Can someone explain the different Zapier hooks to me?

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I’m looking to connect Patreon to ConvertKit. ConvertKit has their own integration with Patreon, but it’s been in beta for years now, and when I reached out to their support, they let me know that it was still unreliable.

They recommended that I use Zapier.

I have a few goals with this:

  1. When someone new pledges, to create a new subscriber with a Patron Active tag or, if that email address already exists, to tag an existing subscriber with Active Patron. I also want to make sure I capture their reward tier as well.

I’m using the New Member Pledge event in Zapier for that.

  1. When someone deletes their pledge, to remove the Patron Active tag.

I was going to use the Delete Member Pledge event for that.

  1. When someone updates their pledge to change their reward Tier.

I was going to use the Updated Member Pledge event for that.

But as I got into it, I had some questions.

For example, I noticed that in addition to the Delete Member Pledge event, there is also a Delete Pledge event.

Same for Updated Member Pledge – there is also an Updated Pledge event.

The descriptions don’t really tell me what the difference is. (see attached screenshots) Does anyone know?

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Also, I’m hoping to include the reward tiers in the subscriber information, and ultimately create tags in ConvertKit based on that. But instead of seeing any “tier” option, the closest I could find was something called Reward ID that was a six digit number. Does anyone know if that’s the thing I should use?

And finally, in trying to research this issue myself here, I’m now seeing posts like this which say that Patreon doesn’t have the resources to support its API anymore, so I’m wondering if including Patreon in my CK workflow is even a good idea.

So, if anyone has experience with the Patreon Zapier integration, I would really appreciate any help I can get with this. What are you using? And how well is is working for you?

Thanks!

Alex

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I have been using Zapier to log Patreon pledge info into Google Sheets for a few years, so I have some experience here.

I’m not 100% certain on all of the details, but here’s my best understanding:

There are actually two versions of the Patreon app within Zapier. When I started, there was only one app, and it used the trigger names without the word “Member” in it. So I set that up and connected it to a Sheet.

Then, a second version of the Patreon app within Zapier came along, and the first got marked as deprecated (within Zapier). At that point, the trigger names with the word “Member” in it showed up, so I used those and connected those to a second Sheet.

The older version of the app (with the older triggers) never stopped working, so I still use it to this day. However, it provides less info (less fields) than the newer version (or perhaps the newer triggers?) That being said, the older version of the app can no longer be found in Zapier (meaning you can’t search for it), but I think I still have access because I never disconnected it.

The newer version of the app is the one I think you will see today. However, it has a huge problem in that it randomly disconnects from Zapier every few weeks. There is no way to know that it has stopped working, except that you will notice that triggers are no longer firing when they should. The solution is to go into Zapier and click the “reconnect app” button and reauthorize it. Again, the only way I know that I need to do this is that rows are no longer showing up in my Sheet when they should.

And if you can believe it, the older version of the app has never once disconnected in the years I have been using it. Whereas the newer app I have had to reconnect dozens of times.

By the way, I use a bunch of Zapier apps and I know how to properly set this stuff up, and I can tell you that the Patreon app (within Zapier) is the only one I’ve ever had to click reconnect with.

Hope that helps a bit!

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That is very helpful. Thank you so much. :slight_smile:

I’ll try to use it in a very limited way with ConvertKit, and will have my assistant check Zapier every two weeks to make sure it didn’t disconnect.

It’s a shame that this has been so neglected by Patreon. I’ve been focused on other things for the last year, but maybe they are struggling as much as folks have said. Concerning…

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Fair warning, but I’ve been using the Patreon API hooks with Integromat for over a year (it’s basically the same as Zapier) and the Patreon API is not consistent at all. For example, I just found out that none of my new supporters were processed since the 4th of this month (9 days), so I have an absolute mess to clean up with those supporters who didn’t immediately bail on me.

Expect to have the API hooks not process at all for about 48 hours at the beginning of each month, and have random outages for a week or more at a time.

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Thank you, Scarlett. Good to know. I’ll only use it for non mission critical tasks.

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I have a question and a comment. I have been using Zapier for a few months with Patreon. A New Pledge signup from our Patreon webpage works great. What isn’t working is the subsequent monthly pledges on the first of each month. The Zap doesn’t trigger and therefore the data doesn’t get sent to the various apps I have in the Zapier Workflow. Does anyone have experience or a requirement to capture every month’s pledge? If so, how are you doing this and what trigger are you using? Is this an Updated Pledge? Should I switch to Integromat?

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I use Integromat and as far as I know it’s the same for both. I think it only triggers upon a new pledge, deleted pledge, or changed amount.