This article is a general guide to joining and using our Autopilot feature. You can also check our Autopilot FAQ for additional information.
Autopilot overview
Autopilot is an easy and automatic way to give your fans promotional offerings to drive your growth on Patreon. The feature currently includes:
- Free member upgrade offer: Encourage free members to become paid members by offering them a one-time discount on their first month of membership
- Paid membership teaser campaign: Share a selection of your paid posts with free members to showcase what they’re missing out on
- Annual membership: You can offer members yearly membership access and give a discount to encourage them to sign up
- Cancellation offer: Selected members who are cancelling their paid membership can receive a discount from creators
We plan to add more growth and promotional features to Autopilot over the coming months.
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Free member upgrade offer
Availability
To enable a free member upgrade offer, the following requirement must be met:
- Creators must be on Subscription billing
- 18+ creators must be ID-verified
Autopilot gives you the option to set up upgrade offers to select free members and encourage them to become paid members. Patreon will send a one-time discount to your free members who seem likely to upgrade to a paid membership. Subsequent months will be at full price.
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot tab
- Select Set up to turn on the free member upgrade offer
- In the Discount amount, you can either let Patreon optimise the offer for you by selecting Smart Discount, or you can Choose the discount amount
- Discount amount must be between 5%–90%
- If you select Smart Discount, you can also tick the Maximum Discount option to set a manual cap on the highest discount amount you want to offer
- Select which tiers you want to include in the discount offer
- Click Save
What free members see
Free members who receive an Autopilot offer will get the following email indicating how much of a discount they are receiving and how long until the offer expires.
Details on offers:
- Only free members who we think are likely to upgrade will receive a discount
- Discount will only apply to their first month of membership
- Free members will have seven days since receiving the email to claim it
- Discounts can only be claimed once and are unique to the recipient
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Paid membership teaser campaign (Beta testing)
With a paid membership teaser campaign (Beta testing), you can give free members a preview of your paid content by sharing a selection of your paid posts. It’s an effective way to showcase the value of upgrading without creating new content.
Availability
To enable the paid membership teaser campaign, the following requirements must be met:
- Creators must have their work categorised as All Audiences
- Creators must be on Subscription billing
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot tab
- Select Set up to turn on Paid membership teaser campaign
- Click on Add posts to choose up to five posts to include
- Posts will be unlocked on different days to keep free members engaged
- Select the posts you want to offer and click on Update
- You can search for any posts you want by typing in the Search or by using the Filters
- You can search for any posts you want by typing in the Search or by using the Filters
- Click Save
What your free members see
Once the paid membership teaser campaign is set up, free members who join after activation will receive teaser emails:
- The first email will be sent 24 hours after they join as a free member
- They will receive one email per day showcasing a different paid post from your selected content
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Annual membership
With Patreon, you can offer members yearly membership access. You receive one annual payment from members, cutting down on member processing fees and payment method upkeep.
Availability
To enable Annual membership, the following requirements must be met:
- Creators must be on subscription billing or already offer “charge up front” billing
- Creator page must have been launched at least three months ago
- Creator account must have a well-established payment history, including at least $200 of earnings/month in the previous three months
- 18+ creators must be ID-verified
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot option on the top menu
- Select Set up to turn on Annual membership
- Select the Discount amount to be offered to members
- Click on Save
For creators who are not yet eligible for the Annual membership, a pre-enrol feature will be available. Once eligible, creators who opted in will automatically be enrolled and receive an email confirmation.
What your members see
Once the Annual membership is set up within Autopilot, select free and paid members will receive an email notification offering to switch to a yearly plan.
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Cancellation offer
Creators can set a discount to offer fans who are in the cancellation flow a chance to stay on the membership.
Availability
To enable a Cancellation offer, the following requirement must be met:
- Creators must be on subscription billing
- 18+ creators must be ID-verified
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot option on the top menu
- Select Set up to turn on Cancellation offer
- In the Discount amount, you can either let Patreon optimise the offer for you by selecting Smart Discount, or you can Choose the discount amount
- If you select Smart Discount, you can also tick the Maximum Discount option to set a manual cap on the highest discount amount you want to offer
- Select which Tiers you want to include in the discount offer
- Click Save
What your members see
With Cancellation offers, members will see a pop-up with a discount for their next month before they complete the cancellation.
Track Autopilot conversions
On the Autopilot tab, you’ll see a View Insights button at the top of the page. Clicking this will show you more metrics on how your offers are performing.
Please note that Autopilot insights will show data for the Free member upgrade offer, Teaser campaign and Cancellation offer, but Annual membership statistics will be available in the general Insights tab.
You will also be able to see which members have redeemed an Autopilot discount in their payment history. First, head to the Audience tab and click on a member. Anyone who has redeemed will have an “Autopilot discount applied” tag next to them. If the payment history extends beyond three months, you may have to click See all payment history.