As a creator, you can easily send welcome notes, deliver benefits and communicate essential updates directly to paid members, from your Relationship manager and the Patreon mobile app.
Conversations with paid members live in message threads – one thread for each member you message directly. Direct messages include member details, including the length of their membership, current membership amount and lifetime paid.
Please note that member-to-member messaging isn’t currently possible – refer to this guide on messaging a creator if you’re a member.
How to direct message a paid member
Due to some recent changes, the ability to filter messages by Unread is not currently available.
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Make sure you follow this guide while in your creator profile. You can switch to your creator profile by clicking your profile picture in the bottom-left corner and clicking on your creator profile. There are two ways to direct message a single member:
From your Relationships manager
- Click on Audience from the left navigation
- You’ll land on your Relationship manager, where you can search for a paid member’s name or use the filters to pin-point a particular member
- It’s not currently possible to direct message free members from your Patreon
- Tick the box next to the member’s name to select them, then click the Message button at the top of the page. You can also click on the member’s name to bring up their member details and message them
- Type your message and hit Enter or click the Send button
- While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
- When you send a direct message, it creates a message thread where you can find your conversation with that member
From your inbox
- Click Community tab in the left navigation menu
- You’ll land on the Chats page – select Direct messages
- You can search for an existing conversation or search for a paid member by their name to start a message thread
- Type your message and hit Enter or click the Send button
- While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
You can also message a paid member from their profile page. You can get to a member’s profile page by clicking on their name wherever they’ve engaged with your posts.
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Make sure you follow this guide while in your creator profile. You can switch to your creator profile by tapping your profile picture in the top right corner and tapping on the switch to creator profile button if you see the option.
- Please ensure your mobile app is updated to the latest version before following these steps
- Tap on the Community tab in the bottom menu bar
- To access your direct messages, tap the Inbox tab in the top right corner of the screen – this will take you to your inbox, where you’ll find responses and any new messages from members who have reached out directly to you
- You can tap on an existing message to see a past conversation or tap on the + icon at the top right corner to start a new direct message thread with a paid member
- When you're happy with your message, tap the Send button
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Make sure you follow this guide while in your creator profile. You can switch to your creator profile by tapping on the menu in the top left corner. From here, tap on your profile picture at the bottom of the menu and switch to your creator profile.
- Tap on the menu in the top left corner
- Tap the Community tab from the left navigation menu
- You’ll land on the Chats page – tap Direct messages
- You can search for an existing conversation or search for a paid member by their name to start a message thread
- Type your message in the text field and tap Enter or the Send button when you’re happy with your message
- While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
How to directly message multiple members
Instead of one message thread for your bulk message, you’ll see a thread created for each member who received the message. So, responses will be kept private. You can search by member name to easily find the right conversations.
Make sure you follow this guide while in your creator profile on the Desktop. You can switch to your creator profile by clicking your profile picture in the bottom left corner and clicking on your creator profile.
Here’s how to send a message to multiple paid members:
- Click on Audience from the left navigation, which will take you to your Relationship manager
- You can use the statuses and filters at the top of your manager to generate a list of members you’d like to direct message.
Here are some examples of how you can use filters to communicate with large audiences strategically:
- Direct message all active members in a tier: Leave the default Active status selected, then click Filters > select a specific Tier(s). You can message an entire tier to deliver benefits via messages!
- Direct message declined members: Click on the Declined button to get a list of all declined members. You can adjust the filters to set a specific date range of declined members
- Type your message in the text field and click the Send button when you’re happy with your message
Direct messaging Commerce customers
Make sure you are viewing your Patreon as the creator. You can click your profile picture in the bottom left corner to switch to your creator profile.
If you are selling digital products with Patreon's Commerce product, you can direct message customers on the Desktop by following these steps:
- Click on Audience from the left navigation side
- Select the Sales tab from the top menu
- Click the name of the customer you want to message, and this will open an Order details side panel
- Select the Message button in front of the customer’s name
- Type your message in the text field and tap Enter or the Send button when you’re happy with your message
- While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
- When you send a direct message to a customer, it creates a message thread where you can find your conversation with that individual
Managing your direct messages
All of your direct messages with members live in your creator inbox. Your creator inbox is where you’ll find responses from members and any new direct messages from members who have reached out to you.
If you are a creator and a member of other creators’ communities, you can access your member inbox by clicking on your profile image in the bottom left corner and selecting your member profile. Then select Community > Direct messages, from the left navigation.
FAQ
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Not at the moment. You can share links with users, which is an option for sharing image sets with members. You can, however, send pictures in a Community Chat space.
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Absolutely! Read the above section about bulk messaging to learn how.
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It isn’t currently possible to delete direct messages.
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You can only directly message members you have or have had a financial relationship with (former member) on Patreon. So you can’t send direct messages to fans directly through your Relationship manager. If you want to send a quick message to your fans, we recommend making a post for everyone, which fans can access.
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You can manually select members from your Relationship manager to direct message. Once you’ve selected the members, click the Message button.
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In 2021, we updated our messaging system to bring a better experience for creators and members. As part of that update, we stored users’ messages dating back to 2019. Any messages dating earlier than January 2019 were not moved to our updated messaging system.