I understand you think it is important to extend Patreon’s features and functionalities, but in my opinion flaws and deficiencies in two major fields of BASIC functionalities might prove a dealbreaker for your clients in the long run.
Invoicing
I pay now more than 300 bucks per month for your services, and you are not able to provide me with a proper invoice/receipt!? This is incomprehensible. Please understand that in the European Union I cannot put in screen prints and Excel sheets in my company’s accounting! (That means I have to pay taxes after the whole revenue including your fees! That puts a stellar price tag on your already very expensive service .)
Messaging
Your messaging system is a mess. (And seems like the mess is growing every single day there.) Please make it possible for us to conduct messaging from an email client (by allowing us to reply the email notifications your server sends to our email inboxes when a patron sends a message in Patreon).
Yes, I use Patreon because its other aspects and features are great, but with these two issues unresolved I am constantly looking for alternatives.
Hey @Szabolcs, thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. I hear you, I understand that it can be frustrating to not get the proper paperwork or be able to easily chat with your patrons. I’d be happy to help you get the paperwork you need - please send me a DM with a few more details and I’ll see what I can do!
As for messaging, we’re actively working to improve this feature! I don’t have any updates to share just yet but updates are coming. Though we also have a Discord integration, to easily add patrons to your Discord server and build a robust community. Check it out here:
Agree. I just realized we can’t even delete messages. I’m a little confused. I read that Patreon secured around 90 MILLION in funding, and we don’t even have normal messaging capabilities and get told to direct patrons to a completely different platform for community building…which is odd, when my community is all already in one place, on Patreon. I cannot stress enough that no matter how this may have started as a complimentary side dish so to speak, it still becomes the stomping grounds for most gathered followings. And I really believe creators pay enough to have some of the very basics at the least available to them for community sharing and communication ease.
During this pandemic, I’ve struggled as a full time artist with pretty little aid- I can think of, hmmm, at least a million ways I’d give creators better tools on Patreon with 90 million bucks, lol. Love Patreon, but I mean…come on, man
So true!
I love many of Patreon’s features but messaging is definitely not among them.
Also, communicating via email (through Patreon messaging server) could be much better for me, as integration with other systems could be easier (I use Front app for a shared company inbox, and it would be just wonderful if I could handle my Patreon inbox there, too).
As for the pandemic, stay safe, stay strong, I hope this nightmare will be over soon.
@Szabolcs I agree, it’s amazing that these things are still not possible on this platform! I have been looking for other options too, there are many but at the moment I don’t have the time to set it up (not to mention of course losing patrons in trying to move them over to another platform).
Patreon has allowed me to stop doing client illustration work which is amazing, but it is really really over complicated and messy in so many ways, it’s so frustrating!
It’s all the more interesting as I can reply to your post from my email client. That is to say, Patreon forum servers provide the functionality Patreon messaging servers do not.
That is cool but wow…it is so weird how many things we can do here where we’re just connecting with fellow creators vs how limited things are with Patreon while we interact with the folks who pay us for our content and art I can’t say I quite understand that.
But I AM glad I came across your art! You are so talented!
Thank you so much! I’m in mega frantic mode ATM preparing for my Kickstarter next week! And yeah… not sure why we can do this via our email here and not on the site… maybe someone will answer!?
Oh wow thank you so much! Right?! I love bold pieces! I throw in a few small cities now and again but I’m just crazy for the big, fierce, loud stuff ahahaha!
Oooo I wish you the very best of luck with your Kickstarter campaign, although I doubt you need the luck when you have all that talent! Lol!
Yep, a feature set for instance that would enable creators to cooperate or communicate with each other on Patreon would be nice on Patreon (now it emphasizes creator-patron relationship, but a creator-creator thing could be inspiring sometimes – as this thread shows.
ahahaha!