@Frenone I think your comment is quite confrontational. Especially as one can assume you know the rules of Patreon: There is no going back once you switched to up-front charge.
Patreon tried to do this years ago, and Twitter exploded about it. (To be fair, they worded things poorly from the get go.) It involved a higher charge of fees to patrons. The more people you supported, the higher the fees, to the point where multi small levels of support was not sustainable. So Patreon dropped those plans.
I definitely agree with you, that charging on the anniversary would be nicer, but in all of your examples, you miss something that is different between them and Patreon. You only subscribe to one Netflix. You only pay for one Zoom. On Patreon, you could be paying for five or a dozen different creators, and now youāre having loads of anniversaries, loads of additional fees, etc.
I could be okay with this option. But youāll likely come across some issue with lower priced tiers. Like, if someone signs up for a 1$ tier on the 30th, pays basically a couple pennies, Patreon takes their cut, Paypal takes their cut, the creator gets nothing, if not potentially charged on the transaction. There has to be a limit here too.
I agree with Frenone here. Thereās already a ton of systems that all differ per page. Patreon already has a hard time keeping up with everything. I just donāt think an idealized ādo anything you want systemā is viable.
ā
To me, the easiest, fastest to work in, and best solution is clear cut honesty. If your page has charge up front, make it clear that if someone signs up at the end of the month, theyāll be hit twice if they stay. Thereās ways you can work around this as a marketing strategy.
-Avoid advertising your page towards the last couple days, unless you include these warnings.
-On the first, push like normal. Maybe send out newsletters on a mailing list. It helps remind people who avoided the double charge to sign up too.
-Encourage people to /follow/ your page. Itās free to follow, and they get updates about public posts. Make public posts on or soon after the first, as an additional push of āhey, remember you wanted to support me?ā I do monthly newsletter summaries, post them on the first or second of the following month, partly for that reason.
-Once annual rolls out, thatās another option for people that likely feels more comfortable than the potential double charges monthly. Itās also the closest to anniversary charges. Not an option for all, but it is for some.
I know you mentioned a āwhat if Netflix did thisā, but weāre not Netflix. Weāre not a huge corporation, weāre all individual pages, small businesses at most. Iām sure if someone was upset about the double charge, we could refund them easily.
Itās not ideal, I donāt think thereās going to be a solution that makes everyone happy, but this is just where I sit right now. 
(I also just woke up, so forgive any sleepy mistakes xāD)
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Iām aware you cannot go back, and I assume you regret your decision, but I still think there are ways to make it work for you 
as so many of us have.
Which, ultimately, exposes the fundamental problem - the number of things that we, as Creators (and Patreonās real customers) have to āmake it workā or āwork aroundā or āacceptā continue to grow as Patreon loses sight of who their actual customers are (Creators; patrons are OUR customerās not Patreonās).
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Hi Sarah. How do you make a partial refund, out of interest? Thanks!
Honestly, I havenāt had to yet. But my plan is to do it through paypal. Thereās doesnāt seem to be a way to do it through Patreonās system.
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Sadly, right now, you can only issue full refunds from your Patreon balance. Partial refunds have to be issued outside of Patreon.
Reference: here.
I think the fact that you cannot go back is a huge issue in itself. Iāve completely changed my content on my patreon that doesnāt require a pay wall anymore to access the content, but I canāt change it. I now have to create an entirely new account, lose my original founder status, and accept an 8% fee instead of my original 5%. 
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I have addressed this issue through email with Patreon with my suggestionsā¦ (along with many other issues). Iā'm constantly amazed at the lack of Creator support and communication from Patreon. It takes a long time for me to get correspondence and there is no chat option or phone option. Arenāt they making money from Creators? Where is the customer service? I donāt normally ventā¦ but this just doesnāt seem like fair business for those making Patreon money.
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That seems ridiculous. Have you contacted them at all about this? It seems like they could at the very least set your new account to founder status given the circumstances.
throwing in my 2 cents too,
I also would really like to see an option that my patrons can be charged every 30-31 days instead of the first of each month to avoid the well known ādouble-chargeā
and to those that disagree can have that option turned off. Now everyone is happy.
cheers.
Hi @Susan_Jenkins, Iām terribly sorry to hear youāre having a tough time getting in touch with the support team. I know weāve chat via Discord a few times, you can always reach out to me there and I can look into your support ticket and elevate it to the team. It may take a few days to hear back from the support team, but please know weāre all here to help 
@SLim - Anniversary billing is definitely something thatās been on our teamsā minds! That said, it isnāt possible on our currently billing options. Many creators like the consistency of 1st of the month billing, and prefer only needing to send benefits once a month. Additionally, paying out multiple times a month can increase payout fees as a creatorās payout method deducts fees for each payout transaction. I hope this helps provide some clarity. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback.
I definitely agree, it feels unfair. I vote for option 2 from
szabgab.
Hey everyone. This is Robin from the Product marketing team. Wow, reading through this thread all the way from the start, I just want to say I understand that frustration that some of you have been feeling.
There are differing, and strongly opposing points of view on how to improve things. Our challenge right now, and something weāre debating about internally quite a lot these days, is how to make improvements while considering all these different needs and ideas. There may be no path forward that pleases everyone, but weāre looking for ways to solve the most common concerns weāve been hearing.
Your thoughts are much appreciated and are absolutely being considered. Iām closing the thread as part of the project described here.