Hey @JenLGilmour, thanks for the question. I don’t have a firm date for you yet but we know we owe creators an update on where we’re at with this work. It’s still very much work in progress and I hope to be able to share a more firm update with you soon!
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Hello friends!
Since our last update on support for new currencies, the team has been hard at work to bring preferred currency to creators and their patrons. We have some updates to our 2020 roadmap and an exciting announcement to share.
We kicked off multi-currency support in February by letting new creators choose a currency at launch ($, €, or £). Next we’re working on allowing patrons to pay in their currency of choice, and finally enabling creators on Patreon to switch their payout currency. We’re aiming to finish all of this work by the end of September, if not sooner.
Announcing our patron multi-currency beta
Starting in early June we’re kicking off a limited beta with a handful of creators, enabling patrons to pay in their local currency – Euro, GDP, and USD. We’ll start with a small group, and gradually open it up to more creators throughout the summer.
We’re keen to get your feedback to make this the best experience for all creators. Reply below if you’re interested in participating and we’ll reach out as soon as spots open up with more details.
Key information about the beta:
- Creator payout currency will remain the same for now
- Patrons will see the tier prices in their local currency if they use USD, Euro, or GBP
- Patrons get a more localized experience, shown to increase conversion
This is another important step towards supporting full currency flexibility on Patreon, something we’re very excited to be able to provide! We understand the most important step is to enable your preferred currency for payouts. We’ll share a tighter timeline on this after we get into the beta, and we’re working hard to offer this by the end of September at the latest.
Thank you so much for your time and continued support of this project!
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Hey Mindy,
I’m interested in participating in the beta to display Euro prices on my Patreon page. The sooner the better 
Also, I’m looking at updating tiers over the next couple of weeks. So this would come at a perfect time.
Christian
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Thanks so much for your interest @chris1612! We’ll DM you via this forum as soon as spots open up with more details, so make sure to keep an eye out 
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Still waiting to hear how currency conversions and transaction fees are handled.
If I price a tier at $10, I expect to get $10 less the standard fees Patreon currently charges, with no additional transaction/currency conversion fees simply because the patron elected to pay in euros.
My payouts shouldn’t depend on currency fluctuations, exchange rates, or fees related to charging in another currency when I’ve priced things in USD.
Thanks @Michael_Loucks for the comment! We’ll be explaining how everything works in detail in the future, once we’re closer to rolling it out to everyone. This is why the betas are so helpful; they allow us to collect feedback and make adjustments based on feedback direct from creators and patrons
Respectfully, those questions are ones which should have been answered and disclosed before a beta rollout.
We will definitely provide full clarity for those taking part in the beta before any account changes are made to ensure that participating creators fully understand the process. However, we don’t have the info widely available just yet until the beta is complete and everything is built out. This is something we’re still very actively working on and I’d hate to provide any information that may change down the line, especially as that’s part of the goal of the beta; to make changes and improvements. I hope you can understand, although I totally get the desire for all the info upfront.
Again, respectfully, the decisions are potentially momentous, and affect all Creators. If you are moving to beta, some decisions (even tentative) have been made about how currency conversion will be done, what fees might be involved, and whether the Creator is going to assume all currency risk.
I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but this information is vital, and needs to be communicated now so that all creators have input. The questions aren’t difficult and you can’t even start a beta without at least tentative decisions about them.
What are the goals of this project? Who are they meant to benefit? Who will pay the fees?
If you have some free spots for the beta, count me in! Paying in euro/pounds is one of the features my Patrons have been asking for as many of them are from the EU or the UK.
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Hello, thanks for your interest and patience! We know you’re as eager as we are to finally launch multiple currencies on Patreon and are excited to making significant steps of progress here. We wanted to update you about the patron currency beta, since folks have questions about how currency conversion will work and what the fees will be. Please keep in mind that since this feature is in beta, it’s possible some details may change before it’s rolled out to everyone.
Once this feature is enabled for you, either because you are in the beta, or when it rolls out to everyone in the next few months, patrons will be able to pay in either USD $, EUR €, or GBP £. When someone visits your Patreon page who is not yet a patron, Patreon will automatically convert your tier prices to their local currency if they are located in the US, UK, or in the Eurozone. Fans who are not in one of those three regions will see tier prices in your creator payout currency.
In order to determine the prices to display in other currencies, we’ve used current and historical exchange rates to develop a conversion table. When we convert a tier price to a new currency, we add a 4.5% buffer to protect creators against potential currency fluctuations, and then round up to the nearest 50 cents so that we show patrons a price with round numbers. You can view these conversion tables to see exactly what converted tier prices will be, and read more details about the beta here.
Wherever a patron and creator are using the same currency, there will be no currency conversion fee. When a patron pays in a different currency than your payout currency, we’ll charge you a 2.5% currency conversion fee. This fee is to cover the cost of Patreon handling the currency conversion. Currency conversion fees are commonly charged by any company converting currency such as payment processors, banks, or other platforms that process payments as part of their business, for example Etsy, or PayPal.
Our research suggests that this feature will increase your income on Patreon, especially if you have a multi-national fanbase. This is because fans are significantly more likely to sign up when they see your prices in their preferred currency.
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What happens to the rounding difference once it’s paid?
This shifts the currency conversion fees to the creator, something we are not currently paying, for a choice by a Patron over which we have no control. It also removes 50% of the ‘protection’ against currency fluctuation.
The rounding difference goes to the creator. For example, let’s say a creator’s payout currency is Euro and a patron pays in USD. The tier price was originally set to €5, and that gets converted to $6 USD for patrons in the US. That $6 includes the 4.5% buffer and the rounding up to the nearest 50 cents.
Currency exchange rates do fluctuate over time, but right now if I look up the conversion of €5 to USD, it shows me $5.63. The 4.5% buffer comes to about 25 cents. So that gets us to $5.88, but rounding up to the nearest 50 cents is how we finally arrive at a $6 price for that €5 tier.
Now, since the creator’s payout currency is Euro, that full $6 gets converted back to Euros in order to put it in the creator balance. If I look up the exchange rate today, it is €5.33. The currency conversion fee of 2.5% comes to 13 cents, so once we subtract that, the creator gets €5.20 before platform and payment processing fees. In this case they come out ahead from a patron paying in a different currency than they would with a patron paying their original price of €5, even after the 2.5% fee is subtracted.
That is correct. This does shift currency conversion fees from the patron to the creator, but we have also added some additional buffer (4.5% plus rounding up to the nearest 50 cents) to the converted price which helps balance that out. In addition, offering pricing in a local currency has been shown to increase conversion by up to 50%, so we do expect this to help you get more patrons signing up.
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That’s reassuring though i have to ask why that wasn’t communicated when I first raised the concern.
Can I get a clarification on how the change will go?
If I have a tier priced at $5USD today, after the change will it be 5€ or something different?
I think this rollout will be more successful if you allow creators to re-price their tiers, and patrons can manually accept the increase or change/cancel their pledge.
It will be different for $, £, and €, and will fluctuate over time with exchange rates.
We’re in the second half of the year. Any schedule update on this available? Will it be reliably available before October the 5th? 
Hi @Shasu!
You can head to your creator settings to opt-in to multi currency now! Read our multi-currency update with lots of helpful into here.
Hello @reyna
I know about the possibility to opt-in for multi-currency. But the quote refers to the option to switch the payout currency, which I can’t currently change according to my settings.
You said you’re going to enable multi-currency for all creators automatically starting with October 5th, and I’m all for it. But without the option to switch the payout currency, some of us will have to pay the conversion rate twice.
That’s why I am asking when you’re going to include a switch for the payout currency as written in your own roadmap.
Cheers,
Shasu