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Patreon adding a 2.9% and $.35 fee to every patron transaction (zendesk.com)
11 points by kharms on Dec 7, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 10 comments


Title is incorrect, the $0.35 is for every pledge, not for every (monthly) transaction.

I really dislike this move. I like to support creators with small monthly contributions, like $1-2/month. Because I pledge to a lot of creators the overhead remains small for the people I support.

With this new model Patreon is raising its prices for me with ~30%, or another way of looking at it Patreon is decreasing the payout to creators from ~90% to ~65% for small pledges.


Creators: please provide an address for a cryptocurrency of your choice. I dislike this move by Patreon.


>Title is incorrect, the $0.35 is for every pledge, not for every (monthly) transaction.

They are switching away from the monthly batch billing to a transaction-per-pledge model, so I'm not sure why you don't like the title.


I also really dislike the move. What's a good alternative though? If I use something like Paypal to pay the creators directly, I would think Paypal would take a similar cut.


blockchain


Blockchains have transaction fees. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DH6QwQrWAAMGl8y.jpg


It kinda seems like they need that 35 cents more than the artists https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/patreon


That may be true, but what they REALLY want is the user base, and their primary model is a freemium paywall model which requires charge-up-front, and they are prioritizing that over prioritizing actual sustaining patronage.


basically that fee, is directly inline with credit card process fees, its even structured the same.

So it seems to me, that they are pushing all the transaction cost of credit card processing on the patrons, and taking that 5% as their chunk of the pie.

Which frankly for the service they are providing is ridiculous, I dumped my account, and will work to find another format to support those I choose, without this 5% fee for nothing.


>basically that fee, is directly inline with credit card process fees, its even structured the same.

(1) At Patreon's scale you pay <2% per transaction, so there is at least 1% extra overhead.

(2) That fee is present even with debit card transactions.

I agree with you regarding finding another means to support creators.




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