Make Money With Patreon

If you're interested in making money with Patreon.com, the first thing you should do is to explore their site. You may be a regular user, and you might know the site well as a user. But visit the site again, and explore the site in more detail, go to sections you might not have visited before. Investigate. Learn how it works.

The site greets us with the following statement:

Start a membership business to develop a direct relationship with your biggest fans and generate predictable, recurring revenue from your creative work. (Patreon.com homepage)

This is exactly what you should aim for when launching your business at Patreon.

Great. If you're ready to begin you will click the "Get started" button.

Now you'll discover the alternative plans at Patreon.

• Lite is the cheapest plan. This is all you really need for earning recurring support from your fans. You will pay 5% of your monthly Patreon earnings (in addition to the payment processing). For this you will get the Hosted creator page, Patron communication tools and Patreon workshops.
• Pro is their recommended plan. This plan costs 8% of the monthly income (plus payment processing). You'll get all the benefits of the Lite plan, and in addition you will get membership tiers, analytics tool and insights tool, creator-led workshops, integration to apps, priority support and more. You can switch between the Lite and Pro plan anytime.
• Premium costs 12% of earnings (discounts available, $300 minimum). Get all of the Pro plan benefits, in addition you will get a dedicated partner manager, merch for membership, and team accounts. Users on this plan commit for three months.

You will get paid by PayPal or credit cards. Those were the two official options at the time of writing. The current situation can be different, check the site itself to be sure. Also, some companies are willing to offer alternative payment methods such as bank wire, checks, and crypto payments. This may or may not apply to Patreon. Simply asking will not hurt, but a simple request might not be enough. Clever negotiation may be needed if you are requesting alternative payment options that are not officially offered.

Sign up with email or Facebook. If you want to learn more about the actual details of their plans, it's best if you go directly to the source. This way you will find the most up-to-date information on their plans, their payment processing fees and more on what their plans include and not.

Who is Patreon for?

The drop-down menu at the Patreon website reveals the answer:

• Podcasters
• Video Creators
• Musicians
• Visual Artists
• Communities
• Writers & Journalists
• Creators-of-all-kinds

So basically, if you are a creator, any kind of creator, Patreon is for you.

Ways to Make Money With Patreon

Excluding working for Patreon, and investing in Patreon, consulting Patreon, selling services to the Patreon company itself, which other ways could you be making money? I.e. how can users make money with Patreon?

How many ways is there to use Patreon?

According to Patreon itself, there are a million ways:

There are a million ways to use Patreon. (Patreon.com)

And this is actually true. Creators from all different backgrounds and types are currently using Patreon. Some of those creators are making very good money from this platform too.

Becoming a Patreon creator is something to consider for anyone who creates anything that can be served in a digital format.

Crate a podcast, videos, music, written material, digital designs, communities or anything. Then upload to Patreon.

You'll be making money from "your Patreons".

Can you realistically begin to make money with Patreon?

Ask yourself this:

What can I create that someone would pay me $1 for every month?

Getting someone to pay you only $1 shouldn't be that hard. But you might also experience that it's surprisingly hard to get someone to contribute that tiny amount of just one dollar every month.

Now, if you can get 100 Patreons, and each will pay you $1 every month, you will be making, let's see if we can get the math straight here...

$100 dollars, right?

Wrong.

The correct answer is not one hundred dollars. Patreon will take their cut, depending on the plan you're on. Lite, Pro, Premium, at 5%, 8% and 12%. It's only fair that Patreon will take a cut of your earnings. It's their service, their platform. They have the right to charge anything they want, and their cut is far from outrageous.

In addition there are payment fees both at Patreon and from PayPal or your bank.

And don't forget about taxes. Another 10-30% gone, or as much as 65%, depending on where you live in the world. Some places have crazy high taxes, while there are barely any taxes at all in other countries.

Earning $100 does not equal a 100 dollar bill in your pocket.

So how do you begin to make tons of money from Patreon?

The answer is obvious: You must get a ton of Patreons.

Can you get people to pay you $1 a month? How about $5 a month? Or $20 recurring every single month?

Can you make someone pay $500 per month for your creation? Or $500 as a one time fee?

Promote your content, get people to pay for your creations. Don't limit yourself. Create video, podcasts, music, digital content, write articles. Anything. If you need inspiration you will find all the examples you will ever need directly on the Patreon site.

Examples on How To Make Money On Patreon

It's said that no one makes a living on Patreon. This is not completely true, but perhaps this is the case for most Patreon creators. According to The Outline only 2 percent of creators earn more than the US federal minimum wage.

A tiny amount of Patreon creators are making over $10,000 per month, some are even making beyond $30,000 per month. In other words, it is possible to make very good money from Patreon.

Here are some real examples on how to make money from Patreon. Some examples in this article:

• Guy sells printable maps for board games for over $400 a piece.
• Christian newsletter making over $500 per month.
• Wii-emulator creator making $33,000 per month.
• Travel-app for like-minded people, creator earning $1000 per month.
• Ukulele teacher and ukulele songs making $4000/month.
• Earthquake forcasting video creator making $1300 per month.
• New York city history podcast making nearly $3000/month.
• Animated science video creator making $29,000 per month.
• Best/worst chain restaurant podcast making $10,000 per month.
• Professor making $34,000 per month from video lectures.

If you have a large audience or can come up with something that people will pay for through Patreon, then this thing is for you.

Patreon could be the future. The new economy. Crowd funding. Buzz buzz.

Patreon is great if you are great. If you already have the audience. Then you should absolutely explore this platform.

But for most people? We're not that optimistic. Our guess, most people will not make a lot of money from it. Very few will be able to make a living from Patreon but we could be wrong. For all we know you could be the lucky one that makes it, the one that actually will be making good money from Patreon.

Is it wort a shot? Should you give it a go? Your only risk is that you will be wasting time, time that could be better spent doing other activities. Big deal, right? Actually it is. Wasting time is a big deal. Time is the one commodity you will never get more of. It's the most valuable thing in your life. So don't waste it. Don't waste it on Patreon either, unless you believe you will benefit from using their platform.

Should you give Patreon a chance? Is it worth it? You will have to answer that one yourself.

No other person on the planet could give you a more qualified answer.

You are the world expert on this topic:

Should you become a Patreon creator, or would you like to explore other opportunities?

Ask yourself this. Answer this. And now you know.

Seriously. You need to figure out this on your own.

The final conclusion, the results, the truth, will be revealed only if you do try it. If you do become a Patreon creator. If you do your best. Give it all. And if you fail, if it did not work, now you know for sure. Now you know that you've been wasting all that time. Or hopefully you'll experience a more positive outcome.

Patreon Affiliate Program

There is also another way to make money from Patreon: referrals.

Can you really make money as a Patreon affiliate?

Yes, you can, but...

They do offer a referral program, this is reserved for current Patreon users.

Unfortunately you cannot realistically expect to make tons of money with the Patreon referral program.

Why? It's a refer-a-friend program, not refer-anyone-in-the-world affiliate program. Your personal connections will be in limited supply. And the payout per referral is only moderate.

The Patreon referral program can only be used for existing Patreon creators, and they will be able to send their referral link, also known as affiliate link, to the patreon.com/invite page.

If and only if the newly launched creator you just referred reaches 20 patrons within the first months (or the first 30 days to be exact), you will be eligible for a $50 cash bonus. (This rate is subject to change at any time.)

By the looks of it, the Patreon referral program is not the best way to earn affiliate commissions from the internet. Actually, you are not allowed to post your Patreon affiliate link on any public site or distribute it to people you do not know. This referral link from Patreon is reserved for friends and personal connections only.

In conclusion, you will probably never make a lot of money as a Patreon affiliate. Our qualified guesstimate? It's possible to make a few thousand at maximum, and that’s being very optimistic. There are much better ways to earn money from affiliate marketing. That said, the Patreon referral program is a good way to make an extra $50 with little effort, by contacting people you already know and send them your referral link. If you know a lot of people with "Patreon-potential" then you might be able to earn a few hundred dollars. It's better than nothing.