Hide Number of Patreons

I wish Patreon would give me the option of hiding the number of Patreons I have. If potential Patreons feel I have “enough” supporters, they won’t give.

This option exists when you edit your patreon. Same page as choosing if it’s monthly/per creation. I’m not aware of this still being in beta, it should be for everyone. @carla ?

You’re only able to hide your earnings, not the number of patrons. At least, that’s what it looks like for me.

Hmm i vaguely recall one time where you could do both but i could totally be wrong or it’s possibly not a thing anymore. Hmmm. Yeah if it’s not a thing it’d be nice to have for sure!

Q. Can I hide the patron number?

A. No, at this time you cannot hide the number of patrons pledging to your
Patreon page. - Carol

https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005184026-Can-I-hide-the-patron-number-

Why not?!? Doesn’t Parteon understand this is hurting us?

This is a good question. We have done a ton of internal research so trying to find out what I can share about this. We do know that typically showing some sort of number helps grow your patron base - but know that people can be sensitive
This is good for me to share with the product team and will do today!

2 Likes

I certainly know there have been people who have skipped pledging to creators who seem to have a lot of patrons (which can also get inflated by bots) as I’ve had many conversations with creators and general patrons about this sort of thing. Heck, I’VE done it if it looks they are making a good chunk/have lots of patrons. I’ll go and see if there is someone else on my list that needs it more, which is good and bad for overall growth, especially when many of us are still dealing with inflated bot numbers and it looks like we are getting more than we are. :frowning:

Bots often push me over 50 patrons but in reality I’ve maybe got ~25-30 at best. :confused:

1 Like

This is a conundrum I battled with at the very beginning. Admittedly, that was just a few weeks ago so bear with me as I’m a real newbie here!

I felt like I wanted to hide my financial stats as I’ve been so conditioned into thinking that this is my own private information just for me. I know you’re talking about all Patron information but I think this might also be valid in the thought process.

Anyway, you might like to know this: I temporarily turned off my earnings from Public view and do you know what happened? I immediately started getting people who follow me online (not just my Patrons) saying things like…

Hey! Why have you hidden your earnings? I love seeing how this is becoming successful for you!

…so, I turned it back on and the Patrons keep steadily growing regardless.

Then I thought about my own behaviour on Patreon: I realised I only respond/look further at Patreon pages that show all their Patron/earnings info, as I think that’s truly the spirit of Patreon.

I love seeing how successful Creators are and I find it really useful to see how many Patrons there are for each reward Tier. And, personally, I think I would only pledge on the pages where I can see all the information.

In fact, the two pages to which I pledge were decisions mainly based on seeing how successful they are and wanting to fuel it for them even more.

I think you’re right, some people will think in the way that you described — she/he’s got enough support and doesn’t need me — but I really do believe those people are in the minority and I think it’s too simplistic to say that you won’t get any more support unless you hide all your Patron info/stats.

For what it’s worth, I think the opposite is true — if people like the cut of your jib, they’ll love supporting you and I think most people will be more inclined to if they can see how many others support you. In short, they’ll want to be part of your exciting club!

Darn. Sorry. This has ended up being a much longer reply than I intended but I hope it helps you in some way.

Jack

2 Likes

I appreciate what you’re saying Jack. I just think we should have the
ability to hide how many Patreons we have, for those of us that want to
hide this information. It’s not a difficult feature for them to add, so why
don’t they just add it, and let me make my own decisions of what I feel
works best for me.

1 Like

Yes, Devorah, I guess people should be able to simply do what they like. As long as the advice is there from Patreon to guide people in achieving the best results (based on Patreon’s own stats/research), then Creators can make their own informed decisions. I imagine the powers that be at Patreon will be treading a line with keeping things in the original spirit of the company but it’s certainly a discussion with having. Jack