This Patreon fee calculator will help you to define how much you can expect to spend on Patreon, so you can predict your potential profits and earnings.
If you’re thinking of monetizing your community, or you’re searching for new ways to earn an income online, you might find yourself in need of a Patreon fee calculator. While Patreon doesn’t charge any subscription fees to creators, there are other costs to consider before you get started.
Notably, the profits you can earn through Patreon will vary depending on a number of factors, including the size of your fanbase, their engagement level, and the value of whatever you offer.
The Patreon fee calculator below will help you to determine exactly how much you’re going to spend to monetize your audience with subscriptions, services, and products through Patreon.
Calculate Fees
What is Patreon?
Patreon is one of the better-known membership and community platforms in the digital landscape today. First founded by Sam Yam and Jack Conte in 2013, Patreon offers members of the creator economy an opportunity to make money doing what they love.
On Patreon, content creators can earn cash by selling art, subscriptions, videos, content, and illustrations to a huge audience. In fact, Patreon hosts around 6 million patrons, and has raised around $412.1 million in funding for its creators.
Creators can use Patreon to transform everyday fans of their music, videos, and other content, into patrons willing to support their work. Creators can set up multiple “membership tiers” for their customers, each with varying levels of rewards, so each patron can choose exactly how much money they want to pay for exclusive content.
While a lot of Patreon’s functionality is similar to that of other crowdsourcing platforms, like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Patreon focuses on using crowdfunding to support existing creators, rather than to finance new projects or ideas.
How does Patreon Work?
Patreon essentially offers creators a way to get paid for the things they create, such as webcomics, podcasts, songs, and videos.
There are various ways for creators to set up a billing cycle for their customers. For instance, creators can use:
- Per creation billing: With per-creation billing, creators charge customers for a specific item, whenever something new is produced. For instance, a patron could sign up for a web comic, and set a monthly maximum on the number of comics they want to see. Every time a creator produces a new web comic (up to that set limit), the patron will be charged.
- Subscription billing: Using subscription-based billing, creators can charge people to become a “member” or user of their service. Patrons pay when they join the creator’s platform, and renew their subscription on a monthly basis.
- Monthly upfront charge: Charging a monthly fee upfront is another way creators can charge patrons to join their page, granting them access to a backlog of content hosted on Patron. After the first payment, patrons can choose whether to pay again on the first of each month to continue gaining access to the service.
- Monthly non-upfront charge: In this method, there’s no payment needed for the patron to join the creator’s page. However, they do pay at the end of the month for any services or content they might have accessed the previous month.
- Annual membership: With an annual membership, Patreon creators can give patrons access to their full back catalogue, as well as a year of subscription services. Patrons are usually charged on signup, and pay again each year to continue their membership.
Does Patreon Cost Money?
As mentioned above, Patreon doesn’t charge a fee for creators to join the platform. You can sign up for free, and start creating pages and subscription offers for customers straight away. However, Patreon does take a percentage of your earnings based on the plan you choose.
Again, all of the plans are free, but the more services and support you want to access from Patreon, the more you’ll need to give back in commissions. You can expect to pay anywhere between 5 and 12% of all of your earnings back to Patreon, depending on your plan type.
Alongside these percentages, there are other costs to consider too. For instance, Patreon charges payment processing fees, currency conversion fees, and payout fees.
What percentage does Patreon take?
Patreon takes a percentage of the earnings from creators every month as part of their strategy to make a profit. This percentage is known as the “platform fee”, charged to allow users access to all of the functionality Patreon has to offer. The “platform fee” you’ll be expected to pay will come out of the earnings you make from Patreon, and differs based on the plan you choose.
Currently, there are four platform plans available from Patreon, and you can check which one you’re on within the “Settings” section of your account. You’ll also be able to upgrade or downgrade your plan at any given time to access different perks. The plans include:
- Lite: 5% platform fees: The Lite plan gives you access to simple tools to start building your community and monetizing your followers. You’ll get a hosted creator Patreon page, access to Patreon communication tools, and Patreon workshops.
- Founders: 5% platform fees: Exclusively for creators who joined Patreon before 2019, the Founders plan includes all of the features of the Lite package, plus membership tiers, analytics and insights, special offer promo tools, creator-led workshops, priority customer support, and unlimited app integrations.
- Pro: 8% platform fees: The Pro plan essentially covers all of the features of the Founders plan, for people who joined the platform after 2019. It includes all the Founder’s features, as well as video uploading options.
- Premium: 12% platform fees: This plan includes access to all of the features of the Pro plan, as well as merch for members, team accounts, and a dedicated partner manager, for coaching, support, and guidance on building your creative business.
What are the Fees for Patreon?
The fees creators will pay to use the Patreon membership platform break down into a few key areas. To begin with, you’ll need to account for the platform fees, which range from 5% to 12% of your earnings, based on the plan you choose. After that, there are also some extra costs to consider, including:
Payment fees:
Payment processing fees are charged by Patreon to cover the costs of using the platform’s payment infrastructure. They ensure members can access features like tools for recovering declined payments, fighting fraud, and recurring billing.
The amount you pay for payment processing will depend on your plan choice. And VAT/sales tax is also added to some patron payments. Costs can also vary depending on whether you’re accepting “micropayments” (of less than $3), or standard payments (over $3).
Rates include:
- Credit card, or Apple Pay: 5% + 0.10 USD for micropayments, or 2.9% + $0.30 for standard
- PayPal or Venmo (US): 5% + 0.10 USD for micropayments, or 2.9% + $0.30 for standard
- PayPal or Venmo (Non-US): 6% + 0.10 USD for micropayments, or 3.9% + $0.30 for standard
These are the fees charged for customers accepting USD payments. If you’re accepting payments in another currency, the exact price you pay may vary. For instance, to accept GBP payments, you’ll be charged 5% + £0.15 for micropayments, or 3.4% plus £0.35 for standard payments. You can check the full list of payment processing fees for different currencies here.
For creators on the founders plan, the processing fees are a little different. As a founder plan member, you’ll benefit from reduced payment fees of only 1.06% + 0.30 USD for standard payments via Apple Pay or Credit card. PayPal or Venmo payments are charged at 2.65% plus 0.28 USD, for standard payments. This is available through the “shared patronage” plan from Patreon.
Currency Conversion Fees
Alongside payment processing fees, you may also need to pay for currencies to be converted into the currency you want to receive your pay-out in. This fee will be reversed if you decide to refund any payments to your patrons. Creators can check their conversion fees and processing fees within the Earnings dashboard on Patreon, underneath the Payment fees column.
Patreon also allows users to export the data about their payment processing and transaction fees for use with tax reports and other financial records. All currency conversions are charged at a rate of 2.5% of the overall transaction cost.
Payout Fees
Finally, creators on Patreon will also have “payout fees” they need to pay whenever they want to transfer money from their Patreon account into their bank account. Currently, only US creators can access the direct deposit option, which will cost $0.25 per payout. Notably, creators based in certain parts of the US may also not be supported by the Patreon ACH direct deposit partner.
If you want to transfer your Patreon money to PayPal, you’ll be charged a flat fee of 1% of the amount transfer, with a minimum fee of $0.25. This fee is also capped at a maximum of $20 USD, so it might be best to transfer money in bulk if you can. You’ll only be able to take payments from Patreon to PayPal if you have $10 or more to transfer.
For non-US creators, there’s also an option to transfer money into a Payoneer account. This is not possible for US creators at this time. Each Payoneer transfer is charged at a rate of $1 per payout to the Payoneer account. Creators can also choose to withdraw funds from Payoneer into their local bank account, or a prepaid debit MasterCard at a rate of $3 per transfer. There’s a minimum payout limit of $25 applied to this service.
If you’re accessing money in any currency other than USD, the amount you’re charged for a payout can once again vary. For instance, creators accessing money in GBP through a PayPal account will be charged $1 per payout.
These fees do not include any of the additional fees which might be charged by your payment processor, associated with accessing your funds, or converting USD to a native currency.
How to Use the Patreon Fee Calculator
If you’ve used one of our fee calculators before, such as the Square fee calculator, or CashApp fee calculator, you should have no problem using the service above. If you’re new to our calculators, using them is very straightforward. Simply enter the earnings you’re getting on Patreon, and the account type you currently have, and click on “Calculate fees”.
Using the information above, the calculator will process any fees you can expect to pay, such as platform fees, processing fees, and so on, to help you determine how much money you’ll actually end up with at the end of each month.
Although we do our best to ensure our calculator is as accurate as possible, we’d recommend making sure you’re using the right numbers and running the calculations a few times to be sure.
Patreon Fee Calculator: FAQ
How much money can you make on Patreon?
Patreon is an excellent crowdfunding platform, designed to allow individuals around the world to leverage the benefits of monetization. The exact amount you can make on Patreon will depend on a number of factors, including which “business model” you choose. Selling monthly subscription packages and annual subscriptions tends to deliver the best consistent income. However, new creators can also make money through livestreams and one-off content, to increase their monthly income.
Do people actually use Patreon?
Patreon.com is one of the most popular crowdfunding and community sites on the web. It allows content creators to take ownership over their community more than the average social media channel, offering access to various unique ways of making money. While not every patron will sign up for monthly packages with recurring payments, many will be happy to invest a small amount of their income to help their favorite creators thrive.
Who earns the most money on Patreon?
Patreon is intended for content creators and artists, rather than startups looking for money to help them launch their new brand. The most profitable creators are the ones that dedicate significant time and effort to building a relationship with their target audience. Many of the top Patreon creators also have a strong presence across social media sites like Facebook and TikTok.
How can you make money on Patreon?
Creators can use Patreon to sell subscriptions and access to exclusive content and products. On some plans, it’s also possible to sell branded merch, like stickers. Payments are accepted from users via Stripe, and distributed to creators after Patreon takes its fee. No matter which strategy you use for Patreon monetization, you’ll find you get better results when you focus on building a relationship with your audience. The most successful creators know how to engage their fans.
Do you pay fees on Patreon to refund a patron?
If you need to refund a patron for any reason, the Patreon platform won’t charge you any fees. When you start a refund, you’ll only give back the money you received, and Patreon will return any additional amount they withdrew before you received your monthly earnings. This includes Patreon’s share of any sales VAT or tax.
What can you sell on Patreon?
There’s no real one-size-fits-all template for how to build your Patreon account. You’ll be able to sell exclusive access to most kinds of content, although there are some restrictions. It’s worth checking the terms and conditions on the website before setting up your Patreon page.