Best practices for increasing your tier prices

If you have Subscription billing, adjusting your tier prices can be done quickly and easily for increases of up to $20 more than the original amount directly through your Membership tab.

If you have existing members on your tier and you're looking to raise your tier price beyond the $20 limit, you'll need to create a new tier with the updated price and phase out your previous tiers – This guide is here to help you plan and ensure a smooth transition for you and your members.

Looking to rethink your tiers or pricing? Check out "How Swiftologist's tier "glow up" doubled their earnings 💰" on Patreon for Creators. Currently, Patreon for Creators is only available in English.

Communicate changes with your members

A smooth transition begins with clear communication. Here are some tips for informing your members about upcoming price changes:

• Ideally, give them a heads-up a month before the next billing cycle, straight after the current month’s payments have been processed
• We recommend making announcements in any spaces where your members are likely to find them – making a post is a great way to ensure all members have access to the information
• Consider running a Poll or sending out a survey to get their input. Polls and surveys are a great way to involve members and also help you gauge the overall sentiment towards the change
• Let your members know why you’re making the change and how it benefits them. Share a clear timeline of when the old tiers will be phased out and the new ones introduced

Here’s a quick template to update your members about new tier prices and guide them to switch tiers:

Hi lovely members,

I'm so excited to announce my new [ NEW TIER ] tier! This tier will be available for you to join starting March 1st. [ FORMER TIER ] will no longer be available to join starting March 10th, and will be completely deleted on March 25th. Be sure to select one of my new tiers between March 1st and 25th!

Special offer alert! [Optional]

If you join the [ NEW TIER ] tier by 25th March, you get a limited-edition sticker!

If you're still in [ FORMER TIER ] when it's deleted, you'll still be my member, but you'll be a "no tier" member, and won't have the same access as you currently do.

Here's how to select a new tier: How to change your tier Have questions? Thread them in the comments!

Create your new tier

Once you’ve gathered member insights about your tiers, you can create new tiers with your updated tier pricing.

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio from the left navigation
2. While on your Page, click your Membership tab
3. Scroll down and click the + Add tier button to create your new tier
4. Click the Save button to save your new tier in our system. The minimum information you can add to save a tier is a tier name and price; you can fill in the rest later
5. Once saved, you can hide your new tier from your page by clicking the Edit tier button and scrolling down to click the Unpublish button. This will ensure that no members join this tier while you finish setting it up

Pro tip: add a special offer to incentivise members to join a new tier by your deadline!

You can set up a special offer by visiting: Edit page > Offers. Read more about Special offers below:

• Setting up a special offer
• Special Offers Handbook

Note that you can have one special offer running at a time, and this feature cannot be used with per-creation billing.

Give your new tier access to posts

Before you publish a new tier, it’s important to ensure it has access to all the past content you’ve shared. Right now, adding access to your back catalogue of posts for new tiers needs to be done manually. If you usually post content for All members or Paid members only, any new tier you create will automatically have post access.

If you’ve given post access to Selected tiers, you’ll need to give your new tier access to your previous posts. This ensures that all your members continue to enjoy the content without interruption. With bulk editing, you can make changes to multiple posts simultaneously, saving you time and effort.

Bulk editing is currently only available on desktop.

Follow the steps below to update access to your posts:

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio from the left navigation
2. Click your Library
3. You'll land on the Posts tab, where you can find all your published posts and/or Drops
4. Use the filter or type in the search box to locate specific posts. You can also sort posts by clicking on Title, Publish date (for published posts), Last edited date (for drafts) or Price (for posts available to sell as a one-time purchase)
5. Tick the posts you want to edit
6. Once you have your selection, click Edit
7. Select Edit access
8. Choose the new tier you want to grant access to those posts
9. Once this is done, click on Update
10. A message will appear, notifying you that your update will replace the existing settings. Click Confirm and update to apply the changes

We’ve created this guide to help you mass edit your posts: Bulk editing your posts 

Unpublish the tier

We recommend unpublishing any tier you are phasing out. Unpublished tiers are hidden from your Patreon tier options, so no new members can join, while existing members experience no change. Existing members can stay in the unpublished tier until they switch tiers or cancel.

Even after unpublishing, you can still post specifically for them, encouraging a switch to a new tier.

Once your new tiers are ready, follow the instructions below to unpublish former tiers:

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio from the left navigation
2. While on your page, click your Membership tab
3. Find the tier you want to unpublish and click Edit next to it
4. Scroll down to the bottom and click More
5. Select Unpublish tier, then confirm

When you unpublish, the tier is removed from your page and no new members can join it. It stays active for members who are already subscribed, were gifted a subscription, or are on a free trial — and you can republish it anytime. You'll know it worked when you see Unpublished at [ DATE ] for that tier.

Since tiers can stay unpublished indefinitely, we recommend waiting until all existing members have canceled or switched to a new tier before deleting one. If members are slow to switch, a friendly reminder via posts or private messages often helps.

To check which tier a member is in, search their email address or profile name. You can also share this guide to help them switch: How to change your tier

Delete the tier

We advise against deleting a tier unless it has no members. If you still have members on it, unpublish the tier instead.

Important things to know before deleting a tier:

• Once deleted, a tier can't be retrieved
• Members who haven't switched out of the deleted tier will keep paying you the value of the previous tier. They aren't within a tier, but aren't considered as Custom pledge members either, so they won't show up if you filter by No tier. You can find them by going to your Relationship manager and using the All tiers filter
• Deleting a tier isn't a substitute for canceling a member's payment. Members can cancel their membership to stop future payments
• If you offer Annual memberships and have a tier with active annual memberships tied to it, we advise against deleting it. Members have paid for the year, so unpublish the tier instead so no new members can join

To delete a tier:

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio from the left navigation
2. While on your page, click your Membership tab
3. Find the tier you want to delete and click Edit next to it
4. Scroll down to the bottom and click More
5. Select Delete, then confirm – this can't be undone, so check your list twice to make sure you're ready for this step!