Patreon changes its mind
You may have heard that Patreon announced a 35 cent charge per donation, that would have taken a big chunk out of one-dollar donations. The aim was supposedly to increase the amount that creators would get, but creators did not agree that it would. Petitions were signed, Patreon was bombarded with questions and squeals of complaint, and now has backed down, and announced that this new policy will not be introduced. Patreon has indicated that it will introduce some change at some point to the way it charges to handle donations, but for the moment, it is business as usual, and those who donate small amounts such as one dollar, who are most of my patrons, can be assured that Patreon is not deducting 35 cents extra before any money reaches Lindybeige.
Comments (10)
I thought the point was they were going to ADD that .35 to the charge, and the worry was that people with small pledges were likely to cancel their pledges due to them essentially turning from a $1 pledge to a $1.35 pledge (plus VAT where applicable). The creator would have then gotten a bigger cut than before. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
According to Patreon's original email, "Starting on December 18th, a new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge. "
Victory!! Huzzah!! Huzzah! Huzzah!!!
I'm not sure how money gets moved around, but I assume Patreon needs to make a buck somehow too. I would continue to support my creators (even LindyBeige) on Patreon (at an extra expense) if Patreon continued to benefit them.
For ten pledges, it would have been about a 1000% increase.
As I figure, it would NOT have been a .35 charge per Pledge but per Charge. If my pledges totalled $50 on Jan 1 I would pay a total of $50 + .35 + 2.9%(1.45) or basically $52. If I pledge $1 to someone New mid-month it would be a seperate transaction and thus be $1.40. I never actually read any of the stuff from Patreon on it, but I thought that's what would be happening since it is the amount they take out behind the scenes right now (at least as their FAQ says). To further demonstrate, say I give Lindy $5 of that 50. The same amount is lost in transaction fees (1.8) and Patreon takes 5%, or $2.5. This brings my distributable money down to $45.7. Lindy having been pledged 10% of my total would Actually receive $4.57 or 91.5%. Under the new system I would pay a total of $52, and Lindy would end up with $4.75. Again, I don't actually know for sure. But it's how I thought this all worked previously, and how it might after the changes, so I was Totally okay with that. Ya'll feel free to let me know if I'm wrong, but I didn't think Patreon would be so stupid as to actually raise EVERY $1 pledge by ~40%
If I understand the prior proposed policy correctly, the new fees didn't come out of the existing donation, but were rather added onto to it. So, if I made a $1 pledge, I would actually be charged something like $1.40.
Huzzah!
Just out of interest, how much do you typically get from a $1 or $3 donation? The Patreon FAQ implies you get 90% of every donation on average, or at least it used to.
Woo-hoo!