What’s Going On?
So I’m sure most people know what’s going on with Patreon. Suddenly they’re deciding to increase their profits exponentially by charging service fees on top of each and every pledge, rather than taking it from the Patreons like they did before. So a $1 pledge cost around $1.38. This doesn’t sound like a big deal. And if you’re giving a $100 pledge you’ll only be paying a couple bucks more. And it does mean more money for the people you’re pledging too. The problem is that it’s not really for the Creators like they say. Everyone seems to have figured out that it’s for the companies benefit.
As a further example. Say you’re budget only allows for $10. So you give 10 creators $1 each. But now with a 2.9% + $0.35 service charge. Your $10 dollars is going to cost you $13.80. So if you’re budget only allows for $10, you can only support about 7 people now. This is why we know its not about helping the Creators, because you’re going to be donating to less people with this. For the higher tier people, it doesn’t matter. But for the small time Creators it does.
In a world where you basically need to make every second count to make a living, LP’s, Streams, and Youtube in general are a pretty decent way to make a little extra cash if you have people that want to support you. But Ad Revenue is a little unpredictable, especially in this past year. So Patreon always seemed like the best place to go. But now? We’ll see what happens.
So What Do We Do?
Well to put it simply, we can really hope that Patreon backtracks on this. But it’s not looking like they will. And I was recently ready to put out my own Patreon for support, and honestly I’m still going to. As it stands it is still the best way to show Creators you enjoy support. If you can afford the service fee that’s great, if you can’t that’s okay too. The best thing to do is to maybe contact those people and see what you can do instead. Perhaps they have a different way you can support them. Which brings me to the point of this thread.
What Do We Use Instead of Patreon?
I’m not saying all these sites below would be a great solution. I’m still trying to find what’s going to work for my channel. But these are some of the things I’ve found so far that might be for someone looking. I haven’t been able to look into service fees for all of these yet. This is a place for discussion.
Gamewisp - A site that is more focused on youtubers and streamers. Each tier is set a fixed service charge. So if you’re first tier is $1, $5, or $10, the service fee will always be $1. This of course doesn’t fix the $1 pledge issue, but they’re upfront about it and perhaps you’re someone that isn’t looking for the $1 pledges.
Paypal - Maybe just giving straight into paypal is the answer? Their’s no reward tiers or anything, but at least its a very direct transfer. I’ve heard of some sites that do transfer straight to this such as Paypal Cash and Ko-Fi. So those might be what you’re looking for.
Ratafire - Patreon but for small time creators. That basically sums it up. They seem focused on people with less than 50K supporters. Which to me would be the big time. But in the wake of youtubers in the millions I can see how it would be small.
Makersupport - Basically this is Patreon but isn’t Patreon. From what I’ve seen they have everything that Patreon has but they are their own site. I’m sure they are probably eating this situation up, and of course they would. The only thing I’m not seeing is goals. Which in reality, could just be made in a post and kept up to date in a non automated way.
So that’s the best ones I’ve looked at so far. If you have more that I can add just let me know below and I’ll put them up here. Just keep a short description of what it is in some way. Let’s get the discussion going. What do you think are good alternatives?
