So what's with this new fee thing?

Phil Stracchino

@Kat, this is my objection too. I have no problem whatsoever with Patreon passing on the 2.9% card processing fee. I don't have a major problem with them adding a service charge if they need to keep their books balanced, but I'd like to know in advance. But what I REALLY object to is that under the new scheme, I will be hit with no less than 14 service charges for what last month was a single card transaction. Federal agencies call this kind of thing "structuring", and they get pretty shirty about it. It's not that I can't afford the extra charges. It's the principle of the thing.

John Ridley

Not a bad idea. I'll have to take my $30/month or so that I had been giving to Patreon for a bunch of people, and find a way to send a $15 lump to each one over the course of a year, each getting one per year. Way worse solution but I'm not paying Patreon nearly 40% fees. Might as well work with Ticketmaster for Pete's sake.

Sim Gray

thank you.

Sim Gray

thank you.

Kaz Redclaw

Not just that, but 35c additional on top of that 3c per dollar, then another 5c that's hidden to us, but exposed to him.

Kat Land

No. They're going to charge you an extra 3c for every $1 PLUS an extra 35c for every pledge. If you're like me, with small pledges to several different artists, you'll be spending around 38c per artist. I'm planning to just make a single direct donation to a different artist every month instead. It's not ideal because the artists won't have the predictable monthly support Patreon was designed to provide, but it averages out to giving each artist I support a little more per year than I had been doing. My objection is that Patreon is only incurring one bank transfer fee from me per month, but it's assessing that fee a dozen times per month by applying it per pledge. I'm hopeful that they'll come up with a more equitable plan in the near future, and I can return to using Patreon the way it's intended. Doc, THANK YOU for providing your PayPal address.

Sim Gray

Am i missing a trick here, are they going to charge me 3c for every $1 on a service you already pay for?

Kaz Redclaw

I'd be perfectly fine with paying the transaction fees if they continued to use the old model of charging once per month for everything. That would only cost me an extra 4% per month. Instead, this is going to cost me almost 35% extra per month if I stay with Patreon instead of going to Paypal.

Is there another way to send you money without these pakhtash going through my wallet on the way?

Teh Feeesh

I'll be one of the ones who stops pledging if they don't reverse this in another few days. Without the aggregation of payments I'm looking at an extra $8.48 in fees, and a budgeting nightmare with payments going out all over the place. :(

Eugene Yeo

Pausing my payment until they straighten this out. If they don't straighten it out, I'll shoot you out payments direct.

Phil Stracchino

This fee restructuring is going to most hurt the people who can only afford small donations. @Torinir's comment about it being not allowed by Visa and Mastercard is ... interesting.

Im in the same boat some have 0 patreon perks at all its just a convenient way to donate some to alot of people with less fees as its all one transaction once a month

bitflipper

I do not, at this time, intend to change my pledges. However, I must observe that most creators on Patreon predict that this fee restructuring will cost them patrons -- especially $1 and $2 patrons, who are the overwhelming majority of subscribers -- and that this will hurt the creators on Patreon. And, it seems to me, what hurts creators on Patreon also hurts Patreon itself. I certainly hope that there is a way to reverse this decision if it turns out to result in what so many of the creators believe it will result in.

Matthew Goebel (skunkboy)

Kinda sucks for people like me who donate a little to a bunch of people...

MishaFox

I am not happy with this but nothing comes for free. I'll take a wait a see attitude.

It reads as if Doc is going to get more of the non-fee money, which is a good thing, but yes, it's going to cost the patrons a bit more. Pity they don't allow a once-a-year payment to cover the 12 monthly ones - that wouls save us a few cents. The PDF copies are a good idea, bad idea - the good bit is that you save the trees, and can read the comics anywhere your tablet of phone goes, but the bad idea is that for every copy Doc sells, there'll be ten pirate copies given to friends, friends of friends, and so on, and Doc won't get paid for those readers. So it'll probably never happen unless PDFs become less portable - sort of defeats the idea of 'Portable Document Formats',,,,

I've sent 'em a note about what appears to be a money grab. Personally, I'd be happy to get a complete set of TWB as PDFs, if there's any way to set that up, and I'd be perfectly happy to pay paperback prices for 'em. I'm all eBook these days. Thank you for the wonderful entertainment and superb stories.