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> Patreon is awesome,... Is it? AFAICT, they take a 5% cut in exchange for setting up recurring billing. (I'll ignore any ethical questions about automatic re

> Patreon is awesome,... Is it? AFAICT, they take a 5% cut in exchange for setting up recurring billing. (I'll ignore any ethical questions about automatic recurring billing; I likely get free satellite radio because someone else forgot to cancel it.) Are there any stats about how readership/viewership translates into payment that are more informative than the PR department's "Average Pledge" of $5?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cx1000 10y ago
If that concerns you, gratipay might be up your alley. > The most obvious difference between Gratipay and Patreon is that we don’t skim 5% off the top. Instead, we’re funded on our own platform using a pay-what-you-want model, exactly the same as any other user of our service. Gratipay is funded on Gratipay. https://gratipay.news/how-is-gratipay-different-from-patreon-1f828d977935#.el2bzpsr3 https://gratipay.news/how-is-gratipay-different-from-patreon...
mikekchar 10y ago
Wow. I had assumed (without looking) that Patreon took more than 5%. 5% is indeed awesome in my books. How much would it cost me to set that up myself (and deal with charge backs, etc, etc)? Specifically the cost of lost opportunity to do the work (and maintenance) necessary. 5% is "shut up and take my money" level for me. Having said that, you have a point about the automatic recurring billing thing...
- kbenson 10y ago
  Well, it's 5% + processor fees. The 5% is purely Patreon's cut, but personally I think it's well worth it for a lot of people. I know there's at least few hundred dollars of my money in various people's accounts over the last couple years that wouldn't be there without Patreon.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Would you prefer Patreon if their rate was 3%?
    - kbenson 10y ago
      I think you misread my comment, since I already prefer Patreon. I wasn't making some obtuse statement about how money from me was being skimmed, I was commenting how the way they eased the friction of donating has caused me to done monthly to a lot more projects than I normally would, and that's added up over the years to a few hundred dollars of mine making its way to the accounts of people or groups whose services I use or works I consume, and that's a good thing. Would I be happier if Patreon took a smaller cut? I guess. I don't see 5% at the low-level donations as very significant, given the platform Patreon supplies. Maybe it would be better if they changed to a 4% fee if you were getting over $500/mo in donations, and to 3% if you were getting over $2000/mo. Then again, when you start making that much per month, chances are Patreon is likely working out very well for you, and that 5% might be seen as well worth it? In the end, as a consumer, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm bullish on the model of Patreon, and I think Patreon seems to execute fairly well on that model from what I can tell. I wouldn't mind if a few producers used Gratipay and I set that up too. I can deal with maybe 2-3 donation aggregators, I just don't want to deal with 10+ individual donation systems.
  - username223 10y ago
    > Well, it's 5% + processor fees. Exactly. The total cost is probably over 8% (pretax), which is more than those sketchy check-cashing places charge. It might be worth it if the adoption rate is high enough, but does anyone have personal anecdotes or (better) independent statistics on Patreon adoption and income?
    - mikekchar 10y ago
      To be honest, I thought it would be in the 20% range, so 5% + processing fee sounds pretty good in comparison. From the perspective of funding software, I'm mostly thinking about indy game devs. Game portals can take up to 50% of the sale price. From a business perspective, the processing fee is (I guess) incurred by the payee, so that's unfortunate, but I have difficulty thinking of a reasonable way to avoid that in any case. The 5% service charge that Patreon takes should be be an expense for you, as a business. Then you have to pay for marketing and advertising, so you're not going to walk away with more than 80% of the payment no matter what you do. At least you have the opportunity to directly balance the marketing/sales effort against the income (which is not something you can do if you are trying to sell through an existing sales channel -- they will advertise as much as they want and you will either like it or lump it). Patreon also gives a limited form of marketing by featuring projects in the newsletters they do, so that's a small benefit as well. As a remote contractor that works in another country, I'm fairly well acquainted with bank charges :-P Most banks will happily charge you 6% for foreign exchange, and then still charge you $20 (plus a percentage) to transfer funds to another bank. It is (information) highway robbery. Like I said, 5% to actually provide a valuable service is refreshing. P.S. For anyone in Japan, funnel all your money through a personal account in Shin Sei bank. You can thank me later. Not associated with the bank in any way, other than to be enjoying reasonably priced ForEx. Edit: To answer your question, Tarn Adams has been sustaining about $7K a month from Patreon. He is likely an outlier, though.
kbenson 10y ago
> AFAICT, they take a 5% cut in exchange for setting up recurring billing. Sort of. That recurrence can be time based (monthly), but canalso be based on work produced. It allows people to set the amount they way to pay, and for payment of work produces, it allows you to set a monthly cap. Most importantly (in my opinion), once you've got a patreon patron account it allows you to easily track and change what you decide to fund, and easily fund new things without setting up card/paypal/bitcoin payment individually. When I signed up for Patreon (for a webcomic, IIRC), I actually went looking for and found a few other things I consumed to add. I've suggested they set up and added a few people from the HFY subreddit for some of the more prolific authors. I actually find it rather annoying when some people/groups specifically decide to not use Patreon in lieu of Paypal or something less automated. That friction has actually kept me from donating a few times, because the friction is real. Reducing that friction can lead to a lot more donations IMO.
detaro 10y ago
I prefer to give small sums to a wider range of people, and if each of them collected the money directly via Stripe, the per-transaction fee would also already make up 5 % or higher. With patreon, it only is deducted once.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cx1000 10y ago

If that concerns you, gratipay might be up your alley. > The most obvious difference between Gratipay and Patreon is that we don’t skim 5% off the top. Instead, we’re funded on our own platform using a pay-what-you-want model, exactly the same as any other user of our service. Gratipay is funded on Gratipay. https://gratipay.news/how-is-gratipay-different-from-patreon-1f828d977935#.el2bzpsr3 https://gratipay.news/how-is-gratipay-different-from-patreon...

mikekchar 10y ago

Wow. I had assumed (without looking) that Patreon took more than 5%. 5% is indeed awesome in my books. How much would it cost me to set that up myself (and deal with charge backs, etc, etc)? Specifically the cost of lost opportunity to do the work (and maintenance) necessary. 5% is "shut up and take my money" level for me. Having said that, you have a point about the automatic recurring billing thing...

kbenson 10y ago
Well, it's 5% + processor fees. The 5% is purely Patreon's cut, but personally I think it's well worth it for a lot of people. I know there's at least few hundred dollars of my money in various people's accounts over the last couple years that wouldn't be there without Patreon.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Would you prefer Patreon if their rate was 3%?
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I think you misread my comment, since I already prefer Patreon. I wasn't making some obtuse statement about how money from me was being skimmed, I was commenting how the way they eased the friction of donating has caused me to done monthly to a lot more projects than I normally would, and that's added up over the years to a few hundred dollars of mine making its way to the accounts of people or groups whose services I use or works I consume, and that's a good thing. Would I be happier if Patreon took a smaller cut? I guess. I don't see 5% at the low-level donations as very significant, given the platform Patreon supplies. Maybe it would be better if they changed to a 4% fee if you were getting over $500/mo in donations, and to 3% if you were getting over $2000/mo. Then again, when you start making that much per month, chances are Patreon is likely working out very well for you, and that 5% might be seen as well worth it? In the end, as a consumer, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm bullish on the model of Patreon, and I think Patreon seems to execute fairly well on that model from what I can tell. I wouldn't mind if a few producers used Gratipay and I set that up too. I can deal with maybe 2-3 donation aggregators, I just don't want to deal with 10+ individual donation systems.
- username223 10y ago
  > Well, it's 5% + processor fees. Exactly. The total cost is probably over 8% (pretax), which is more than those sketchy check-cashing places charge. It might be worth it if the adoption rate is high enough, but does anyone have personal anecdotes or (better) independent statistics on Patreon adoption and income?
  - mikekchar 10y ago
    To be honest, I thought it would be in the 20% range, so 5% + processing fee sounds pretty good in comparison. From the perspective of funding software, I'm mostly thinking about indy game devs. Game portals can take up to 50% of the sale price. From a business perspective, the processing fee is (I guess) incurred by the payee, so that's unfortunate, but I have difficulty thinking of a reasonable way to avoid that in any case. The 5% service charge that Patreon takes should be be an expense for you, as a business. Then you have to pay for marketing and advertising, so you're not going to walk away with more than 80% of the payment no matter what you do. At least you have the opportunity to directly balance the marketing/sales effort against the income (which is not something you can do if you are trying to sell through an existing sales channel -- they will advertise as much as they want and you will either like it or lump it). Patreon also gives a limited form of marketing by featuring projects in the newsletters they do, so that's a small benefit as well. As a remote contractor that works in another country, I'm fairly well acquainted with bank charges :-P Most banks will happily charge you 6% for foreign exchange, and then still charge you $20 (plus a percentage) to transfer funds to another bank. It is (information) highway robbery. Like I said, 5% to actually provide a valuable service is refreshing. P.S. For anyone in Japan, funnel all your money through a personal account in Shin Sei bank. You can thank me later. Not associated with the bank in any way, other than to be enjoying reasonably priced ForEx. Edit: To answer your question, Tarn Adams has been sustaining about $7K a month from Patreon. He is likely an outlier, though.

kbenson 10y ago

> AFAICT, they take a 5% cut in exchange for setting up recurring billing. Sort of. That recurrence can be time based (monthly), but canalso be based on work produced. It allows people to set the amount they way to pay, and for payment of work produces, it allows you to set a monthly cap. Most importantly (in my opinion), once you've got a patreon patron account it allows you to easily track and change what you decide to fund, and easily fund new things without setting up card/paypal/bitcoin payment individually. When I signed up for Patreon (for a webcomic, IIRC), I actually went looking for and found a few other things I consumed to add. I've suggested they set up and added a few people from the HFY subreddit for some of the more prolific authors. I actually find it rather annoying when some people/groups specifically decide to not use Patreon in lieu of Paypal or something less automated. That friction has actually kept me from donating a few times, because the friction is real. Reducing that friction can lead to a lot more donations IMO.

detaro 10y ago

I prefer to give small sums to a wider range of people, and if each of them collected the money directly via Stripe, the per-transaction fee would also already make up 5 % or higher. With patreon, it only is deducted once.