This article will cover how to refund a current or former patron who has had at least one payment to you. It will cover how in order to issue a refund you need to have funds in your account balance and also how refunds work overall at Patreon. It will also go over how to refund annual patrons.
Please note that while these examples below show a US 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.
Here’s what we’ll go through, but feel free to skip ahead:
How refunds work at Patreon
- You can issue refunds from Patreon if you have available funds to cover the refund in your Patreon balance. You can refund any of a patron's 3 most recent bills in full, as long as they've processed within the past 3 months.
- If you do not have funds available in your Patreon balance to cover the refund request, the refund will need to be processed outside of Patreon
- Most banks won't process requested refunds beyond 3 months of the original transaction. If you need to refund a patron's bill that is older than the 3 bill, or 3 month mark, you'll need to do so outside of Patreon.
How to issue refunds on Patreon
Step 1: Visit your Relationship Manager.
Step 2: Search for individual patrons by name, or use the filters to create lists of patrons to refund:
Step 3: Select which patron to refund and scroll down to their payment history at the bottom, right-hand side of the page. Click the "refund" button next to the bill you’d like to refund:
Note: At the moment you can only issue full refunds from your Patreon balance. Partial refunds have to be issued outside of Patreon.
Step 5: When you reload the page, their status will update from “Paid” to “Refunded.” And the option to refund that bill will no longer be available.
We send the patron an email confirmation – they can expect the refund to go back to the original payment method within 2-7 business days. If the patron does not receive it after a week, confirm that they haven’t disputed the charge offsite with their payment provider.
Important note: Refunding the current month's payment will not revoke a patron's access to your patron-only posts.
Review all refunds deducted from your balance
You sure can– there are two places where you’ll find a history of refunds that have been issued from your Patreon balance:
The Refunded filter of the PRM
Select “Refunded” from the Charge Status drop-down filter. Selecting Membership types, and adding Reward Tiers can help you locate groups of patrons you may have refunded.
Need to download a list for your records? You can download a CSV file of your refunds by clicking the CSV option in your Relationship Manager.
The Refunds section of the Dashboard
You’ll find a chronological list of all refunds that have been processed from your Patreon balance in the Refunds section of your Dashboard. You can click the download refunds as .CSV button to download a CSV file 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 tool tips for more information about the amounts listed.
Refunding annual patrons (Annual memberships beta only)
If you are offering patrons Annual memberships you have the option to either fully or partially refund a patrons payment to you. Below are the steps to refund an annual patron:
- Head to your Relationship Manager.
- Locate the patron requesting a refund.
- Click on their name in your patron list view. Your patrons information will populate on the right-hand side.
- Click the more button and then click refund or scroll down to the “payment history” section and click the refund option there.
- Select the charge you’d like to refund in the pop-up window.
- Choose the option to issue a full or a refund for the remainder of the patron’s pledge amount (a partial refund).
- Confirm by clicking the refund button.
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Once issued, it can take 5 - 7 business days for the refund to go back to the patron’s original payment method.
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What do I need to know about issuing annual membership refunds?
- You have two options for refunding annual patrons: a full refund or the remainder of the pledged amount (a partial refund).
- Patrons who receive a partial refund will lose access to your patron-only content and benefits after their last month of membership (the month that you initiate the refund).
- Once a patron is refunded, they can rejoin, and they will be charged their new membership amount immediately to unlock access to that tier.
