Sneaky Patreon Subscriber? what's this all about

[Tanako]

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this and could there be a possible solution for it. I don’t normally rant, heck, I bearly post but I just have to air this and possibly get you guy’s thoughts on this.

So, I have had my patron for I believe two years now and when I first started I was a bit worried because I questioned the quality of my work. Not that I didn’t have faith in my self, of course, i do and that’s why I dived into it. After a year I noticed my patron page pick up which was a good thing because, to be honest with you, I believe I was giving out way too much content than i could handle to a point it started to way on me and when you have people who already subscribed to a tier you can't just turn around and start taking out stuff because it won't be fair so of course naturally I put on my boi boy pants and kept on pushing to create content to make my readers happy because i wanted to. But what started happening after a while was that I would have people subscribe for like 5 to 10 days, read all my content and then depledge. I thought to myself maybe it's just that one person and then it happened again and again.
And let me remind you if you have a tier that is $3 a month that gives so much content it's kinda heartbreaking because you don’t even get all that $3 as an artist. Patreon takes their cut and so does pay pal or if you use a bank then they charge fees. So realistically, you are leaving with like $2.11 and that sucks. Of course, you don’t feel the pain if you have about 500 subscribers and maybe bringing in $1,200. You mostly feel it if you only have like 10 to 20 patreons.
This has happened several times to the point I personally had to close the Tier because like I sad, it was way too much work and I felt cheated. It wouldn’t be so bad If that person pledged for at least 3 to 6 months before leaving.
It is obvious that there are people out there who just go around cheating other people and this is not fair at all. As an artist, I put in so much work. I don’t make a living off of this, I have a FULL-time job and work 40 hours a week to earn and pay my bills. I get pleasure from my work and I do it because I have endless love and passion for what I do that even if I wanted to quit I can't because I end up coming back to it. So it really breaks my heart when I get cheated this way.

I was thinking about this and I think I have a solution to it. I was wondering if maybe Patreon could implement some sort of short contact. But I feel like when people hear the word "contract" they freak out and don’t want to sign up. Most people are accustomed to “ free cancellation anytime”. But with this option artist and writers get ripped off. So back to the contract, maybe it could be a quarterly contact which means, when you pledge, you will be locked in for 3 months and after that, you can feel free to leave or stay.
What do you guys think? Could this be work, do you think it would be an effective method or do you think this will drive potential Patreons away? Let me know your thoughts.

I apologize for the long post. I hope you guys understand where I'm going with this.

[QueenofBabyLoon]

I don't know what Patreon is, I don't understand anything that has to do with money, art, etc.

But I do know when I see someone is tired, sad and hurt. And I am sorry you are going through all of this. It is very unfair that you put a lot of hard work into your art and that the sheer time invested into it is time you are not working to make money at your job (that is what people don't understand here - doing art, and getting paid for it, is a horrible economic gamble).

Unfortunately, as soon as people start feeling pleasure in doing something, they get entitled and feel like them just reading something is enough of an acknowledgment. They don't realize that behind all that beauty, there are sleepless nights, tears, hurting hands and days when you don't have the money to get yourself a bag of ramen (that would be your only meal of the day anyways).

I don't know what to tell you besides that I am sorry to read all of this and that it is amazing that after all of this you haven't given up on art. It is a tribute to your love of it, I wouldn't have had the strength to keep on as you do.

[Daknight]

It will sadly drive people away or at least make them think way more about giving you a patreon. I would understand a lock for the month (with only been able to cancel in a 3 day window IF you haven't seen or check any of the patreon offer at the 3 dollar (or whatever was chosen). I know of many pledging and canceling before they get charge which is a way of stealing peoples work O_O.

As for your concern about doing to much work for the 3 dollar pledge, is probably best to see what is the norm and what you consider good value to offer without giving to much away. Maybe access to color version of a drawing, with 1 being only the black and white, those kind of things. The value on the tiers is up to the artist after all.

[Merle]

I´m guessing you already have "pay up front" enabled, that´s always the first step.
I´ve personally not come accross this problem (luckily), but I´ve seen a method with which other Creators handle it.
Instead of giving a new Patreon Access to an entire libary, they only share a month´s worth of content.
I haven´t looked into it too much bc I didn´t need it so far, but I think they share a link to another page where a "package" of the content is accessible for Patreons; and then propably remove the link for the next Month?
If I remember correctly, that is what the very big Patreon Creator "Sakimichan" does, and I´ve seen it with some smaller channels, too.
Hope that can give some ideas... it´s kinda heartbreaking to have all your content bought for cheap like that instead of gainig actual support good luck!

[unknown_user]

I´m guessing you already have "pay up front" enabled, that´s always the first step.

Yes, this is a key thing. It this case you'll at least gain that 3$ instantly, before a person will leave

[Rhonder]

Granted I haven't really used Patreon yet (have one, but haven't decked it out yet xD) but my impression is that a contract like that would do more harm than good for most people. Those people are just using their pledge efficiently in a way that makes sense to them. They pledge and get access to X amount of patron exclusive content, enjoy said content, and then unsub since they're satisfied. The downside is that they don't get to see the next month's stuff (so long as the new content month-to-month is appealing enough to those would-be patrons).

I'm not sure what all you offer, but if you're feeling cheated by people only subbing for one month relative to the amount of content they get and/or how long it takes to make said content, you may need to consider rebalancing what goes in which tier to make it feel more worth. In tiers as low as $3 I usually see things offered that either take no time or a very small amount of time to make on the part of the author (things like early access to reading buffer, or WIP content, or like sketches/doodles). Things that require more effort should require more money to view (imo) xD

[zammap]

People update their pledges all the time. Just make a general announcement to everyone that you're updating the rewards and tiers due to personal ability/time and growth of page. Easy. They aren't really cheating you if you're the one giving the stuff away.

[Tanako]

True that. initially when I first started my thought process was that, if I gave away x amount of stuff I'd get more people interested in subscribing but in reality, the opposite happened. don't get me wrong I am very grateful to the people who stood with me for almost 2 years. my issue is that a person gains access to stuff for that month and then access to all the other content for previous months. this won't be an issue if the subscriber stayed a little bit but instead, they pledge for a month then gas out on you and wait for additional 5 months later and then come back pledge for one more month and then leave again. so basically, if you have a comic you have been working on for let's say 8 months and you post 9 pages every month. this means if they subscribed on January and depledged that same month and come back in May. they would have access to 4 months of content with such little price which makes it unfair to the other subscribers who have actually been with you for month to month.
when it comes to my comics, i don't post inside patreon because it's not very organized and that's why i have a separate locked website for my content and i post passwords to go view it every month. maybe that's why.

at the end of it all, I'm conflicted but hopefully, I'll figure something out.

[beta1042]

I thought Patreon gave a way to block users. I mean you could also put up a note that says if you do this you'll be blocked from doing it again, but also... if they keep coming back they are still paying you something, so it's up to you. I mean you'd be publishing the content anyway, right? I don't really see how a person who comes back 3 sep months a yr is much different than someone who pays for a 3month chunk and then leaves. If you really feel that your content is worth the cost of 3 months in that tier, maybe you need to price it differently?

On a somewhat sep note, I think my biggest issue with patreon is the lack of flexibility and options for pricing. I want to be able to have monthly plans for some stuff while ALSO having one time donations for other rewards. It's so stupid that I can only do one or the other. sometimes I'd like ot do a one time event/reward that requires no monthly maintenance, but I'm stuck doing monthly because I want to do pay upfront. A lot of the reward ideas I have I just don't think I could maintain monthly unless I had a lot more patrons to justify the cost in time it took me.

[sprite_1ww]

Does Patreon show you the names of the people that do this? If so, then just block them

[vothnthorvaldson]

I'm afraid that's how Patreon works, and it's both bad and good.
The problem is that there is a huge amount of offer (great art) for each individual to choose from, and only limited budget to support artists. Yep, it's disappointing/frustrating to get someone using a tier as a one-time-fee thing and then go. But maybe they would not have come at all if it was a contract for longer.

I'm placed at the opposite side. I only support one project on Patreon. I give them $10 which is the max I can in my financial situation. But that's since 3 years, so it starts to add up ($360). I could also have given $3 to 120 projects, or, more reasonably, $36 to 10 projects. I do feel better strongly supporting one, but I'm aware I'm neglecting others that would worth the support.

So, I think you should see things as follows:
Your $3 tier is not really a $3/month tier. It's a $3+ tier. You'll get at least $3 (or less because of fees), most likely more.
Then, under this assumption, it's a bit like buying albums on bandcamp. You can choose the minimum payment (which is sometimes a disgrace and a (self-inflicted) insult), either not caring or hoping the artist will at least appreciate the moral support, thing you generally can't know for sure; or go for a higher payment that corresponds more to the time and money investment that went into the album.

So, to come back to your issue, you have to give content in this $3 tier that is a good compromise between not disappointing the monthly supporters, and not being too disappointed yourself if some people get all of it for only $3.
Doing higher $ tiers may be an option, but it may also dissuade people even more to continue after first payment (but.. first payment is higher so less disappointing.. in theory! Because $3 or $5 do not change much things in emotional terms).

[oOafterburnerOo]

I know someone who sends their monthly content in an email so if you unsubscribe for a few months you just miss out. I thought that was a really smart way to motivate people to continue to support you...
If you are sharing a comic on Patreon of course that wouldn't work, but if you decided to only share stand alone content related to the comic or one-off side stories that would really give people the feeling that they are getting "exclusive stuff" that they can't just go back for later.

[Merle]

The one Thing you could read into is probably having a "special offer". I think it´s a one time event/Creation to get new Patreons...
I get that though. I´d really like it to have a option to one time support your favorite Creators without much hassle on Patreon instead of having to have multiple platforms. Mainly cause I would like to do that from time to time for my favorite Creators..

[xabelmind]

Wasn't there an option when you click to support where you choose to do a monthly pledge or a one time donation? Or am I confounded?

Also, I loved your comment, @Merle, it truly makes sense, you need to think it as how it would work if you pledged for a physical magazine, for example. They would not send you all the magazines they published until the date right in the moment, just one per month you're subscribed

when it comes to my comics, i don't post inside patreon because it's not very organized and that's why i have a separate locked website for my content and i post passwords to go view it every month. maybe that's why.

You already have the answer, prizes of one tier separated, one per month and temporal passwords, one for each patreon depending on the number of months they already have been there, that break at the end of the month