I got a question from our community: would be possible to earn rewards from higher tiers by being on a lower tier, with a cumulative sum?
tier 2 costs 10 dollars and gets you a lollipop
tier 1 costs a dollar/month and has no rewards but after 10 month you get the lollipop.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Pro/cons?
The idea has been brought up a few times and I think some people implement it (but manbually). I am doing that with my patrons (you can see it explained in the introduction at the top of my reward tiers) though not exactly as you describe, because in this example you’re describing it as if they were one-off rewards but in reality, they are monthly. So when you sit down to really think of cumulative rewards, that brings up a lot of logistics to juggle. Not least the fact that it has to make financial sense.
A clear pro of this system is that it encourages patrons to stick around; even if you’re paying just $1 per month, you’re still going to get something cool if you keep at it for a while. Everyone has something to look forward to, and if they want it sooner, they can raise their pledge, which is good for the creator! The only con I see is it requires careful study on our part so we don’t drive ourselves into a complicated and costly hole. For instance, having really weighed what I can offer without strain and what would be attractive relative to the monthly tiers, I opted for a series of one-off rewards that don’t really overlap with my monthly rewards – and I’m keeping them a surprise. I have a list for myself, that’s essential, but I gave myself the space to change those rewards in time if necessary. I only announce the milestones at which these are sent. My patrons are really enjoing it!
Sorry for necroing your thread on this but we’d be really keen on having a separate system of tiered rewards based on lifetime contribution too - did you ever submit a request to the Patreon overlords?
Hopefully you bumping it will bring this to their attention again!
Lots of artists do this manually, as there is no feature for this on patreon. I have had some tiers like this in the past and currently have one where for one payment, you get a custom commission in greyscale. Then on your second payment you can choose to get a new commission in greyscale or i can colour a previous one you’ve had commissioned in the past. (I’ve done it for various other things as well and i know many artists who do this.) I also have some tiers that have “upgrade options” - Where if you want to pay a little bit more for that tier, i can upgrade your reward. (This works great for keeping your custom rewards limited because it’s all on the same tier.)
Since everyone runs this sort of thing very differently, i’m not sure how patreon would efficiently go about including something like this but it would certainly be interesting to see. Doing it manually on limited tiers is fairly simple enough to keep track of manually
I like the idea of this as a way to reward lower level patrons who stick it out with you but maybe don’t have $$ for a larger one time pledge just to get the thing. If cumulative tiering were a thing, I would definitely want the option to choose which reward tiers were linked. I wouldn’t want 100 $1 patrons to all suddenly qualify for an original artwork the same month, but I wouldn’t mind the following: my nsfw Patreon is a $5 pledge for basic access to the artwork, short stories, etc. I wouldn’t mind if someone pledged $1 over 5 months and then on that 5th month, for one month, the $5 access opened up to them. They could binge all the stuff that month and not be out the $5/month for access. Then they would have the choice to continue in the same manner or decide if it’s worth upping their pledge each month. It’s the way I would use it, but might not work for others who might utilize it in a different manner.
That’s a great idea and would be a good way to upsell your higher tiers.
Someone who went to one of the Patreon conferences said there was mention of cumulative rewards coming, but I could have misunderstood, so don’t take me at my word for it. I don’t recall it being mentioned at the conference I attended.
All the same, I have started putting things in place for it on my nsfw Patreon. Currently the lowest tier is $5 for access to artwork. ALL previous artwork is included in that so someone could have a $1 pledge accumulate and then potentially see everything after 5 months, if it works that way. I’ve also added a $1 reward of figure references even though I do not have a $1 reward tier. I did this so that if a cumulative reward feature does happen, the $1 patrons would still get something while they were waiting for their $5 reward and it would be sort of teaser images to give them some ideas as to what poses they might see in the artworks.
Hi there! Adam from Patreon’s product team here 
We are indeed investigating what cumulative, value-based patron rewards/benefits might look like – but I can’t say right now that it’s coming soon because we haven’t built it yet.
We see creators doing workarounds on the platform now to accomplish both time-based, “After 6 months, get a shirt!” and/or value-based, “After $60 get a shirt.” This seems similar on the surface, but underneath they’re very different. Which one would be more valuable to folks on this thread?
Lifetime $ for me! We’ve got rewards every $5 up to about $45 or so. See here: http://www.patreon.com/puppygames
Cas
I would say value-based, since different patrons will have pledged different amounts. A $60 patron wouldn’t receive the same after six months as a $2 one! I have a workaround on my profile to offer cumulative rewards and they increase in value based on total amount pledged (thanks to the lifetime support shown in the patron relationship manager). It would be quite complicated for me to work it out based solely on time, and also I think patrons themselves wouldn’t be able to work out what to expect at a glance.
Forgot to include a link, please feel free to check out what I have set up: https://www.patreon.com/majnouna
Would it be possible to have it value-based on the creator side and show as time-based on the patron side? If patrons see it as a reward after a time-based pledge, it seems as though they are getting a bonus for their continued support as opposed to thinking they have to pay $60 for a t-shirt they aren’t going to get anytime soon.
Also wonder if it could also include higher tier rewards? So if you’re a $1 patron, after 5 months you would have access to the $5 tier for one month in that Patreon content at that level would unlock.