Alternatives?
I've had a significant number of people ask me if there is an alternative way to donate given the recent changes to the fee structure here on Patreon.
UPDATE: I've removed the Paypal donate button I briefly added to my website while the international Tax implications of this are determined.
I do hope this Patreon fee issue gets resolved though as I really value the community here on Patreon. It's the best system I've seen to filter out the noise of the youtube comments and connect me directly with people who are interested and engaged in the content.
On the positive side, I was wondering what I would do if I got too many names for the outro text scroll, but now it looks like that issue will resolve itself.
UPDATE 2: 13 December 2017 Patreon have decided not to implement the changes which is a great relief as I like using this platform and the alternatives are not as developed.
Comments (80)
See how things go might rejoin as a Patreon
Hey I'm a huge fan of you! I love to watch all your videos on YouTube seeing all those vintage electronics! If you ever need any music to use in your videos I make my own music and post them on SoundCloud. I do not make profit off my music I just love making music and you have my full permission to download them and use them to show off sound quality in your videos! Id just love if you could advertise my music and make people aware that my music exists :)
Yo. I'm back on now.
Great news.
I upped my pledge to $ 5. Time to get you to the $ 4000 goal.
I could do with thinking of a better 4K goal than the current one.
I am back on Patreon.
Glad you're back.
since patreon isn't going through with the fees i am here to get you one dollar closer to having to clean!
Patreon backed out. So I repledged. People power!
Great news! <a href="https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/">https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/</a>
So by my calculations for my $5 pledge I will now be paying about 50 cents more, however Techmoan will now receive 50 cents more from my donation... I'm totally fine with that! Keep up the great work.
I will continue to support my Patreon Creators. I hope that once the dust has settled from these recent changes, that the new system truly benefits the Creators (as in stated in the email that showed up in my inbox on the weekend). Keep up the great work!
All this Patreon controversy (that I personally don't mind that much) actually brought me back here to read statements of the creators, and reminded me that I wanted to support few more YouTubers. So you might have lost dozens of longstanding patrons, but now you have my $1 to buy new and shiny things every single month! Spend it wisely.
I hope this doesn't stiff the check for you too hard. I kept my backing on you and anyone else I throw more than a dollar at. the lower bids i cancelled and told patreon the fee's were the reason. it simply is not economic to get fee'd so many times for a bunch of folk I only throw a little at. I don't know of any good alternatives except if you have close friends or family you trust in the US that might handle paypal for you and do monthly transfers to you? Lot of risk though...
I cancelled all my Patreon pledges in protest at this, but a lot of creators are moving over to MakerSupport as an alternative - it's basically a Patreon clone with much more sensible fees and better ethics. I would love to start pledging to you again if you set up an account over there (or some other alternative platform). Cheers!
Actually, this is strange, Patreon seems to charge VAT in the donor's country, but since we could be seen as buying a service from abroad, it should be UK VAT that is charged, and paid in the UK (at least as long as Brexit hasn't occurred). And I have never heard of donations being subject to VAT
The EU changed the VAT rules in April 2015. Specifically, they changed the "place of supply" of electronically supplied goods to be in the country of the consumer, rather than in the country that actually "supplies" it (as it used to be). You charge VAT at the "place of supply". So now you have to charge VAT at the rate in the country that consumes it (and register for VAT and submit Returns in that country!). This just makes it much much harder for small business to do business with other EU countries (massively increased paper work). This is all pre-Brexit. In fact, this change in the VAT rules was one of the key points in the "leave" campaign.
IMPORTANT - Please don’t use the Paypal option just yet if you are outside the U.K. I’m no accountant...however until I know differently I’m reluctant to ignore the VAT issue. I know that Patreon collects VAT/Sales Tax for every donation and then pays that locally within each country from which the donation originated. If I get money from outside the U.K., I’m not doing that, so this is going unpaid. My accountant wouldn’t be geared up to separate out all the donations into their originating country (I don’t even get this information) and then pay those countries. I’ll be asking him about this in a few days, so hopefully I’ll get an answer. Until then, it will be a great help if everyone just does nothing, otherwise I may have to go into Paypal and decline all the payments just in case some are from outside the U.K.
Yeah, VAT is a problem. You would need to take 20% off every donation and send it to the IRS. But it really depends how much money you make with your Ltd. Here in Austria, there is no need for VAT registration if your revenue is below 60K / year + you can keep VAT. I am sure a similar thing exists in the UK.
I am in with Paypal for £25. Cancelled Patreon. They indeed take too much.
Daniel, £25 is a bit crazy.
PayPal worked fine from the US, you just have to send in GBP instead of USD. Sent £20.
I am not a accountant! :) I was passing in the views and fears of another creator for whom I am a patron. If she is wrong and you only have to pay tax in the UK, that's great - problem over.
Just like yourself, I’m no accountant...however until I know differently I’m reluctant to ignore the VAT issue. I know that Patreon collects VAT/Sales Tax for every donation and then pays that locally within each country from which the donation originated. If I get money from outside the U.K., I’m not doing that, so this is going unpaid. My accountant wouldn’t be geared up to separate out all the donations into their originating country (I don’t even get this information) and then pay those countries. I’ll be asking him about this in a few days, so hopefully I’ll get an answer. Until then, it will be a great help if everyone just does nothing, otherwise I may have to go into Paypal and decline all the payments just in case some are from outside the U.K.
Let me know when you come up with an alternative for non-UK people. Flattr, Ko-Fi, LiberaPay I've all seen mentioned as alternatives. PayPal has lots of issues too.
This could be solved by Patreon letting us deposit funds into an account from which monthly pledges are withdrawn. That way credit card fees are only paid once on the intitial deposit rather than on every pledge, every month. Patreon could also take their cut from these initial deposits. For example, we could pay $22 to deposit $20 in our account. Patreon and the CC companies split that extra $2 and then when we pledge $1 to a creator out of that $20 in our account, they get that whole $1. Less credit card transactions, less fees, more $ to creators and Patreon could even make some interest on all those funds being held in accounts.
That would have been a much better way of approaching it. If Patreon had said, "We are increasing your fees but it will be based on the total amount pledged to all creators in a given month, billed once a month.", instead of jacking up per transaction fees, and spreading them out so there are multiple bills a month, I think it would have been more palatable Patreon hoi-polloi.
I cancelled all my pledges to make a point to Patreon. $1.58 (inc VAT) for a UK resident to donate $1 is too much. If they revert to the old system, I’ll be back. Or I’ll look at the alternatives.
I responded to another creator about this issue and will respond here too. I enjoy your content and will continue to pledge my support. After reading the email from Patreon, it seemed obvious to me that it was Patreon's doing, not the creators. I hope everyone who supports you will continue to do so. I know I will.
I dropped almost everyone and I'm thinking of dropping everyone else. I plan to come back eventually but the only way Patreon will get the message is if they feel it in their wallets. Seriously, why didn't they just raise their rates if they want more cash? Why are they being so cynical as to pretend that this is 'for the artists?'
I just saw Dave Jones' Patreon-shot-themselves-in-the-foot video and was wondering how this affects you. Bad communication indeed. Shifting the processing costs from creators to patreons isn't that much of an issue, but the new intransparent flat fee and the dubious "helps keep Patreon up and running" sound more like let's dress up for investors than helping the creators. And it's certainly beyond stupid to change your whole business model in that shove-down-your-throat manner.
I'm NOT fine with the percentage model! 38% increase on the majority of "low end" supporters!? You can keep it. What Patreon has done is shifted the burden of uncertainty from the creator to the revenue source. I was very happy with the idea that I knew exactly what I was giving each month and I understood that the creators were getting some subset of my donation after fees and such. As "low end" supporter of several creators myself, I have dropped my donations across the board to cover these fees. It all just smacks of the attitude that is all too prevalent these days, "YOURS IS NOT TO REASON WHY, YOURS IS JUST TO PAY THE BILL." Now also consider that I have a fixed budget of $20 a month that can go to donations to fund creators. Under the old system, with $20 I could support 20 creators who would get about 75% on average. that's $15 that the creators get directly. With the new system and the same $20 budget going to 20 creators, minus fees that I must account for, leaves $0.72 per creator, times the 95%, or $13.77 going directly to the creators. WHICH ONE, AS A CREATOR, WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE.
I’d much rather all costs come out of my end. If you want to donate $1, then that should be exactly what you pay.
Like I mentioned on BigClive's channel about this, I'm going to stay put. It's practically impossible to comment on popular YouTube videos (including Techmoan's public videos) as new comments get buried several pages deep below the top +1'd comments, i.e. just log out and try finding your new comment. With Patreon, I know at least at some people will see what I write and there's far less noise/spam here, so would rather keep this feature than switching to Paypal donations and losing Patreon's vastly superior comment facility.
You can find all of your own comments under the following URL: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/feed/history/comment_history" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/feed/history/comment_history</a>
Hey, the new patreon fee structure is ridiculous and I have the feeling the only way to make them understand that is to cancel the pledges. I'll be back as soon as they change it!
I will also continue to support and eat the fees however, I did eliminate one of my smaller pledges to one other creator to offset.
I will eat the fees, with all the demonetization going on with YouTube I prefer supporting directly.
So send the money to him directly. You don’t need Patreon for that.
To anyone thinking about dropping patreon, I just want to say one word: Scrooge!
To anyone willing to pay an extra 60c per $1 pledge just to bolster a money grabbing company, I just want to say one word: idiot. The creator is making about 5 cents more, the rest is going into Patreon’s pocket. Do you make a habit of over paying to please companies? Besides, most of us dropping Patreon are also funding creators directly now.
Has anyone looked into Drip by Kickstarter? <a href="https://d.rip/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://d.rip/</a>
This was very badly communicated. It read like creators get charged a lot and were going to charge them even more
The main problem with the changes is this: it may be different in other countries, but when donating €1, it usually doesn't mean I have to pay €1.38, with the 38 cents being fees. And I have to pay VAT on those fees as well. And I have to pay this amount for every donation, nothing is aggregated anymore. And for the creators who are also patrons it is worse, because those charges are going to be levied on their donations too. But why is every patron suddenly required to pay their donations directly to the creators, when the big advantage of Patreon was the aggregation of charges and the lack of hassle? The story that Patreon is telling us that they get a lot of support questions about the way the payments are made. That may be the case, but is that really a valid reason to change your entire business? What most likely happened is that Patreon discovered a flaw in their business model and they can't really be a profitable as they need to be for their venture capitalist overlords, and they saw no other way to let the patrons foot the bill. <a href="https://subfictional.com/my-theory-patreon-doesnt-want-to-be-a-money-services-business/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://subfictional.com/my-theory-patreon-doesnt-want-to-be-a-money-services-business/</a>
I’ll stay with the current system for now, if it transpires another system would be beneficial please let us know, I’m just concerned that PayPal will prove expensive for you. Either way I’ll continue with my support.
Admittedly the decision seems to have been a "like it or lump it" change on Patreon's side. I agree with Kane that Patreon aren't doing things the right way, and are too bulky. But then hopefully they've not been pulling the wool over people's eyes r.e. the increase creators get, so if that's the case then I'm not sure I'll care too much, and it does make it easy for you guys to take money from everywhere.
I'm holding out hope that they'll see the error in their ways and change it back. However, a lot of people got the email and either didn't read it or didn't understand what it means. Patreon severely overpriced their company, had loads of investment money thrown at them and employed twice as many people as they need. Someone obviously came in and wanted to change stuff up what with the new logo coming and the rip off change in payments. Now we are going to be paying for the excessive hiring of staff. Hopefully the think tank behind this bullshit will be fired and sanity will prevail. However, as about 80% of the patreons pledge $1 and from the 18th of December the company will be making nearly twice as much from these pledges, they'll have to see about 400,000 people delete their pledges before they make less. 1 million people, all with an average of 3 pledges, spending ten million dollars a month. That 35 cents over each pledge is an extra 1 million dollars a month they get to keep. If they keep up this BS, I will delete all of my pledges and will set up direct PayPal payments to the creators I follow. I guess I'll have to just forego watching the videos early.
Honestly, if it means for me to pay 50¢ more to support one of the best youtubers out there, I don’t mind. Keep up the good work!
Be wary Mat, VATand taxes etc., might be a problem. Patreon take care of that for you. If you accept donations directly, you may find yourself responsible for paying all the relevant taxes in in all the countries you accept donations from. See if this link works for you. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/transport-and-on-15763462">https://www.patreon.com/posts/transport-and-on-15763462</a> Fingers crossed) It's by Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield who I also support on Patreon. She talks some sense.
Thanks for the link. It looks like I’ll need to specify Paypal donations are going to have to be U.K. only.
I was not delighted by the changes, but considering that my internet access got 5x faster and the same time cheaper recently, I have some pennies to spare. I'll stay and we'll see what happens. I really hope Patreon doesn't make this a habit.
The main problem is that Patreon is changing from charging patrons once a month to charging patrons once a month per channel they're supporting. This means if someone supports 10 channels, now their card get charged 10x a month instead of once, and the credit card fees go up 10x. Their reason for this is that people were confused if they supported a channel a couple days before renewal and got charged monthly fees twice in short order. Apparently pro-rating fees did not occur to them. They didn't communicate this to anyone until their update to the post after everyone got mad. So switching to PayPal now means you're not saving anything in fees.
I’m not going to cancel my pledge as I want to continue to support you. I hope Patreon reverses course or allows Creators to opt-in to the old fee system. I'm all for Creators getting a larger cut, but this new fee schedule and the way it was communicated sucks.
Well, then I shall be sending the money to you directly via Paypal :)
I don't really mind the new charges much. But, I've seen Librepay been mentioned as an alternative.
I’ve seen it mentioned as well. Perhaps something for me to look into.
Count on my continued support. But the question is where do you get the most out of the pledges, via Patreon or PayPal ?. PayPal must charge fees as well ?
I’ve only just set the Paypal option up today following a suggestion from an ex-patron. I’ve yet to see how (or if) it works.
I'm still pondering what I'm going to do. Will see if they back down and how badly this actually increases my monthly payments - may end up just cancelling them all and finding alternative ways to support the creators I currently give money to.
I am more than happy to pay a "handling fee", as long as it means the creator does not have to pay anything. What cheeses me off is that the patreon and the creator both have to pay fees. Plus isn't there a law coming in soon making it illegal to charge card handling fees?? Plus I see this as a donation so why do I have to pay VAT on top? Turns a $1 pledge into $1.65
I think there will be some positive reaction to the backlash from Patreon, surely the has to be?. The more you look at it the more it seems like a back door money grab, rather than a improvement for creators. I will not be changing anything, but for many patrons, they have a finite amount to spend on creators, and if they support multiple creators, ($1 pledges) they are being asked to stump up for a 38% increase (+VAT) - something has to give - so they would have to choose to support fewer creators. Patreon incur ONE transaction fee per month for the dozen creators I support, yet they are going to charge a fee for each pledge. As to the credit roll - never quite understood the desire for people to get a mention on the video. I love the troll free engagement you get with Patreon, so fingers crossed for a speed resolution.
For the moment I’m intending to keep supporting all of my favorite creators. It’s not that big of an amount and I can pay it. However Patreon should really reconsider this new structure. Why not charge the creators themselves a monthly fee based on the total amount of pledges they receive (if that doesn’t happen already) instead, for example. At least then you don’t make the patrons pay extra.
What annoys me regarding these kind of changes is that it feels the rules were changed during the game by one side to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the other with the only option to quit the game if they disagree. It would seem more fair to use the new policy for new patrons and keep the old one intact for the current ones.
Aren't YouTube rolling out their own version of Patreon where you can directly sponsor a creator?
Hmm I don't know, if they do that would be an option, unless it relies on exclusive content.
Dumb Patreon is dumb and their fee change makes me feel ripped off. Why don't they apply that new fee to the total of donations per month? I support 4 creators and will end up paying much more than I would if I supported only one... I'll probably switch to PayPal even though I can't stand the ads on YouTube...
Hopefully youtube red will roll out to other countries so that people could pay to avoid the ads.
The five creators I sponsor on Patreon all receive their lowest tier donation from me. If I up my sponsorship I'd have to cut down to two creators as I can't really afford much more (saving for a house move). I'd happily also donate some retro tech if I had something Mat hasn't featured so far. I will see how things pan out, though I'm glad Mat has PayPal as a backup if I stop supporting through this method as it truly is an excellent channel.
Not too happy about the fee changes but I came here to be able to support this channel. I would also be willing to chip in with some more to prevent your bottom line from dipping and keep exciting stuff coming. My guess is that the lady word hasn’t been spoken about this. A pint sounds like an excellent idea, but given the weather I‘ll have a nice cuppa.
I'd say just wait and see . Give it another week at most and I'm sure something will have to give.
I'll be switching all my content creator donations from Patreon to PayPal. Was invoiced at the beginning of the month, so will wait until Jan to set it all up (whilst hoping that in the meantime Patreon will see sense and reverse their decision).
I don’t think it’s likely that they will reverse this decision unless the majority of patrons do what you plan to do. This move is simply moving the processing fees from the artists to the patrons. I think most other companies eat that cost or consider it a cost of doing business. There are still a few gas stations in the United States that charge customers for transaction fees when paying with a credit card, effectively charging two different prices for the same product depending on how you pay. Patreon doesn’t have a payment option without a transaction fee involved and they weigh their priorities to the creative artists using their system. One option may be for them to create a subscription model for Patreon itself, say $15/year or different levels depending on your patronage.
Been following you for awhile now, on the channel and recently on Patreon, and just decided to make it official. Everyone freaks out whenever anything changes, and I think we should all chill, have a pint (or a puff) and wait for all this to blow over.
I'm expecting things to get resolved in a positive way too.
Patreon know exactly what they are doing, and like most 'ye-haa' tech companies try and spin it as a positive. They know they have a lot of $1` level donations and clearly want to gouge the maximum possible from them. That's ironic as the level of chargeback and/or fraud on those sorts of 'content only' level donations must surely be close to zero. In the current banking climate, the real charges on such micropayments, whilst still higher than they should be, are lower than ever, so this seems no justification either. I think I might just do that and set up a SA with Paypal. You might also want to have a look at 'GoCardless' which I use for my own business albeit with certain caveats just to the ease with which Direct Debits can be reversed :( But as you say that does lack the whole community thing...
Honestly I'm here to stay. It stinks, but it's the best way to go about supporting creators. About the outro; I suppose you may speed it up a bit eventually? Just a touch haha
That's fine if you only support a few people. Many people support 20+ creators. With $1 pledges you are looking at paying nearly double what you did previously. I have just deleted 18 pledges, all $1. Originally that would have cost $21.60 with the UK 20%VAT. Now it's going to cost $35.40 with UK VAT. Nearly double the $18 I pledged.
Losing names on the outro scroll doesn’t seem like a positive at all.
It's more of a gallows humour type thing. ;-)