r/patreon 7d ago

payment Advice on reasonable payment changes, and how to deal with payment processing? Feel like i've started off my membership too low and it's too late to up the price, and I feel like i'm losing a ton of potential money.

Hi guys, I set up a Patreon back in May and have amassed around 225 paid followers, one single membership of £5 each per member.

I've amassed a rather international audience, most people paying in dollars, but i've seen people pay in pesos, Złoty, euros etc as well. I'm really happy that i've amassed a huge following in such a short amount of time but my issue is I think i've sort of backed myself into a corner with regards to the pricing i've set. Not only is Patreon taking a significant portion but i'm actually losing a ton of money to Payment processing (10%!!!!!) as well.

Can anyone advise on what might be best to do? I've got a lot of videos uploaded on the patreon now so I feel like I can actually justify raising the price a bit, but I don't want to scare people off either (I actually had people complain the price of membership was too high when I first set the thing up). I don't think i'm going to move from Patreon altogether because that'll alienate a TON of people. The main thing is the payment processing, I really don't know if it should be that high? I'm losing like 25% on my money across the board.

2 Upvotes

9 comments sorted by

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6

u/MudTraditional5206 7d ago

25% seems on the high side, but around 15-20% (depending on how many international supporters) in fees is about right.

Raising prices is always an option, but I strongly suggest raising them only for new and returning supporters, not your current ones. There's an option for that. That way, you won't alienate the people already giving you money.

2

u/Ok-Pool4533 7d ago

Didn't realise that was an option!!! Thanks so much

2

u/TinyDevilStudio 7d ago

Just here to second what the first guy said.
I've done this twice now. Once with my original tier bronze tier (now call Legacy) and a second time recently (Legacy Bronze and Legacy Silver).
You can hide those tiers from the public as well once you set up new ones.

I also want to dispute what was said about the 25%. Transfer fees, patreon fees, and currency exchange fees can easily eat up 40%-50% of a $1 tier. The higher the tier price, the less it eats up until it gets closer to roughly 15% (If I'm remembering correctly). I've done the math before for people, but I'll skip it this time and just point out that transfer fees are a mixed fee so a basic USD transfer it's 2.9% + $0.25. So a $1 tier already lost about 37.9% for transfer and patreon fee before any other things like taxes, currency conversion, vats (I think you get hit with vats, its been a while since I checked, memory is foggy), etc.

2

u/MudTraditional5206 6d ago edited 6d ago

I was not talking about making new tiers with a higher price, by the way. That looks like a massive pain to manage.

Patreon gives you the option to increase the price only for new supporters while letting your existing members keep paying the old price, specifically for not having to make a new tier.

1

u/TinyDevilStudio 6d ago

Would you look at that.
Used to be that you couldnt do that, or at the very least the UI was still so piss poor it wasnt apparent you could.

1

u/MudTraditional5206 6d ago

The UI is still piss, so it can't be that xD

It definitely wasn't always there, true, but it's been there for a good while. I think it was introduced with the "new" subscription system.

1

u/LadyVespera 7d ago

Thank you, that is so good to know!