments build trust. Both together create the strongest membership momentum.”

Visual-forward posts with a simple question invited fans to weigh in, transforming passive viewers into active participants. Engaging prompts like “A or B?” and “Which do you prefer?” consistently generated the most comments per like. 

Key takeaways

Quips fundamentally changed how Katy runs her Patreon without disrupting what was already working. 

“This feature completely blew us away! Allowing built-in discovery has been completely revolutionary in how we interact with our fans on the platform and has unlocked exponential growth for our page.” - Katy Lipscomb

How Katy increased her overall earnings by nearly 20% through Quips:

• Multi-image posts drove the highest engagement

• Single images earned the most likes

• Short captions (140-280 characters) with clear calls to action performed best

• Questions sparked deeper conversations

• Authentic, behind-the-scenes content drove conversions

• Focusing on content that sparked genuine connection mattered more than timing

Your turn to test it. Try one strategy from Katy's playbook that fits your workflow and see what happens.

“There’s simply never been a better way to foster organic engagement and discovery on our page. This was the tool we didn’t know we needed, and now that we have it, I can’t imagine going back.” - Katy Lipscomb

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