Subscription billing FAQ

This article covers FAQs about the subscription billing model, which charges new members when they join and monthly on that same date.

iOS In-App Purchases and Subscription Billing Migration

To keep the Patreon app in the Apple App Store, Apple requires us to use their in-app purchase system for new memberships, which only supports subscription billing.

Apple has made it clear that continuing to use supported billing models or disabling transactions in the iOS app puts the entire app at risk of removal. As a result, creators using a legacy billing model must migrate to subscription billing by November 2025.

As part of this change, creators on the first-of-the-month or per-creation billing must migrate to subscription billing by November 2025. Visit our iOS in-app purchases and migrating to subscription billing page to learn more about this change.

Migration Timeline

All creators must switch to subscription billing by November 2025. Creators have control over when to make this change:

• First-of-the-month billing creators: Unless you delayed migration by 1 November 2024, all CUF/NCUF creators migrated to subscription billing in early November 2024. Learn more about this process in our How to move from first-of-the-month to subscription billing guide
• Per-creation billing creators: You must switch to subscription billing by November 2025. To learn more about this process, please visit How to move from per-creation to subscription billing. If you’re ready to switch to subscription billing now, you can fill in this form to start the process

If you remain on a billing model other than subscription billing after November 2024, existing members remain unaffected, but new fans won’t be able to subscribe via the iOS app until you switch.

How subscription billing works

With subscription billing, new paid members are charged when they join and then monthly on the same date (e.g. a member who joins on 12 April is charged again on 12 May). At checkout and in their Memberships tab, members can see their next charge date.

What stays the same?

• Existing members continue to be charged on the first of the month
• Your payout schedule remains unchanged. You can receive an automatic payout on the 5th or manually withdraw funds at any time

Switching your billing model to subscription billing is a permanent change – once you switch to subscription billing, you cannot revert to your previous model. If you haven’t switched yet, you will be migrated before November 2025 when all legacy billing models are phased out.

Subscription Billing vs Other Billing Models

When are funds from subscription billing payments available?

Funds become available as soon as they are settled. Most creators choose automatic payouts on the fifth of each month, but you can also manually withdraw a lump sum whenever you prefer.

The key difference between subscription billing and first-of-the-month billing is how your account balance accumulates – steadily throughout the month or as a larger amount at the start. However, the total accumulation remains the same if payouts are made at the same time each month.

You can request payouts as often as every 24 hours, but note that we may limit the number of monthly payouts if payout costs or patterns change significantly in the future.

Before	After

Member Experience FAQ

• New members will see clear messaging at checkout, letting them know their next payment will be the following month on the same date, just as they expect from other recurring subscriptions. Their Billing History will also reflect their specific billing date. They can see their next charge date and amount under Settings in their Memberships tab.

  • 

  • 

• Existing members won’t be billed any differently than they are now, so there are no updates to communicate to them. If you currently communicate how billing works on your page, you can now tell prospective members:

  You’re charged when you join and monthly on that same date, just like any typical subscription. You can see your next charge date at checkout and in your Memberships tab.

• The member’s bill will be renewed on the last available date of next month, and that date will be the monthly billing date going forward. Someone who joins on 30 January will renew on 28 February and then on the 28th of each month after that. Members can view their next charge date in their Memberships tab at any time. This renewal date is also displayed for creators in Relationship Manager under Next Charge Date.

• New members on an annual membership will renew the following year on their sign-up date, instead of on the 1st of the month following their sign-up date. For example, a member who signs up on 3 November 2021 would renew on 3 November 2022 (compared to 1 December 2022, as is the case today). These members will still receive a reminder email the month before their membership renews.

• If a member’s payment declines, they’ll lose access to your exclusive content. Once they fix their payment, they’ll regain access. However, their billing date remains their join date, not the payment resolution date.

  You can send the following guide to help members fix their payment: Why was my payment declined?

• On subscription billing, every membership renews separately on the date the member signed up for that membership. This means members who subscribe to multiple creators throughout the month will be charged on the unique bill dates for those memberships throughout the month. If a member signs up for multiple memberships on the same day, those would all have the same monthly bill date and be charged in one transaction.

  Over the past year, we tested a variety of billing models, including some that combined members’ bills to multiple creators. This current subscription billing model ensures creators are paid in full and up front when a member signs up (which is important for content protection and benefit delivery), and provides a simple, familiar billing experience for members.

  Additionally, members can see a clear view of what and when they’ll be charged for all memberships each month in their Memberships tab.

• Upgrading or downgrading will not change a member’s billing date. As happens today, members who upgrade get charged the outstanding amount straight away and get access to the higher tier straight away for the remainder of their billing period. Downgrades will remain on the original tier until the next billing date.

• Just like today, if a member cancels their membership and signs up again after their original access has ended, that member will be considered a new member. They will be charged at sign-up, and that date will be their renewal date going forward. For example, if a member joins and renews on the 17th of each month, cancels on 15 November and resubscribes on 21 December, their new billing date will be the 21st going forward.

  If a member cancels their membership and signs up again on the same tier before their original access has ended, their billing date remains their original join date. For example, if a member joins on 17 September cancels on 8 October and signs up again on 15 October, they’ve already paid for their membership until 17 October and wouldn’t be charged again until then.

• The process for refunding members doesn’t change. You can refund a member’s three most recent payments from Relationship Manager, as long as you have an account balance to cover the refunded amount. You can only refund a charge within 90 days of the original processing date. For annual pledges, you can initiate a partial refund up to a specific day.

• As happens today, members and customers earn merch after they complete a required number of consecutive payments to any tier that contains that merch item. If you add a merch item to a tier after a member has already joined, they earn a month towards an item for each month of membership they pay for after the item goes live.

  For example, if you add a merch item to a tier on 15th May, an existing member with a billing date of the 20th would make their eligible payments on 20th May and 20th June and earn the item with their third payment on 20th July. Learn more about merch eligibility.

• There are no changes to special offers. You can continue to run these as normal.

Creator Experience FAQ

• The Relationship Manager will continue to be the source of truth for member information. To identify whether a member is on subscription billing, enable the custom column Next Charge Date in Relationship Manager. This will help you identify benefit eligibility and appears as a column in the CSV download.

  Member bills on subscription billing renew on UTC (the global payments processing standard) instead of PT, like the other monthly billing models. The dates displayed in Relationship Manager are in your local time zone, which may be ahead or behind UTC by up to one day.

  

• Yes, you can continue using the API to deliver benefits as expected.

• You can get a list of members who paid during any period of time from your Relationship Manager. To get a list, click on Audience from the left navigation > click the Filters button > adjust the Last charge date time range.

  You can use the last charge date filter in combination with other filters such as New this month, Payment declined and Cancelled to communicate with specific groups of members. As an example, you could get a list of members who paid between 1st September 2022 and 30th September 2022 to send them their benefits.

• If you offer Discord access as a benefit, you’ll still be able to do so as expected. The Patreon-Discord bot runs every day and will sync members who join or lose access any day of the month. Eventually, subscription billing will lead to access changes spread more evenly throughout the month. Combined with the architectural improvements we’re making to the integration (across all billing models), creators who use Discord will soon see more accurate syncing and surfacing of errors as they occur.

• You can pause your membership in your Account Settings. Existing members will not be charged for one month starting from the day you pause. If new members join while your page is paused, they’ll be charged up front for immediate access to your content, but they won’t be charged again until billing resumes.

  If you resume billing within a month of when you paused, you won’t be able to go back and charge members whose billing date was skipped while you were paused. Learn more about pausing.

• Founding creators will still experience the same payment-processing fees with some reductions from shared members whose bills renew on the same date. In other words, if you have members who also sign up for other creators on the same date (and with the same payment method), all of those bills are processed in one transaction and you split the payment-processing fee with those creators.

  If your new members subscribe to other founding creators on different days of the month, which may be more common with subscription billing, each membership will be processed as a separate transaction with its own processing fee.

  Processing fees from shared members already being charged on the 1st of the month will still be split among that member’s creators who are on founder’s pricing. There is no change to your platform fee or fixed third-party payment processing rates. See more details on founder’s plan pricing.

• We know some creators’ setups would need more flexibility than benefit delivery tools currently provide, which is one reason why switching to subscription billing is optional.

  If you currently limit benefits to members who have paid by a certain date each month and want to switch to subscription billing, one way to do so is to deliver benefits to all members who are active at the time you’re processing benefits.

  Another way is to deliver benefits at the start of each month to any member who has paid throughout the previous month. For example, if you typically mail a sticker on the 5th of each month to members who have paid by the 1st, you can mail the sticker on 5 September to all members who had a successful payment in August. On 5 October you can mail the September sticker to all members who had a successful payment in September.

  For creators with more fixed delivery dates and workflows, we’ve been working to understand what updates could help them succeed on this model. One need we’ve heard frequently from creators is the ability to pull a list of members who paid between a custom date range, or who paid a certain number of times in a period of time. For example, creators who typically start their benefit delivery process on the 8th of each month might need to pull a list of members who paid between the 9th of last month and the 8th of this month. We are working to support this functionality in the coming months.

  We know some creators have concerns about how switching billing models may impact the way they run their business. You can learn more about what creators can expect when they switch and what’s coming soon for all creators on subscription billing by checking the Building subscription billing tools to power your fandom.