How to manage refunds for your fans

In this article, we’ll go over the process for issuing refunds for payments made to you on Patreon. You can refund current and former fans who have had at least one payment processed to you. You can use the Refunds tab to directly take action on refund requests from your fans.

How refunds work at Patreon

You can issue refunds on Patreon if you have enough funds in your balance. If not, the request will fail, and you’ll get an error. You’ll need to wait for new earnings to increase your balance since there’s no way to add funds directly to complete refunds.

The Patreon Support Team reserves the right to issue a refund on your behalf if you do not approve or reject a refund in a reasonable amount of time.

The dedicated Refunds tab makes it easier to handle refund requests directly from your Patreon account. This applies to memberships, annual memberships and digital goods purchases.

• Save time and streamline: Refund requests from your fans come to you directly, cutting down on DMs, emails or back and forth with Product Support
• See everything in one place: View and manage all pending and past refund requests from your dedicated Refunds tab in your dashboard
• Respond quickly and clearly: Review each request and decide to approve or reject it

How a fan requests a refund

Fans can request a refund directly from their Billing History within 60 days of the original payment. Please note that if they are outside that window, they will be directed to contact Product Support.

Fans can choose from a list of common reasons for their refund request, or select Something else and write their own reason. Each option allows the member to write custom additional details.

Once submitted, the request will appear in your Refunds dashboard.

If a fan contacts you via DM to request a refund, use this opportunity to inform them that they can now request a refund directly through their Billing history. Below is an example of how to communicate this:

Hey there! Thanks for getting in touch. I’m happy to grant you a refund. Could you please submit an official refund request in your Settings > Billing History? You can make a request on the individual payment via the three dots on the right-hand side. Once that’s submitted, I’ll be able to process it straight away. Thank you very much!

Per-creation charges: This refund request flow doesn’t support per-creation transactions. If a member asks for a refund on a per-creation charge, let them know they’ll need to contact Patreon Product Support for help with their refund.

How to manage refund requests

You’ll get a Notification whenever a member sends a refund request. Clicking Notification > View refunds takes you straight to the refund request.

In addition to getting a notification, you’ll also receive an email when there’s a new refund request.

You can also access all refund requests at any time by following these steps:

1. Click Audience from the left-hand menu
2. Open your Refunds dashboard to review the request
3. Open the request to read the member’s reason and any notes
4. Decide whether to approve the full refund or decline it
5. If you decline, you can select a common reason or write your own
6. Once you have taken an action, the member will be notified of your decision

Your refund dashboard shows the expiry date for each refund request. The request expires 75 days after the fan’s original payment date and will then automatically move to the Past requests section of the dashboard.

Tips for handling refunds

• Be clear and kind: A short explanation (even when declining) helps maintain trust
• Set expectations up front: If you have refund rules, include them in your membership tier description or About section
• Use refunds strategically: Approving one can sometimes turn a frustrated fan into a loyal member

How to manage refunds in Relationship Manager

While the Refunds tab provides a more streamlined process, you can also issue refunds in your Relationship Manager. Make sure you have funds available in your balance to cover refund requests. Select the scenarios below for guidance on how to issue refunds manually to members and customers:

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  1. Log in to your Patreon creator account
  2. Click on the Audience button from the left navigation bar, then click on the Relationship Manager option
  3. Search for individual members by name, or use the filters to create lists of members you’d like to refund
     • If you see the Apple icon next to the membership amount, it indicates the transaction was made via iOS in-app purchases
  4. Select the member to refund and scroll down to their payment history at the bottom, right-hand side of the page
  5. Click the Refund button next to the bill you’d like to refund
  6. Review the date or supported post before confirming the Refund
     • Please note that refunds are not reversible
     • Once you have submitted the refund, the status will update from Paid to Refunded
• For annual membership refunds, you can offer a full or partial refund. A full refund immediately ends the membership and access. A partial refund ends access after the last month of membership (the month the refund is issued). Refunded members can rejoin, and they will be charged immediately for the new membership to regain access.
  1. Log in to your Patreon creator account
  2. Click on the Audience button from the left navigation bar, then click on the Relationship Manager option
  3. Locate the annual member requesting a refund
  4. Click on their name in your member list view, and the member’s information will populate on the right-hand side
  5. Click the More button and then select Refund, or scroll down to the Payment history section and click the Refund option there
  6. Select the charge you’d like to refund and choose either a full or partial refund of the remainder of the member’s pledge amount
  7. Confirm by clicking the Refund button

• Funds from digital goods purchases will appear as pending for up to 7 days before they can be withdrawn from your balance. Sales made through iOS in-app purchases will be pending for up to 75 days before they are available for payout, to account for the time Apple needs to process and confirm the funds.

  1. Log in to your Patreon creator account
  2. Click on Audience from the left navigation side
  3. Click on the Sales tab from the top menu
  4. Search for the customer you want to refund, either by using the search bar or by going through the list of customers
  5. Click on the customer’s name to open a side panel with their Order details
  6. Click on the Issue refund button

  For digital goods purchases made through the iOS app, customers can contact you directly or through Apple, which processes refunds within 60 days of purchase. In both cases, if the refund is approved, customers will receive a full refund of the purchase amount.

Please bear in mind that refunds can take 7–10 working days and can’t be undone. Once issued, the refund will go back to the member’s original payment method. 

Regarding digital goods refunds, they will be removed from the customer’s purchases, and access will be revoked immediately. 

If the member does not receive the refund after a week, confirm that they haven’t disputed the charge off-site with their payment provider.

Refunding purchases made through the iOS mobile app

Members and customers who have made a purchase through the iOS Patreon app can request a refund through Apple. To do this, they need to go through the Apple refund flow with their Apple ID. Apple will process refunds within 60 days of the original purchase date. If the refund is granted, the fan will receive the full amount back to their Apple account.

Apple ultimately makes the final decision on refund requests for iOS in-app purchases. Because Patreon is not the final decision-maker on in-app purchase refunds, we’re unable to guarantee that a refund will be approved.

Important note: Refunding the current month’s payment will not revoke a member’s access to your posts.

Review all refunds deducted from your balance

You’ll find a chronological list of all refunds that have been processed from your Patreon balance in the Refunds CSV of your Payout Dashboard. You can click the Download refunds as CSV button for your records.

The amount deducted from your balance will be listed in the Creator’s share section of this report. Hover over the question mark tooltips for more information about the amounts listed.

FAQs

• If you don’t take action within a reasonable time frame, our Support team reserves the right to take action on your behalf. After 75 days, the refund request will automatically expire and appear as rejected to the fan.
• Yes. Our Support team may step in if the situation falls under Patreon’s Refund Policy.
• Yes. Approved refunds are deducted from your future payout balance.
• Refunds can only be processed if you have enough funds in your Patreon balance. If your balance is too low, the refund won’t go through, and you’ll see an error message. You’ll need to wait until new earnings raise your balance before you can approve the refund.
• Members are automatically notified when you approve or decline their refund request. They can also check their Billing History, where the payment will show whether the request has been approved or declined, or whether it is still pending.
• Yes, you can use the Refunds tab to handle requests about annual memberships or one-time purchases. Creators can still issue partial refunds for annual memberships through the Relationship Manager or refund digital purchases through their Sales tab.