Here’s an idea I’ve read elsewhere in the community: a waiting list for anyone who tries to join an up-front creator’s supporters really close to the 1st. Say, if they sign up on the 21st (a date I’m pulling out of nowhere to illustrate the point), they don’t actually join or get the tier benefits until the 1st, when their first charge happens and they are allowed to get what is promised for the tier.
2 Likes
I have made my response here with a BETTER SOLUTION here
But in short. DO NOT CHANGE IT.
9 Likes
Generally speaking, I think an anniversary date billing method is not a bad idea, actually. I have often wondered if my patrons would be upset if when after signing up at the end of a month they are hit with the bill again at the start of the month. I think a good approach would be to provide the person signing up with the choice… or let the creator decide how they want it to work on their page.
I’m not sure what the best approach is, but it seems keeping it as-is would be best, with some clear language to the person signing up about when they will be charged again. Just my 2 cents, FWIW.
You really should be careful about making billing changes without consulting your user base. Glad you are trying to do that here.
2 Likes
Hi! After reading the announcement about anniversary billing, I wanted to ask how this would work with creators who offer monthly physical rewards?
As some have shared, I currently am able to create & make physical rewards with the amount of money I receive toward the first of the month. If this is switched to whenever the patron joined, meaning the money I receive would come spaced out from any day of the month, I would love tips & ideas on how to navigate this switch. I currently announce & ship out all of my rewards at the same time & I’m unsure how I would operate with a huge payment shift like this. Any ideas or ways to address this would be helpful.
Also, would this be a switch that can be opted-in or out? It may work for certain creators, but it would greatly disrupt those of us who offer physical rewards. I am thankful for Patreon, as it has helped my brand grow & offered me more financial security. This switch seems like it would set me back a bit.
3 Likes
I don’t have patrons yet, but as someone from outside the US, anniversary billing would be a financial nightmare. Do. Not. Do. It.
3 Likes
On the creator side, I do monthly rewards for my patrons. I only have a small number of patrons, and I can easily move to another platform. We’ve discussed in my discord the best way to go for billing - we all like 1st of the month.
On the patron side, I don’t know about anyone else’s bank but when mine detects multiple charges from one merchant they will call me to ask if they’re legitimate. If they can’t get hold of me they freeze my bank and it takes days/weeks to unfreeze it. Some people are subscribed to dozens or hundreds of creators - would you like their bank accounts to be put on hold because of this? Then you get no money at all!
2 Likes
As both a patron (to multiple creators) and a creator (since 5 years), I like the current billing system.
Anniversary billing would disrupt my workflow to the point where it no longer makes sense for me to use Patreon as my platform. It would also make reward tracking and distribution more difficult, and I’m worried about confusing patrons and payment processing fees.
I’d also be much less inclined to support creators after the first week, because all my recurring bills (mortgage, utilities, insurance, subscriptions, monthly donations - including patreon pledges) are charged in the first week of the month.
Based on the assumption that patrons want as much of their pledge as possible to go to the creator (minimize fees) then I’d think aggregated billing on the 1st is not hard to sell? Perhaps you can call it a prepaid membership and allow them to pledge for x days till the next billing cycle (or even include the upcoming month with their first charge).
CUF creators who did not opt-in, would still charge the full price regardless, though it would be helpful if the check out page has a customizable area where we can display the type of rewards patrons get immediately after completing their payment or what they are paying for (monthly download, hangout, mail).
If there are other reasons to steer away from billing on the first, this may not work… but I feel like having these two options (being optional to creators) would address the needs of some creators, address the double charge “issue” (never been an issue for me) and who knows it might even have a positive impact on the droprates for late-month sign ups.
I know partial pledges have been dismissed because it’s not working for everyone - but if this is added as a third option to give creators more control over how they run their campaigns, I feel it’s fairly easy to explain, and not detrimental to existinf CUF creators at all.
1 Like
Billing on the normal start of the months just give us way more freedom to be creative on how we deliver content and rewards because we know when this all happens. And when people are paying and why and what. If it’s random lots of structures just go to hell.
2 Likes
I have no new arguments to add, however, I very much want to make it clear whose opinions I agree with:
I personally do not, but so, so many of my peers send out monthly, often physical, rewards, and changing your billing system to patron-individual “anniversaries” would completely destroy their business models.
In either case, the system would result in utter chaos for all supporters who wish to support more than one creator, and thus discourage them from pledging.
If I were to choose to support more than one creator, I would still want to be able to calculate my budget quickly and efficiently; I want one neat bill per month, not 2-20 different bills at different times of the month.
All that does is cumulating more money loss for creators because each transactions takes fees. We already pay enough of those. Please reconsider. Thank you.
If there’s been errors in accidentally charging patrons twice, then it’s on the platform to fix that problem, not to change the entire system so it is worse for everyone.
An easy fix would be to implement a very clear statement before a patron signs up as to WHEN they would be charged; the exact date. So they know what they sign up for. Maybe add an extra warning at the end of the month that they would be charged for the current month and again at the beginning of the next, and let them opt out if they do not wish that. Ideally with the option to get an automated reminder to sign up at the beginning of the next month instead.
Or: simply make it so that patrons only ever get signed up+charged at the beginning of the next month, no matter what day of the current month they sign up; they’re basically on a waiting list for the rest of the month without being charged, or listed as active yet, but will automatically become so at the 1st of the next month.
5 Likes
The change itself would likely make little difference to me. I’m very lucky in that I have a very high retention rate, I don’t offer much in the way of physical rewards, and I don’t get much of a dropoff at the start of the month (certainly not the 15-20% someone upthread mentioned for themself, more like half a percent at most).
I still don’t want the change, because what I think is important, both for creators and backers, is stability, the knowledge that the platform will do the same thing next month that it did last month. You can’t make plans when you don’t know what new disruptive idea Patreon is going to come up with next week that might torpedo your entire business model.
Just… don’t change billing or payments, at all, ever. Leave it alone. Even changes that are overall beneficial are disruptive and make it that much harder for everyone to plan.
9 Likes
This is an awful idea. You are opening the door to so much more piracy of content. This will make monthly reward drops untennable for alot of people because at any point of the month a significant portion of patrons will NOT have paid for it yet.
Please do not change billing.
Don’t look at it.
Don’t fuck with it.
2 Likes
Please do not do this.
This change would make business impossible here for us, forcing us to move elsewhere.
We use a monthly subscription model to deliver 3d printable digital files. The files are added at the beginning on the month and removed at the end of the month. This change would require us to provide files individually to over 2000 members at different times of the month. Or, any individual could simply alternate the months they join and receive twice the content for half the price. If this change is made, we will be leaving patreon in favor of another platform as it would simply make our business impossible to run.
2 Likes
I could go either way. Last year I became a creator on OnlyFans in addition to Patreon and they having the anniversary payment schedule. I do think in terms of new Patreons this would be quite attractive. I’ve has messages on the 27th before asking me to clarify this exact issue and the potential patreon decided to delay joining. If you think about it in a positive way, if we switch to anniversary mode this person would have joined and I could have received more income straight away instead of a delayed gratification. People are inclined to impulse buy so it could be good to switch. But I see other creators argument around delivering content and how it would make creative’s lives more difficult.
2 Likes
This is so important to me that I’m going to echo the other:
Please don’t do anniversary billing. Monthly billing works and many of us have created reward systems around it.
Here’s my example: I send out monthly thank you cards with prints of photos from that month. This means once the month ends, I order the correct number of prints based on how many Patrons I had. But if it changed to anniversary billing I would have a really difficult time keeping track of who was what month, especially as I regularly have Patrons who raise and lower pledges from month to month based on how much they care to spend.
Another example: my biggest draw is my Monthly Selfies Folder. The name is a pretty good indicator that it’s based around the month.
My entire Patreon business focuses on that monthly billing system. If it goes to anniversary I feel I’d probably just leave my archives here and start shifting to another site that offers some of the things I need to make anniversary billing work (ability to tip and PPV messages for example). I really don’t want that because I love Patreon especially because up until recently (the last year or so) I’d always felt creators were heard and our thoughts actually held weight. Now I feel like we can all say no and it’ll still happen. 
I really hope maybe this issue can be one where our voices are heard and acted upon.
2 Likes
This anniversary billing will ruin me. I need the fixed pay day on the first. I can’t tell my insurance “yeah hey sorry, i still haven’t got all the money from my patrons, your bill must wait” and not to forget the rent! And i send out the rewards to all patrons after the first. Waiting for each patron to pay day by day would be a pain!
2 Likes
I received similar feedback in a patron survey as well.
1 Like
Do Not Change Billing.
1 Like
One bone of contention (there are many but this one is the biggest) In the UK there is not VAT on electronic books and yet you are still charging patrons VAT on them. Why, you’re actually breaking the law. Also, in transparency terms, it would also be helpful to see evidence that you’re actually paying sales tax moneys over to the relevant authorities.
4 Likes
Please do not switch to anniversary billing. It would make reward fulfillment much more complicated for us. How do I know? We also use Memberful for direct subscriptions to our magazine and anniversary billing is the source of 90% of our problems there. It’s a major headache.
We release new issues on the first of the month (and the current one on sign-up). If you switch to anniversary billing, we’ll have no way of knowing if someone will actually be paying for that issue unless we switch to rewards starting with the next month instead of the current month. It annoys our supporters/subscribers and I don’t even want to think about the headache of transitioning between the two.
If you have a problem with the way things are, why don’t you just give the patron the option of starting their pledge now or on the first? Don’t notify us of their support until the first payment is in. (Of course, this would require you to fix the problem with the relationship manager where it doesn’t immediately update with new pledges on the first of the month.)
3 Likes
I’d like the option of anniversary billing to solve the double charge issue, for sure.
2 Likes