proxxie
patreon
Patreon "Subscription Billing" Poll
🕑 Added 2023-01-05 22:40:03 +0000 UTCGreetings! Patreon introduced a new option for billing donations a few months ago, and have been pestering me to switch to it ever since. I was getting ready to do so, but since it will affect you far more than it does me, I figured a poll was in order.
The Way Things Work Now
As things are now, you are charged the month you decide to support the project, and on the 1st of every month thereafter. This is the way Patreon has worked since the beginning, but it has some obvious disadvantages. If someone signs up on say, the last 3 days of the month and then cancels, they'll only have access to the Patreon page for 3 or 4 days. And if they don't cancel, they may wonder why they're getting charged again 4 days after they just donated. That person might think this is unfair (it is) and be kind of upset about it.
There are some advantages to this approach, though. If, for instance, you support 5 different projects, all your pledges are charged at the same time, and you'll get a single bill at the beginning of each month showing clearly who you supported and how much you're giving them. This makes it mentally easier to keep track of your donations, rather than seeing a charge suddenly come up halfway through the month and thinking "Oh yeah... I did pledge to that guy."
There may also be advantages if you incur foreign transaction fees in your donation, since you'll only have to pay that once instead of 5 separate times.
The downsides to the current way are pretty big, but by this point I think they're pretty well-known. Most people who've been using Patreon for any length of time understand this is the way it works. That's why hardly anyone joins at the end of the month. That's just the way it was... until recently.
Patreon's "Subscription Billing"
Patreon now offers the option to charge people the same day of the month that they joined. Thus, that person earlier who signed up 3 days before the end of the month would have access until 3 days before the end of next month and would be charged again at that time (unless they cancel.) In other words, it works like a normal website subscription. This is a lot more fair. It gives 1 month of access for 1 month of pledges.
The disadvantages are the flip side of the old way's advantages: it may become easier for you to forget who you're supporting if you're billed for them at different times throughout the month. And if you're paying foreign transaction fees, you'll be paying a lot more of them under the new system.
Poll Question: Should I switch to subscription billing?
To be clear, if you're currently paying on the first of the month, you'll continue to do so unless you cancel, even if I do switch to "subscription billing." But this setting is something that affects the entire campaign; if I switch, everyone who signs up from that point on would be billed on their monthly anniversary. This change is also irreversible; if I switch, I can't switch back.
So, what do you think? Should I switch to subscription billing or keep things as they are? If you have any comments, please post them. Thank you for your support!
Comments
Proxxie
I can imagine. The yen's really taking a beating right now, too. Great if you're a foreigner buying stuff from DLSite, but sucks hard if you live there.
Panda
Honestly for me in Japan the foreign transaction fees + online sales tax would be brutal if I’m being honest
Isaac Dansicker
It's a real frustration for me. I want to support as many creators as fiscally responsible, and minimize the notices and bills I get. Thank you for asking. Annual billing has been a boon in that direction, if I could just pay everyone once a year, even if it's like 3k at once, I would save up and do it. Hot take: The subscriber model maximizes processing fees and optimizes for people who don't want to manage their money.
Proxxie
One more point: the advantages of the old way start to go away as more campaigns switch to the new system. The "one clean monthly bill" won't be very clean if two people you support are on the old system and two are on the new.
