I'm surprised that I haven't read much here about Patreon.
With Patreon's current structure, a patron pledges X, and the creators got somewhere between 85-93% of X. High, inconsistent fees are a common complaint. Also, patrons don't get billed until the next month - Patreon claims the #1 requested feature is up-front billing.
Patreon takes this feedback and implements a new payment scheme where:
- Patrons pay the transaction fees - $0.35 + 2.9%.
- Patrons pay the fees per pledge, not per payment.
I don't mind paying the transaction fee - it means that the creators get more money, great! It's that second change that fucks it all up.
Basically, if I have 10 $1 pledges per month, I'm paying $3.79.
If I have 1 $10 pledge per month, I'm paying $0.99. I, as a Patreon giver, am disincentivized to giving smaller amounts to many people, and would naturally either give up on Patreon or concentrate my giving to certain creators.
So, pretty much they fucked this up entirely, especially for those creators with lots of smaller pledges.
They've admitted their mistake already and are not rolling out these fee changes. Although, lots of creators have had lots of people back out as soon as the news hit, and they probably won't get all of them back.
We listened to feedback, and promptly fucked it up.
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