Starting your Patreon is free and only takes a few minutes. You can begin by customizing your page, sharing your work, and inviting your fans to join your community. As you grow, you can offer paid memberships or sell media products as one-time purchases.
Patreon's Network
Patreon's network is a set of features built on connection, not attention. It's designed to help fans discover a new corner of the internet that rewards human creativity. The experience helps fans find creators and content they genuinely care about, while keeping existing memberships front and center. This way, fans can discover creators beyond those they already support and help creators reach new audiences.
Want the bigger picture on how discovery is evolving? Read “Go get discovered!” on Patreon for Creators. Currently, Patreon for Creators is only available in English.
Share your thoughts and creations
Sharing publicly is how you reach fans beyond your existing members. Free posts, Quips, and collaboration posts are all visible to everyone. That's what powers discovery on the Network.
At a glance
- Public posts and Quips power discovery
- Home feed on the mobile app helps fans discover new creators
- Designated feed with posts and Quips only from the creators they already support
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Quips are lightweight, public posts designed for quick updates and casual engagement. They're a simple way to show up in discovery surfaces and give fans a low-lift way to react, comment, and follow along.
Key things to know
- In the Patreon app: Quips show up in the Home feed, Memberships feed, and in a dedicated tab on the creator's page
- On Desktop: Fans can view Quips on your creator page (in your Quips tab) and via direct links. Quips don't appear in a fan's desktop feed
- Notifications: When you share a Quip, members receive an in-app notification. Quips don't trigger emails. They can adjust their notification settings at any time. For a step-by-step guide, visit the notification section in the Navigate the Patreon app as a member guide
For a detailed guide, visit Sharing Quips.
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Collaboration posts let you co-author public posts with other creators on Patreon. They're designed to help introduce you to an entirely new audience. When you collaborate with another creator, the post appears on both of your pages and in the feed, reaching both audiences at once.
Key things to know
- Collaboration posts are always public
- You can only be added to a collaboration post by accepting the invite, and you can remove yourself at any time
- Collaborators have view access, but the original author controls editing and deletion
For a detailed guide, visit Collaboration posts.
For Adult/18+ creators, collaboration posts will be available with other creators who make work for Adult/18+ audiences. In the coming months, we'll also start rolling out Patreon Video and Quips for Adult/18+. At first, you'll be able to post Quips that are visible only to your members.
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Home feed: A discovery feed showing posts from creators fans don't yet follow, alongside creators they do. The feed prioritizes posts from creators that fans are already members of.
Memberships feed: A feed reserved entirely for posts and Quips from creators that fans are already a member of. It's designed for keeping up with existing memberships, separate from discovery.
There's also a shortcut in the Home feed that lets fans quickly see a list of the creators they support, so they can jump straight to a creator's page and catch up on their latest posts without scrolling the feed.
How to get the most out of Patreon's network
Ready to get started? Here are a few good first steps:
- Post your first Quip: keep it simple, just share something quick from your creative world. Need ideas? Check the "Discovery on Patreon" Collection on Patreon for Creators
- Explore the Home feed: see what other creators are posting and engage with content you genuinely enjoy
- Try a collaboration post: reach out to a creator in your space and co-author something together
Welcome fans to your community
Patreon is a space for you to connect directly with your fans through free and paid memberships. Members get access to your community through new work, comments on posts they have access to, and community chat spaces. Members get email notifications directly to their inboxes, the Patreon app, and on the web, so they never miss an update.
Visitors to your page will see a Join for free button by default. Free members can follow your public posts and receive updates. You can decide whether to keep this option prominently visible on your page when you add a paid membership. If you add paid memberships and your work is 18+, then people who visit your page will only see the option to Become a member, with paid options being prominent on your Patreon.
Tools for community
Community chats
Community chats on Patreon are available to all creators. If your work is categorized as Adult content, you must complete ID verification before you'll have access to chats.
A community chat is a space for group conversation among your Patreon community, helping you foster deeper connections among your members beyond the comment section.
Integrate Patreon with other community tools
In addition to community chats on Patreon, you can integrate other community tools like Discord and Discourse with your Patreon. Learn more about community tools you can integrate with on Patreon.
Comment settings
Comment settings help you manage your community engagement across your posts on Patreon. Here are the different ways you can adjust your comment settings:
- Comment access: You can Allow comments or Turn off comments for all of your posts from your Page settings
- Comment filtering: Patreon automatically hides comments made by free members that don't meet our Community Guidelines or are potentially harmful to your community. Patreon enables filtering by default, and you can adjust the level of filtering or disable it entirely from your page settings
- Adjusting comment settings for posts: You can change the comment settings for individual posts from the post creation or editing flow
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Reporting a guidelines violation: If a member's comment violates our Community Guidelines, click More
and select Report this content. Include as much evidence as possible (e.g., screenshots, URLs)
Ways to earn on Patreon
You can start earning on Patreon in two ways:
- Offer memberships: Let fans pay to access exclusive work or behind-the-scenes updates
- Sell one-time purchases: Let fans pay a one-time payment to unlock your digital work, including member-only posts and collections
Free and paid membership
When you set up your page, people can follow you for free to get public updates. Later, you can choose to offer paid membership tiers and decide how both options appear on your page from your page settings:
- Show free and paid options: Anyone can see a Join for free button, along with your paid membership options. This works well if your work is suitable for all audiences
- Show paid options only: If your work is 18+ or if you'd rather focus only on paid membership, visitors will see a Become a member button instead. This button leads directly to your paid options
If you've hidden the free option, fans can still find it by selecting More in your page. If someone cancels their paid membership, they'll stay connected as a free follower by default. 80% of paid members who cancel opt to stay connected as free members.
Want help setting up paid options? Check out these "10 tips for setting up your membership tiers" on Patreon for Creators. Currently, Patreon for Creators is only available in English.
Sell your work as one-time purchases
You can sell digital work like posts, standalone videos, podcast episodes, images, and collections directly to fans from the Shop tab on your Patreon page.
Selling digital media is great if you want to open another revenue stream or make your work available for purchase by more fans, whether they're members or not. To learn more, visit our guide on Selling one-time purchases on Patreon.
Measure and grow
Patreon gives you several tools to understand how your page is growing and what's working for your community. Insights is your central dashboard for tracking performance across members, earnings, posts, and traffic, all in one place.
Here's what you can track:
- Membership Insights: See the number of active members, new members, and canceled memberships. Review overall growth and drill into the data for free and paid members using the different dashboards and filters available
- Shop Insights: Track the performance of your digital products, including total earnings, total sales, and top-selling products
- Earnings Insights: Get an overview of your total earnings on Patreon, including a breakdown by membership tiers and one-time purchases
- Post Insights: See how your posts are performing in terms of reach and engagement. The dashboard includes all posts with impressions during a specific time, not just those published within the selected period. When viewing a post on your page, click the Impressions button in the bottom menu to open the insights panel — you'll see overall impressions, members who liked the post, and members who commented
- Traffic Insights: Understand where your visits are coming from and how often they occur. The dashboard presents data in a visual graph format, and you can filter by the past 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or a custom time frame. The dashboard shows all data in GMT/UTC
- Surveys Insights: Review responses from the welcome surveys your members answered to better understand your audience
For more details, visit our guide on Insights Dashboards.
You can also view who joined your community and check member details, including join date, membership tier, and total amount paid, in the Relationship Manager.
Ready to launch? The Launch Checklist walks you through everything you need to know before you hit publish.
FAQ
- That's okay! You can start with free posts and build your community over time. You'll have access to tools to add paid membership options or sell one-time purchases whenever you're ready. There's no obligation to offer paid membership when you start your journey on Patreon.
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It's up to you. Paid membership might make sense if:
- You regularly create work (like episodes, illustrations, or writing)
- You want to share exclusive updates with dedicated fans
- You're creating episodic work (like a podcast series or book)
Whenever you're ready, you can start with one tier and grow from there. Here's a helpful guide on structuring membership.
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We consider your Patreon to fall into one of two categories: "Safe for All Audiences" or "Adult/18+" because the payment processors we rely on to get creators paid require this distinction.
The "Adult/18+" category applies if one or more of your works (audio, text, or visual, including depictions of human beings and animations) contain sexually explicit content or nudity. Visit our article on Should my Patreon be marked Safe for All Audiences or Adult/18+? to learn which categorization is best for you.
- Here are a few ways creators share their Patreon with fans:
- Add your Patreon link to your social bios, email signature, or Linktree
- Mention it at the end of videos, podcasts, or livestreams
- Thank members publicly or give shoutouts (if it fits your style)
- Patreon's network features are built around public content, such as Quips and public posts. Paid and member-only posts stay exclusive to your members and appear in their feed as they normally do.
- Other fans and creators will see your activity on public posts in the home feed. This helps more people discover you through the creators you subscribe to and the communities you engage with. As we roll out, we'll give you more ways to manage what's visible, including the ability to hide activity from the feed.
- The Home feed is for discovery and recommendations in addition to the content from your existing memberships. The Memberships feed shows only content from creators a fan is already a member of.