kennoarkkan
patreon
The "per-update" to "monthly" 2025 migration. First draft.
🕑 Added 2024-09-25 21:52:03 +0000 UTCAight, I've been losing some sleep on this matter. You might recall that patreon is forcing per-update campaigns into monthly by november 2025. For my page that means reestructuring everything, from tier prices to rewards.
That kinda blows.
But i think I can turn the thing on its feet and make it a positive thing! I hope you guys keep me company on this big leap forward.
Big wall of text ahead, you don't need to read it but i'd appreciate any feedback!
The main problem is that I have to structure rewards for tiers from a previously per-page basis (framed as a question, it'd be like "how much is 1 comic page worth?"), to a "what can i offer throughout the whole month, and how much money is it worth"?
There's also the problem that in a per page basis, i could keep a very low price and still offer content, but if i tried doing the same on a monthly basis it would be unsustainable. So if i cannot offer less, the only way is up, or rather, MORE. The whole thing is a matter of balance. I think balance is the keyword. The monthly bill will have to be higher, so the rewards should increase accordingly.
Here are my thoughts on rewards so far. What do I currently offer?
In one month I typically make 3 after-hours pages.
there's 1 guest after-hours page.
there's the 10 or so Q&As at the start of the month
there's the random art that crosses my canvas throughout the month.
the discord access, the comic input for higher tier patrons, and appearing in the credits.
What else could I offer ?More sketch comics. currently i only post those on a whim and whenever time allows, but i think with my current workload i could manage to deliver 1 sketch comic page per week. so that'd be 4 extra comic pages per month.
Commission work downloads. I've seen lots of artists offer them on their patreons, and there's really no reason not to do so. A few people have shown interest in some of my client's commissions in the past too, so might as well.
There's also the issue of the archive. I checked the other day and the cumulative value of my comics in my store goes above $300 usd. the archive access sits at $100. I think it's about time I raised that as well. But what could i put in there to beef it up a notch? I immediately think of the after-hours high res pictures. as of today, i currently only offer those as the comics are being published, but once a comic finishes, the pdf is compiled and sent into the archive, and the stand alone high res pages just sit in my hard drive gathering dust for the rest of time. In the past, I didn't want to share those both for piracy concerns, and because storage prices made it prohibitively expensive back then, but storage has gone down in price since 2013 and today is a lot more feasible to just drop all the after-hours page in high res back into the archive.
Commission work would also go into the archive, further expanding it even more.
Considering all that, i think raising the archive ticket of entry to $200 throughout your lifetime would be reasonable. Still cheaper than buying everything standalone, but still a sizable figure that requires loyalty and dedication from a subscriber to accumulate.
Speaking of which, another net positive of the change to monthly subscription, would be that delivering rewards would be A LOT more simple. Pinned post on the timeline simple. Gone would be the days of having to wait a whole payment cycle to start recieving rewards. As soon as a patron comes in, pays upfront, and bob's your uncle there are your rewards.
Speaking of which, i could offer an archive shortcut. this is something i've already done on substar with the current archive price and it's worked wonders. Some folks are just like "I HAVE MONEY GIMME THE ARCHIVE NOWWW". And since payment is upfront, i just made a $100 tier and as soon as they get in, boom there's the archive rewards.
I do have to deliver rewards differently here and on substar though. Substar lets me make special tiers n other stuff. Patreon let's me PM people based on their lifetime support, and doesnt let me modify ppl's tiers. I'd iron those details later on.
Now, on how the tiers would look like:
Right now this is what i have in mind
the cheapest tier, $10/month, just for access to the current after-hours project. No guest comics, no art, no nothing, just after-hours access, pure and simple.
next it would be $20/month, would essentially be everything else. 3 After-hours pages,1 guest after-hours, 4 sketch comics, 10 or so Q&As, any art that comes by, commission work, to appear in the credits and input on after-hours comics.
My head is trying to tell me to put the credits and after-hours input in an even higher tier, but on the flipside i feel charging more than $20/month is excessive?? IDK.
I've also noticed that everyone around me doesn't make more than one or two comic pages per month, and here i am offering like 8. so maybe im underselling myself over here. (I thought i drew comics a normal amount) dunno.
and well, the archive shortcut $200 tier. which would essentially give everything else, expecting people to downtier as soon as they are charged for it.
If you've read this far, what do you think? Do you like the sound of anything? Should something change?
Another plus of being monthly would be having a standardized reward structure between subscription sites. All other subscription sites besides patreon are monthly, so now my patreon and everything else would be on even terrain. I could open other places and offer the same rewards, diversifying my audience a bit. Been hearing things about https://comradery.co/ and https://boosty.to/ for eastern europe.
I don't plan on changing anything yet. I got until november 2025 to do the jump, but i don't want to wait till then. I'm currently saving a ton of money to cushion the loss of income of the first few months. I have a few big life and health insurance yearly plans to pay around april 2025, So nothing will happen earlier than that. Got plenty of time to bounce ideas around.
Thanks for reading!
Comments
Logan Hays
Ok, thanks Kenno!
Kenno Arkkan
I suppose so. I use the lifetime support filter on the patron manager to send the rewards so once that goes into action those that dont meet the criteria would stop recieving the messages. I do plan to announce way in advance when the change is bound to happen though, so anyone with archive access in that moment downloads whatever they need.
Logan Hays
If we get to the $100 required for archive access before the update to $200, would we lose archive access?
Kenno Arkkan
yeah! a shortcut tier to the archive like i mentioned earlier. And a survey hmm I'll give some thought on how to structure it. there's a lot of moving parts and there's a balance to be kept between my personal take on what I want to offer, and the readers' interests. thanks for the feedback sohi!
Sohi Ysksa
When I first subscribed I raised the monthly limit to get to the archive faster, having a higher tier that doesn't offer much but lets you build to it without going straight to the 200 tier might be good. Also consider a survey? I feel like that'd help a lot in figuring out where people stand on what people expect from tiers and what they might want.
Kenno Arkkan
Understandable, really. The way you feel is exactly how i feel about patreon right now. I've been in their platform for 11 years only to be kicked in the teeth and thrown under the bus for the dumbest of reasons. I'll continue working on how to make the $10 more appealing though, but I know, like you, a lot of people will not wish to, or be able to continue supporting me, and that's okay. I'm thankful for all the years you've been supporting me though.
Kenno Arkkan
you're an OG Ian. I opened this thing in 2013 so you must've joined pretty early on π₯Ή thanks for all these years!! I'm counting on long term supporters like yourself to keep the lights on when the migration happens and many people will inevitably leave. Thank you. I think i will implement the archive thing sooner rather than later, no need to wait until the migration for that specific bit π€
Thomas
My only gripe is the change to the $10 tier. That's where I've been for a long time as that's the affordable range for me financially. I can't say I'm a fan of losing out on access simply because patreon decided to change its billing. Absolutely not trying to say your work isn't worth the pay, but it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to have been paying $10 monthly for years to just get bumped down in status, essentially. I'm in the unfortunate circumstance where having to double to $20 a month for the same access just isn't feasible but losing out on what I get now similarly wouldn't make it worth maintaining the $10 patron. I hate to say it but I think I'd have to just cancel my membership entirely at that point much as I don't want to.
Ian Wolfe
I think $200 is still a steal of an entry point to all of the archive, especially if you add the HD quality pages. On a personal note, I sometimes forgot to download the pages, so I would love to have them in the archive anyways. On the pricing change, don't really have an opinion. I've been paying the 10 per page with no monthly cap to support your work, so it seems like this would be a reduction for me. I don't mind staying at 40, but understand not all your fans can do that much so feel 20 is a good middle ground. On a side note, was looking at my membership data and realized I've been a member over 10 years already. Time sure does fly, love the work as always and will continue to support regardless of the changes.
MaxL8
That's fine. I just don't think I'm gonna pay more than $10 personally.
