Our 2020 Roadmap for New Currencies and More

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Today we’re excited to announce our first steps toward better serving our global creator and patron community! We have creators and patrons from over 180 countries, which is something we’re really proud of. One of the things creators and patrons ask for frequently is to be able to pay and get paid in their local currency, as well as using the payment methods of their choice. Today we’re starting down that road!

We wanted to give you the full picture of where we’re going with it in 2020 and what it means for you and your patrons.

We’re starting in Europe! We’ve opened a small office in Berlin and we’re beginning the process of accepting and paying out in Euros (€) and British Pounds (£). For now, the new currencies are only available to new creators who launch on Patreon from today forward. However, we’re working hard to roll out these currency options for you current creators on Patreon and your patrons in a few months time!

Here are the details on how the new currency support works today, and how it will work when it’s ready to roll out to everyone:

Phase 1: New creators who launch starting from today can now choose one of the 3 currencies (€, £, or $) to both be paid in and display to potential patrons. For now it must be the same currency on both sides of the equation, but that will change within the next few months.

Phase 2: In just a few months, you and all creators will be able to choose one of the 3 currencies (€, £, or $) as your payout currency. Your potential patrons will be able to choose one of those currencies when they join your membership, which may be different than the one you get paid in.

One question you may have is whether a patron who is paying in USD ($) today will be able to switch to EUR (€) or GBP (£) in the future. We’re working on a plan to make that seamlessly possible, and will have details to share in a few months.

To get all the details on currency support and read more answers to questions, including what to tell your patrons about when we’ll support their local currency, you can read this help article.

To learn more about today’s announcement and get the full scoop on our 2020 roadmap for international expansion, check out today’s blog post. Plus, check out https://www.patreon.com/europe!

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This is going to make my life a lot easier. Thank you!

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Finally, finally!
I can’t wait for changing the currency and for announcing to my followers, that the page is finally in their language…
Please priorise this task and make it finally happen as soon as possible!

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Ohhhhhhhhhh my god FINALLY!!!
I’m from Spain and since I’ve been in patreon I’ve been paid in dollars. The main problem is that I lose a lot of money in the currency exchange. If for example one month I earn 3000 dollars, the currency exchange that makes me paypal and its 2,5% that they earned in the end lost 500 dollars (I end up earning 2500euros)

I’m anxious to be able to charge in euros, I know my tiers will be a little more expensive for those who pay in dollars, but I think it’s fair.

Please let us know how the process is going.

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My concern here is that this will transfer the cost of currency conversion from the Patron to the Creator. If my current $ patrons switch to £ or €, then a currency conversion and exchange fee will likely have to be incurred somewhere, somehow. Right now, it’s the Patron (via their payment method) who incurs the fees.

This also places currency fluctuation risk on the Creator, not the Patron, and could result in some severe swings in income. How will monthly charges be determined if I price something at $10 and someone wants to pay in £ or €?

How are these fees going to be handled? Will I be able to require everyone to pay in $?

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After Tuesday’s announcement about our international roadmap, we’ve seen a lot of excitement about new currencies coming, and also some questions about how it will all work. We’re in the very early stages of starting to accept Euros (€) and Pounds (£). At this time:

  • The new currencies are only available to creators who launched on or after Feb 11th, 2020.
  • For now, the currency a creator chooses to be paid out in will also be what patrons pay in.

In just a few months we will launch phase 2:

  • We will offer a choice of three currencies (, €, or £) to all creators to be paid in. All creators that want to switch from to either € or £ will be able to.
  • Potential patrons will see their own currency on your page, if it is $, €, or £, regardless of the currency you chose to be paid in. We will use their browser settings to determine which currency to show, but will also provide a way for them to select a different one.
  • If a potential patron’s currency is not one of the 3 we support, we will default to the currency you have chosen to be paid in, but will provide a way for them to select a different one.

FAQs

Why are we doing this?

Studies have shown that for online purchases, people who see prices in their own currency are much more likely to complete a purchase or subscription - up to 50% more likely! Our goal is to make it easier for you to get more patrons by offering more local currencies.

I’m a creator who launched before Feb 11th 2020 and I want to switch to € or £ . When can I do this?

  • We’re not ready to announce the exact date yet, but we’re working hard to offer this as soon as possible. It should be ready before the second half of this year.

In phase 2, when Patreon will allow patrons to pay in $, € , or £ , how will tier prices be determined for the currencies different than mine?

  • Patreon will automatically convert your tier prices to our other supported currencies based on the exchange rate.

When a patron pays in a different currency than I get paid in, will there be currency conversion costs?

  • If a patron pays in euros and the creator is paid in euros, there is no currency conversion. If a patron pays in US dollars and the creator is paid in euros, there will be currency conversion. European creators who are currently dealing with currency conversion fees on all of their payouts will only have currency conversion fees in the future where patrons are paying in a currency other than the one they want to receive.
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This is a significant change and a potential major increase in fees. It should be up to the creator to decide if he’ll accept the currency conversion fees and currency fluctuation risk. In addition, nothing has been stated about which exchange rate will be used, nor what the fees will be.

It should be up to the creator to select the currencies which are acceptable.

What is going on with all the ill-considered changes and lack of communication about those changes (this noticed doesn’t communicate the necessary information).

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So, when phase 2 starts and I switch to Euro (which is the obvious choice being based in Germany), will the price for a tier set at 5$ change daily based on the conversation rate? For example, it then costs 4,83 Euro so that existing Patrons still pay the original amount they signed up to?

I think Patreon is not necessarily creating an easy to understand system for patrons and creators here. It would be much easier to have each creator choose the currency they want to set prices at and want to get paid in. Having all the currencies and options displayed, creators will still loose a lot of money to currency conversion. And I always hoped that this is the one thing Patreon will help international creators finally get rid off!

I do see value in there for creators that have patrons from all over the world. But I would assume that there are a lot of creators who only attract people from their country. And the best way would be to let the creator decide what currencies they want to accept being paid in.

Maybe I still haven’t fully figured out what Patreon is trying to set up here , but I do fear that the product changes will cause a lot of confusion with patrons and still cost creators a lot of their potential money.

The way this seems to be handled reminds me a bit of the way the new few structure was introduced and then scrapped a while back.

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I can see how currencies will make everything more complicated but I’m excited nonetheless.

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I can see the value of the change, especially for allowing creators to set their currencies to £ or €, in addition to . But the only way to ensure that I can set my prices correctly, is to allow me to require that my patrons pay in my currency (which happens to be ). So, the perfect solution is:

  1. Creators set their price in their preferred currency (current choices $, £, €)
  2. Patrons pay in that preferred currency, unless the creator agrees they can pay in another currency, and thus willingly accepts the currency conversion fees and the exchange-rate risk.

That seems to solve the problem. Allowing the patron to select their payment currency means that they have no price stability and I have no income stability. And that’s a problem.

Yes, I know that’s been a problem for creators who do not live in the US, but why introduce a problem to the US when there is a solution that helps all creators? And why not discuss the changes publicly so that these kinds of questions can be resolved. We still haven’t heard anything about the fees associated or how the exchange rates will be determined (and when they will be determined). Remember, a major news event can cause large currency fluctuations and the timing of setting the exchange rate can have a big influence on income.

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The ability for patrons to pay in their local currency is great – assuming creators don’t bear the cost :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Michael_Loucks, post:7, topic:6666, full:true”]nothing has been stated about which exchange rate will be used, nor what the fees will be.
[/quote]

THIS - There are precious few examples of companies adopting a true mid-market exchange rate. I’d like to know exactly what exchange rate and hidden fees will be implemented by Patreon.

Thanks for sharing the post - I appreciate it - it would be even better to get a heads up and some advance notice of this before it launched.

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Hello all,

This does seem like an exciting route forward.

However, I haven’t seen any mention of VAT in this thread yet. Do Patreon know if it will also alleviate the need for EU-based patrons to pay VAT on their pledges?

Along with currency, this is now perhaps the biggest snag with Patreon for my patrons — I’ll write a new post about this shortly in the Feedback category.

Keep up the good work, though. I’m sure you are indeed working very hard on the right way forward.

— Jack

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Thanks for your feedback everyone. We’re in the early stages of accepting new currencies and are still working out some of the details about how things will work in phase 2, which is a few months down the road.

  1. We can say that we want to keep prices as stable as possible for your patrons, and we will help existing creators and patrons transition to their local currency if they want to.

  2. Wherever a patron and creator are using the same currency, there will be no currency conversion.

We’re communicating about these upcoming changes as early as we can so we can hear your thoughts and feedback and take them into account, and that means we don’t have answers yet to all your questions. We appreciate hearing your concerns and thank you again for sharing them.

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Thanks, @mindy. I think I can sum up my position this way:

I set the price at $5, and I expect to receive $5 minus the standard Patreon fee and the credit card processing fee. How that works behind the scenes is up to you. To deliver anything less is to not allow me to set the price for my work.

Thanks.

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Great to hear that Patreon is actively working more on currency internationalization, hoping to also see support for Canadian and Australian dollars eventually!

A further currency issue: are there any thoughts about making payouts support more platforms than PayPal and Payoneer? As it is, Payoneer has a lower fee than PayPal but it uses a terrible conversion rate and we lose at least $50 each month (compared to what the mid-market currency conversion rate would be according to Google).

We’d really love to be able to use TransferWise instead of Payoneer, which is what we use for other international transfers and has a much lower fee/closer to mid-market rate.

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Thank you. This will help greatly as most of my patrons are UK. x

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If that is the case, I guess the best solution would be a tier revamp, setting up new prices in Euros.

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Same here
I already announced my Patrons, that the 5$ tier will be a 5€ tier in the future. Will that be possible?

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Do we know when I will be able to change my currency over from $ to £ as I set it up before the changes came into play. Thank you

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