In this article, we'll walk you through changing how you charge your patrons, as well as which billing methods cannot be switched. In this article we'll go over:
Please note that while these examples below show a Dollar ($) amount, this can also show in any of our supported currencies, depending on the currency you choose to bill in. To learn more about our supported currencies, please visit this help center article: Patreon's supported currencies.
Change how I bill my patrons
| Charge up front is permanent – once you have enabled charge up front billing for your patrons, per creation will no longer be an available billing method to you. Learn more about the switch to charge up front billing, here.: How charge up front works |
We want you to have options – while you’ve started your membership with one charging method, you may find that it doesn’t work best for you and your patrons.
With great power, comes great responsibility – patrons are not notified when you change how you bill patrons, so we highly recommend communicating the switch with patrons beforehand. We also suggest making the change on the 1st of the month Pacific Standard Time.
Here is how to change how you charge patrons:
- While logged in to your account, navigate to your page editor by clicking Edit page. Here's a quick link to your editor: Edit creator about section
- Select Getting Paid from the top menu.
- In the "Payment schedule" section of the page, you can switch to Per creation or Monthly and save your changes. If you' don't have per creation as an option and instead it says "You are charging patrons up front" under Monthly, this means that you are charging patrons up front – charge up front is a permanent account setting, and cannot be changed.
Note: If you are switching to per creation, make sure to type in what you are creating (i.e. photo, song, video, episode, etc.)
Switch from per creation to monthly
We recommend waiting until the 1st of the month to make this switch – when you switch from per creation to monthly, any "paid posts" you have published will convert to regular posts, and those pending bills will be removed from patrons' accounts. If you have already made paid posts, wait until after the 1st of the next month to ensure that you get paid for those pending bills.
What happens to my patrons' monthly maxes?
Patrons' monthly maxes no longer take effect when you switch to monthly – monthly maxes are feature only for per creation memberships, to ensure that patrons can put a cap on their payment amounts. When you switch to a monthly billing cycle, your patrons will be billed their membership amount once on the 1st of each month. Posts can no longer be "paid," so any pending bills for paid posts are removed from patrons' accounts.
Tell patrons ahead of time! Patrons may want to increase their payment amount, or join a higher tier. Say they were at your $5.00 tier with a monthly max of 2 creations per month, they may want to increase to your $10.00 tier since they’ll only be charged $5.00 once after you make the switch.
If you decide to switch back to billing per creation, your patrons would automatically be given a monthly max of one. They would need to log in to their accounts in order to edit this if they would like it to be more.
Switch from monthly to per creation
Will patrons be charged for every paid post I make when I switch to per creation?
Patrons will have a default monthly max of 1 paid post, when you switch your page from monthly to per creation in the middle of the month.
Existing patrons would need to log in to their accounts in order to edit this if they would like to to increase their monthly max.
If you’re planning to change how you charge your patrons because you’ll be releasing more content, they may decide to pay more. Giving your patrons the scoop on why you are making the switch, will make them feel more involved. 
