Thanks for the question @IngridKVHardy! I added it to a thread on being able to gift membership as it’s often a way creators would like to be able to give them access to their Patreon that way 
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Hi all!
I have an interesting request. I would like the ability to “gift” a higher level tier to a patron or follower and then set an expiration date for it. This would add nothing to my income and cost the follower/patron nothing beyond what they’ve additionally pledged.
You might be asking why I want this. I have some technical reasons. For instance, I have an upper tier where Patrons get to help me design story elements and characters. I have a couple of artists who do work for me and I would love to include them in a discussion without requiring them to pledge the upper levels to do so. Or be able to offer a potential patron a week-long freebie to see what my community is like.
Also, I’ve had a couple of situations where a longtime patron has messaged me and said: “Have some tough times ahead and I have to lower/cancel my membership.” Would be awesome to say “you know what? Next month’s on me,” or even let them stay at the higher tier for a month or two. I even had a patron who had to leave for a few months because of a family emergency (he did come back) and I would have loved to keep him for those missing months because he was a regular participant.
And how cool would it be to have a drawing/giveaway where your low-level patrons could get a free upgrade for the month? Obviously, this wouldn’t work for everybody, but all of my rewards are digital and wouldn’t cost me any extra out of pocket.
Something to chew on. Hope everyone is having a great week!
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Adding my support for a feature like this!
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This is definitely something that’s been requested a lot, from myself included. I REALLY want this feature. Every now and again there
is just such a good reason to give a free month to someone.
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Yep, I’m sure the concern from Patreon is that they need to monetize every single supporter, but allowing creators 4 or 5 “gift memberships” at a time wouldn’t break the bank…
These could be used for trial memberships… contest prizes… and Patreon might be surprised, the people who get to try our stuff for free for a while might start paying and making Patreon money!!!
Or maybe I just think it’s silly for my mom to have to pay to see my posts. 
Brian
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I love this idea. I have followers from outside of Patreon (social media, newsletter, etc) that ask me a question and I make a Patreon video to answer it. Since they aren’t in Patreon, I give them the video directly. But I would love to answer it only on Patreon and then gift them a free tier for 30 days so they can view it. Then, I think I may convert a few of those into regulars once they see what it is all about.
So my request would be to allow this to email addresses that are not patrons or even have a Patreon account. I just send them a link (like a coupon). They can then sign up, get the tier for free for the time, and then get a notice when it expires. What a great way to get people to set up an account, which is often a big hurdle for my followers.
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This would be interesting if:
- I could offer the promos to entice new members from my own non-patron audience
- I could choose to let them spend the promo amount on any Patreon creator/influencer they like
- I could choose how much each promo is for
- I could choose how many individual promos would be offered
- I could either pay for them in advance or get charged when they are redeemed
- I could pay for them out of my Patreon earnings before the rest goes into my own bank account
- I could also just use the standard means I have now to pay subscriptions
- I could offer them either as a benefit or a special offer
My list isn’t exhaustive nor set in stone, and several items can be left out. I just typed what came to my mind. Anyone else want to take a shot at they would want/need?
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Do you think any of my readers will be able to give his/her nephew (who can’t buy themselves) a six months or a year patronage as a Christmas present this year?
Just insisting 
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Yeah this would be a fantastic feature, to be able to give to selected people for specific timeframes, or for people to be able to gift friends/family
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I like this idea, I think giving away a memberships may in fact be useful in creating more patrons, you as a creator are giving them both a taste of what your offer patrons and a gift. Not only they might enjoy what they see, it also strengthens the bond between you and your fan (AKA potential patron), and they may decide to continue supporting and receiving what they enjoyed so far, basically with no extra work
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I’ve just had this request from a Patron. They would like to pay for a few months’ patronage for some friends, and the hope is that the friends would take over the pledge after that time.
I am pretty sure this is the first time that we have had this particular enquiry, and we’ve been on Patreon for around three years, so it’s not a high priority.
I also have to say I am not too optimistic about this model. I am just not confident that the “gifted” party will actively come in and take over the payments.
One alternative might be that the gifted party signs up as usual, but the gifting friend is able to deposit some credit into their account.
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I am still very interested in this feature… when can we see it?
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@mindy? Any news on this feature request yet?
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I keep thinking about how it works on Twitch, and how absolutely awesome it is for converting subscribers. I would love it Patreon functioned the same way:
- Someone gifts a month of support to a specific Patreon to someone else, either specifically or randomly (a random follower maybe)
- This is announced or shared somehow with the Patreon’s audience. Unsure how that would work.
- As the gifted month goes on, Patreon has a helpful little popup/reminder/whatever for the giftee to ask them if they want to pledge to continue their support when their month is up, which lets them become a full subscriber
- Another notification somehow if they choose to do so.
I recognize that the notifications/announcements probably won’t work as well on Patreon as they do on Twitch, because it’s not an engaged, live audience. But I have watched these events happen on Twitch get more of the community donating, gifting, pledging, etc, and it’s amazing how much an environment of giving can induce more pledgers.
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Maybe the community tab? And if someone gets a lot, they could be compiled together.
But man, I would LOVE what you’re suggesting. Twitch does it brilliantly, would be amazing to see that on Patreon :o
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Yeah! That could be a great use of the community tab, as long as it’s coupled with some way of making the community tab more usable/visible/making people aware it exists! lol! But yeah, wouldn’t that be awesome??
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I don’t know if this has been requested - But I think it’d be super handy if we had a “Friends List” or “VIP Access” to certain users - so they have access to a tier WITHOUT PAYING.
Isn’t it super annoying when you wanna patron your friend, and they want to patron you? And you guys just trade around the same 5 bucks back and forth? Except you’re losing a bit of the transaction fee every time and it’s just a bit of a hassle to set up anyways? (No offense patreon, y’all do deserve your cut!)
I think this would promote a more team-oriented environment if we had the ability to share our content with specific content creators (or users) - without needing to pledge.
It’d be good if we (The creator) - could invite a user to any tier, and have the ability to cancel it whenever.
Or if you want to go even simpler with it: If two users have each other as “friends” - then they get full access to each other’s posts.
That’s all, thanks for all the hardwork!
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The ability to generate a one-time use code for a tier would be an amazing feature.
Current state: Technically, we could already do something like setting up an offer for a “free month” or making our own code system, then refunding qualifying signups from the offer period… but I’m not sure that’s really genuine behavior for the Platform and even if it is, that’s a lot of back-end work to deal with making it an unattractive option.
Improving Patron retention on low tiers: I can see a free tier code really helping established creatives boost their Patreon membership by offering limited time free low-tier codes to their following, especially if it’s set up like a free trial where the payment information is already entered and the Patron needs to cancel before the free tier time period is up if they don’t want to be charged. While it might make the Dip a bit worse, it gives us a pretty useful and effective way to convert supporters into supporters on Patreon specifically, which leads to more people staying subscribed on lower tiers.
Improving Patron retention on high tiers: For creators that sell merchandise at conventions, offering a month of high-tier subscriptions with physical items is a great way to maximize revenue potential from the statistical subset of actual spenders versus more casual low-tier Patrons. Someone who spends $50 on art prints that gets a code for a $10 subscription is likely to let that subscription keep going if they’re satisfied with both purchases, versus someone who normally wouldn’t spend anything except maybe $1 a month getting that subscription code. This would be an amazing way to add value specific to Patreon to our off-Patreon activities that can turn around and greatly boost our on-Patreon activity without great loss or a huge time sink to make happen. This all would lead to more Patrons that stay subscribed to high tiers.
Addressing Patreon’s profitability concerns: We have to consider Patreon’s business model, too. If Patreon is concerned about revenue loss from how many users would leverage a free subscription code, Patreon could just limit the eligibility of the feature (i.e., free can only give away a tier less than $3; Pro can give away tiers up to $10; Premium can be limitless) to reduce overall loss and encourage smart and efficient use of the system by Creators instead of risking all Creators blindly throw freebies out in hopes of catching some subscribers which is less than ideal.
TL;DR:
- It could be set up like free trials, encouraging users to stay subscribed.
- It still encourages the user to sign up and maintain their own account.
- It makes it easy to “reward swap” and collaborate with other Creators.
- It makes it easy to host giveaways and alternate means of promotion.
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The easiest way to address this part is have the creator pay for the freebie. One month of a $2 tier? Pay Patreon $2 to cover the supporter, and make the supporter aware of the limited time they’re covered.
It wouldn’t be much different than offering a free promo book or CD and eating the production costs, or a “X number of days free” offer when signing up people for a subscription on other platforms.
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I just want to chime in to make sure this conversation is back on the radar as the holiday season approaches. It seems like progress hasn’t been made on it in the last year and a half…
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