We do need a better navigation such as a drop down option for Patreons which we can Patreon content specific links to. I’ve had to make a companion page on my own web site to help them find content. https://devonartist.co.uk/online-tuition/
My members do find it difficult scrolling down through months of timeline to find things, especially various parts of a step by step project.
Either that or double the ‘Feature Tag buttons’ to help member find specific content.
Many of my members don’t understand things such as tags and end up leaving even though I’ve explained it many times via videos and typing. So yes a much better way of people finding tier level content via drop down navigation buttons or Featured Tags buttons. Thank you for listening Paul 
- Ability to make payouts partly.
- More flexible policy regarding 18+ appropriate content (at least more allowed adult content, such as incest and teen (18+) romance).
- Ability to upload videos directly on Patreon just like it’s done for images (at least limited size ones, WEBM format is in priority).
1. Metadata of uploaded JPG files get removed
2. NSFW creators get treated as is they don’t exist
3. Messages can’t get deleted
These are my top 3 pain points. In detail:
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Months ago (and again a few weeks ago) I reported that JPG files get changed when uploaded as attachments. Funny is that the size of such files get larger than the originals, a waste of disk space. Bad is that very important data, like GPS data or copyright information and contact information get deleted. You are changing originals.
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When somebody is seeking a creator, making NSFW art, he still can’t be found in Patreon’s own search.
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I still have messages that are more than 5 years old, they can’t get deleted.
My 3 points:
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Just reforcing the issues about notifications that some users already mentioned. I also don’t like the way notifications are shown. First I believe that new patrons notifications should be apart from comments or other interactions, as we probably want to take action on those. I believe that replies on the community board should also generate notifications, just like comments on posts. Specifically on the new patrons notifications, I also think that deleted pledges should be there, today when someone get in and out, the previous notification simply disappear. Now this is a bug, the page only show the last 5 new patrons, when you click to expand, it shows the same 5 again.
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Up Front charge is a great resource, but there is a thing that I consider unfair with other patrons, related to restricted contents based on tier. When someone becomes a patron, if the payment is declined, he is considered a member of the tier and get access to all exclusive content. Specially when the payment is considered fraud. I believe that when up front is enabled, the tier admission should happen just after the first sucessfull payment.
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I believe that Exit Surveys should allow users to identify themselves optionally, giving us the chance to reply to some kind of complain. Some of my patrons left due some misunderstandings, specially related to the use of Patreon’s api to access content. Even if they point a valid reason, we should have the chance to apologize.
Thank you for your attention
These are comments by patrons former and current all expressing their frustration with the lack of search functionality and basic website performance problems. I get these complaints all the time. I have had to go offsite and pay for a new website to provide a basic gallery to show my Patreon content. That is just sad and I am so fed up with my patrons not being able to find the content they are paying for and quitting. I am losing patrons not because they don’t want my content or to support me but because the Patreon website is ridiculously hard to use!
I can echo your comment about the exit surveys. For example one of my members left (I know not who) with a message saying ‘I’m waiting for the first of the month…’ so obviously doesn’t understand that coming off during the middle of the month before which him/her has already paid for, doesn’t make any sense to rejoin the following month and may as well stay as a member.
Now because I have no idea who this person is on my exit survey I am not able to contact them as they obviously don’t understand! So a patron lost due to everything being anonymous!!
I have a few. I would like to see a free trial period for new subscribers. I would like to be able to link my Wordpress site to my Patreon so my blog posts post automatically. There are more.
This used to happen to me SO MUCH!!! It happened when after uploading attachments, and it was a huge pain. Suddenly, it stopped, and never happened again so far. I’m also using firefox 
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A way for audience members to become patrons in real time at a live show (easier/faster than the mobile signup). Ideally this would be a text-to-become-a-patron (more about this idea here) or even an app using a mobile card reader to gather email and card information by swiping (like Square).
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A way for patrons to make one-time or limited-time pledges, or to send a “tip” for specific posts. Ideally this would also allow non-patrons to view locked posts without becoming monthly subscribers.
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Seconding improved search function. I often can’t even find my own posts using the search function!
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Not having A La Carte pledge reward options is pretty annoying. If you want to offer different combinations of rewards you have to manually make a tier for every permutation, which gets extremely messy and confusing for new patrons.
The ability to create a simple checkbox list with each reward and associated dollar amount should be simple to set up. -
Patreon’s content feed makes looking up older work extremely tedious, especially for any kind of picture content. Having a tiled, thumbnail gallery view of posts as an option would make managing and displaying artwork much better.
- Our main pain point at this time is the team feature that is currently locked to the top tier plan.
Handling an entire organization’s Patreon is manageable, but very stressful. Being the executive director of a 501c3 and having to be to sole point of Patreon management on top of the rest of my job because the team function is locked behind the higher plan we can’t afford is a bit of a pain. We can’t freely hand the credentials out either to any fundraising staff because we need safe practices and to safeguard our primary revenue streams and IT audits on remote workers using personal systems is a nightmare we’d like to avoid. With multi-factor, it also means if we risk password sharing, we have to turn off that secure feature or that for example our treasurer (who holds opposite hours and lives on the other side of the country from me) has to wait for me to be online and available at the same time to log in.
Being able to add just a few people via a free version of the team feature to help pull data and make reward posts versus having my staff funnel everything through me would be a huge boon.
We don’t need a massive team to be enabled on Patreon, but it’d be nice to be able to add 2 more users to our Patreon account with out plan: one to assist on managng donor engagement, and one to handle financial data for reports.
- The only other pain point I can think of is getting users that aren’t Patreon account holders to make an account to pledge for us.
Some people that would donate just don’t want to make an account and end up doing a one time donation via PayPal Giving Fund or something similar. We would love to convert these one time donors to long term Patreon subscribers instead, but the answer has to be even simpler account creation and pledge signup. Something that can be done via a tablet at a convention table even.
Not really pain point per se but some suggestions I have asked about. I think these might be of interest to other creators as well. I read a bit of the above and there are a lot of great suggestions. That said I don’t know if these particular ones have been said before. If so, I’m adding in my vote!
- Lifetime rewards and access for patrons – rewards and tiers based of a lifetime dollar total to a creator’s Patreon
- The ability for creators to reward people with a free month subscription to their Patreon This could be a helpful way to bring in people as a bonus or reward. Maybe run a questionnaire or ad on a social medai site and then give away a one month, specific tier subscription. Alternately, you could extend the subscription (for free) of a longtime patron as a reward.
- Perhaps a specific tier that is a ‘one and done’ type tier where people buy one month with no long-term commitment. I mention this because I have several patrons asking me about things like collecting a bunch of rewards and a willingness to pay a one off fee.
Those are just a few ideas.
Overall, Patreon has been a very helpful and amazing tool to connect me with my friends and fans!
Thank you!
-Ready
Definitely the text editor for posts, which doesn’t seem to be quite as robust as this forum’s text editor.
Agree! #3 is what I just asked again, this time to several engineers about at the SF Patreon Assembly this past Saturday. #1 would be awesome, for live performances and festivals.
it’s difficult to have someone update their credit card if declined. The “update payment info” takes you back to “add a new payment method.” It’s confusing people and they aren’t signing up because of it.
dbl charging patrons if they sign up at the end of the month
Mongie here is 100 billion % right. I create content and post it on my Patreon. However, there is really no easy way for anyone to find this content without doing a little or possible a LOT of digging.
- I would love a tab/section/EVEN A STICKY post I can stick on my main page that is EASILY accessible for brand new Patreons where they can find my “finished” content. On mobile, you simply cannot use the “tags” on a creators page. I have had LOTS of people leave because they cannot “find my content”. In the end, I imagine, the BULK of Patreon’s are ran by people that create content of some type. I believe there should be a single place for people to easily consume all of this content. Thumbnails would be cool too
(Picture Example Below)
To be honest, this is the one and only pain point I have with Patreon. I am mostly happy with everything else.
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No way to search through private messages or see what messages I’ve had with patrons. I shouldn’t have to give out my private email to maintain a conversation with patrons, so I send anniversary letters and deal with troubleshooting issues with them via patreon pm. But without a way to see my history of messages with them, I am constantly nervous that I am accidentally sending them a duplicate template message from a month ago, which will destroy the sense that I truly do appreciatw then as an individual (even if I can’t write 300 unique individual messages to each person each month.
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I shut off email notifications for when a member leaves because I don’t need that slap in the face when I’m not emotionally prepared. I CANNOT shut off patreon top bar notifications when folks leave - which means I have to steel myself and that little red notification image comes with an anxiety riddled sense of dread. I want exits in a separate page that I can check once a month with a strong and comforting drink in my hand and a supportive cat on my lap. Exit messages should NOT be anonymous. Half of folks don’t respond anyway. Let them be anonymous. I get three dropoffs per day sometimes and I need to send follow-up questions to each person. I want to know which person left for what reason before I customize my responses.
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Patreon shouldn’t leave me to awkwardly chase declined cards. As a neutral third party payment processor, patreon could easily send automatic monthly emails to the patrons who have simply forgotten to update their expired cards. But after only a couple notifications (to be lost in tye inbox) they give up. Which leaves me as the awkward person who looks like a money chaser having to email patrons with messages saying “I’m not a money chaser and our relationship truly is about more than your donation but also you haven’t paid me in six months please update your credit card.” That is SUPER STRESSFUL forcing us to advocate for ourselves and it’s embarrassing for my patrons. I shouldn’t have to spend an hour each month with grunt work troubleshooting payment info.
Been experiencing some users leaking my paid for content. Whole sites built around ripping straight from the Patreon feed and automatically downloading it to the website.
I can locate them on other sites and get them removed (for the most part). Even found that some have newly pledged or unpledged from their posts on other sites. But the information and analytics about people unpledging (and when) seems sparse.
On the Relationship Manager, it’d be nice to see the DATE (and TIME) someone first pledged, if they are a current pledge, as well as the DATE (and TIME) when they unpledged. Not just when they were “last charged.”
Right now, in my “exit surveys” I know 2 dates of people who coincide with the posts/stealing of content, but can’t tie it to a name because of the lack of information in the Manager.
“Followers”.
I think that there is a key point in the subscription funnel that Patreon is undervaluing which is “Followers”. Yes some people who land on our Patron page will convert but I think that % is much less than those who would sign up if they knew that there was a ‘FREE’ way to subscribe to our public Patreon-content. I think that once they have warmed up to the system for a bit and received content from a creator, especially if they had to newly signup, they are much more likely to convert to a paid subscriber.
I currently “upsell” in my Public Posts however as there is currently no easy/attractive landing page for people to SOLELY become a “Follower” and the “Follow” button itself is vague and easily misunderstood/missed by casual viewers I think we’re letting a lot of possible patrons slip-through the cracks. I would love the ability to more aggressively retain those who are almost ready but not quite there…
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Preview button for posts: I’d like to know what the posts are going to look like for my readers before I post it.
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In Patron manager, the Patrons who leave or decline are still there in the group. For management purposes, I’d like to be able to hide those so I can better keep track of benefits and not having people who left my group months (or years) ago.
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That’s all I can think of at this moment…