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Calculate-your-doation-fees-for-Patreon.md (4551B)

    

  1. ---
  2. date: 2019-05-06
  3. layout: post
  4. title: Calculating your donation's value following Patreon's fee changes
  5. tags: ["money"]
  6. ---
  8. In January 2018, I wrote a blog post which included a [fee
  9. calculator](https://drewdevault.com/2018/01/16/Fees-on-donation-platforms.html).
  10. Patreon [changes their fee model
  11. tomorrow](https://www.patreon.com/new-creator-plans), and it's time for an
  12. updated calculator. I'm grandfathered into the old fees, so not much has changed
  13. for me, but I want to equip Patreon users - creators and supporters - with more
  14. knowledge of how their money is moving through the platform.
  16. Patreon makes money by siphoning some money off the top of a donation flow
  17. between supporters and creators. Because of the nature of its business (a
  18. private, VC-backed corporation), the siphon's size and semantics are prone to
  19. change in undesirable ways, since VC's expect infinite growth and a private
  20. business generally puts profit first. For this reason, I diversify my income, so
  21. that when Patreon makes these changes it limits their impact on my financial
  22. well-being.  Even so, Patreon is the biggest of my donation platforms,
  23. representing over $500/month at the time of writing ([full breakdown
  24. here](https://drewdevault.com/donate/))[^1].
  26. [^1]: This is supplemented with my Sourcehut income as well, which is covered in the recent [Q1 financial report][q1-finances], as well as some [consulting work](/consulting), which I don't publish numbers for.
  28. [q1-finances]: https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sr.ht-discuss/%3C20190426160729.GC1351@homura.localdomain%3E
  30. So, for any patrons who are curious about where their money goes, here's a handy
  31. calculator to help you navigate the complex fees. Enjoy!
  33. **Note**: I don't normally ask you to share my posts, but the Patreon community
  34. is too distributed for me to effectively reach them alone. Please share this
  35. with your Patreon creators and communities!
  37. <noscript>Sorry, the calculator requires JavaScript.</noscript>
  38. <div id="react-root"></div>
  39. <script src="/js/donation-calc.js"></script>
  41. **Note**: this calculator does not include the withdrawal fee. When the creator
  42. withdraws their funds from the platform, an additional fee is charged, but the
  43. nature of that fee changes depending on the frequency with which they make
  44. withdrawals and the total amount of money they make from all patrons - which is
  45. information that's not easily available to the average patron for using with
  46. this calculator. For details on the withdrawal fees, see [Patreon's support
  47. article on the
  48. subject](https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/203913489-What-are-my-options-to-receive-payout-).
  50. One question that's been left unanswered is how many times Patreon is going to
  51. charge patrons for each creator they support. Previously, they batched payments
  52. and only accordingly charged the payment processing fees once. However, along
  53. with these changes, they're going to charge payment processing fees for each
  54. creator, but they haven't lowered the payment processing fees. When we take a
  55. look at our bank returns in the coming months, if Patreon is still batching
  56. payments internally... hmm, where is the extra money going? We'll have to wait
  57. and see.
  59. <h2 id="founding-creators">What are founding creators?</h2>
  61. Creators who used the Patreon platform prior to 2019-05-07 are "founding
  62. creators", and have different rates. They have different rates for each plan,
  63. and lower payment processing fees. Founding creators are also not usually lite
  64. creators, but were grandfathered into the pro plan.
  66. <h2 id="charge-up-front">What does charge up front mean?</h2>
  68. Some creators have the option to charge you as soon as you join the platform,
  69. rather than once monthly or per-creation. This results in higher payment
  70. processing fees for founding creators, as Patreon cannot batch the charge
  71. alongside with your other creators.
  73. <h2 id="which-plan">How do I know what plan my creator uses?</h2>
  75. We can guess which plan our creator uses by looking at the features they use on
  76. Patreon. Here are some giveaways:
  78. - If they have different membership tiers, they use the Pro plan or better.
  79. - If they offer merch through Patreon, they use the Premium plan.
  81. You can also just reach out to your creator and ask!
  83. <!-- Hack to get footnotes from javascript to work -->
  84. <span style="display: none">[^2]</span>
  86. [^2]: This is an assumption based on public PayPal and Stripe payment processing rates. In practice, it's likely that Patreon has a volume discount with their payment processors. Patreon does not publish these rates.