BestiarumMiniatures
patreon
Changes coming to Patreon & Loyalty Migrations
🕑 Added 2024-10-16 14:44:21 +0000 UTCThere’s an important bit of news we need to share with you Patreon folks, about some looming changes to the platform coming in November. In aid of these changes, we’re also running another Tribes Migration this month.
There’s a bit to unpack here, but let’s start with the key points:
Bestiarum will no longer be able to process new subscriptions through the Patreon iOS app. New subscribers will need to sign up via a browser.
We've set up another round of Tribes Loyalty Migration, check the end of the post for details.
Right, let's get into it -
What’s happening?
Patreon is changing to comply with Apple’s requirements for selling through the App Store. These changes include:
A 30% App Store fee will be added to all new memberships made through the iOS app.
iOS users can no longer be charged on a first-of-the-month billing cycle.
You can read more, directly from Patreon here.
For these two reasons, Bestiarum will no longer be able to offer subscriptions through the Patreon iOS App.
What does means for Bestiarum today?
While the 30% fee is a pain, the bigger issue for us is the change to subscription billing.
Our model is based on First-of-the-Month Billing:
You pay when you join, and then on the 1st of every month.
Our collections are shared with every confirmed subscriber from the 1st of the month onwards.
For example: If you join on October 28th, you’ll be charged and receive October’s collections. Then, on November 1st, you’ll be charged again and receive November’s collections.
With Subscription Billing, if you joined on October 28th, you would not be charged again until November 28th. This doesn’t work with our delivery model, as our collections are released at the start of each month.
Because of this, we have been forced to switch off payments through the Patreon iOS app. You’ll need to join through a browser instead.
What does the future hold?
Patreon is committed to continuing subscriptions through the iOS app and has announced that by November 2025, all creators will need to migrate to Subscription Billing.
This is tough news for us, given the issues we’ve outlined. While Patreon has promised new tools to support models like ours, no specific solutions are available yet.
We hope to stay on Patreon, we understand many of you are perfectly comfortable here, but changes to our delivery model may become necessary. We will of course let you know more as the situation develops.
Fortunately, we have options and time. Tribes remains a stable platform tailored for STL creators like us. And soon, we’ll be launching our own subscription service through the new and improved Bestiarum website!
What Does This Mean for You?
For New Subscribers: You won’t be able to join Bestiarum through the iOS app. However, everything else will remain the same—you’ll pay when you join and again on the 1st of each following month.
For Returning Subscribers: If you frequently leave and re-join, future subscriptions will need to be processed through a browser, not the iOS app.
Tribes Migration & Grabbing your Loyalty Rewards
With these upcoming changes to Patreon, now is the perfect time to switch over to Tribes. To make the transition easier, we’re launching another migration wave, allowing you to carry over your loyalty data and move to Tribes *almost* seamlessly.
Please note - This is now the only way to receive your Loyalty Rewards. You’ll need to claim the free trial on Tribes to receiving them, then cancel your free subscription before the month closes.
How does it work?
All active Patreon subscribers will receive an email invitation to join us on Tribes with a free trial for October.
Simply follow the instructions in the email, and your Tribes subscription will then start, with your next billing date set for November 1st.
IMPORTANT:
Before the end of October, make sure to unsubscribe from the platform you’re leaving to avoid being double-charged.
Can I stay on Patreon?
Of course, we know many of you prefer this platform, and we will continue to support it for as long as it is possible.
Although, if you have no strong feelings about either platform, we would ask you to join us on Tribes. We have found it carries a much lower administrative burden, and your customer experience will be more streamlined.
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Thanks for reading this far, this is a pretty clunky and annoying subject to relay - for the vast majority of you, you won’t notice a difference. If you’ve got any questions just drop us a line and we’ll do our best to answer.
Thanks,
Bestiarum Crew
Comments
BARBIER ARNAUD
Nope :/
Niklas von Schöneman
Same issue for me - did you find a fix?
CIARAN BYRNE
I will stay on Patreon I would rather wait for your own website. One problem with MMY is everything is only in Dollars I am in Europe we get charged extra using our cards when spending USD as well as MMY overall is much more as they have added taxes to everything so the 12.50 Euro either is around 17.22 Dollars and works out to be over 15 euro plus extra bank charges for spending in USD.
BARBIER ARNAUD
Hi. I tried to switch to MMF, but when i select le link to go directly to the free trial link (MMF message), i do not see anything related to it in the suscriptions options (i just see the 1, 10 & 14$ options). What do i miss ? thx
Ed May
So I'd like to shift over to Tribes, but I don't find a $10/month option. Why not? Am I missing it? - Nevermind I see now it's the one that is selected for the free trial to take over for the next billing cycle. Thanks!
Convincing_Reality
Switched over. Like others I'll miss the patreon interface, but if MMF can get themselves a comparable app for Tribes (the current MMF app is basically a dedicated web browser for their site, and precious little else) then that'd be perfect.
Alexei Popovici
Once you're all set on Tribes, you can cancel your subscription on Patreon no problem - We're not expecting to release anything extra for October, but if we did, you'd receive it via Tribes - the October Trial treats you as a paid Tribe Subscriber, but you payment was already taken on the Patreon end - hope that makes sense!
DocKnocks
So I claimed the tribes membership, and to get any remaining benefits this month you recommend staying on patreon sub as well till 30th of October, then cancelling the sub here? Am I going about this transfer correctly?
Alexei Popovici
Cheers for the heads up - yeah we are well aware the Tribes notification system isn't doing the job right now. We know MMF are working on this, but as we mentioned below, our aspiration is to move communications through our own channels to avoid this issue all together.
Gregor
I thing the App of Patreon is much better working then MyMiniFactory. When I tried tribes, I did not get news of my subscribed Artists. Do you know those problems?
TotallyJackedUp
I should have made the switch to Tribes the last time you offered this. Super easy and no more iOS store BS.
Alexei Popovici
This is well on our radar - we're working on our own Newsletter to replace these inconsistent platform comms, we should be rolling this out before end of the year, alongside a cool blog with more community and hobby interest material :)
Alexei Popovici
Thanks for the understanding gang! We've pressed the 'Go' Button on the MyMiniFactory Migration Invites, these can sometimes snag, but should be arriving in the next 24 hours.
Gengar
Same as this 👆, happy to switch, but MMF notifications are rubbish, would be happy if you did your own email newsletter?
Rick Spears
Sounds good to me, whatever works best you for is fine for me. I’ll sign up for Tribes when I get the email. Thanks for the heads up!
Jérémy Guay
Honestly I downloaded Patreon for your minis but stayed on it previously because the first of the month billing was very convenient (also MMF notifications sucks). But I think if they are willing to throw out all these just for an iOS app that could literally just be opened on a safari browser, the future of Patreon is not for me. Awaiting patiently the email to make the switch !
