How do I refund my patron?

Let’s go over the process for issuing refunds for payments made to you on Patreon. You can refund current and former patrons who have had at least one payment process to you.

Here’s what we’ll cover, but feel free to skip ahead: 

• How refunds work at Patreon
• How to issue refunds
• Review all refunds deducted from your balance
• Refunding annual patrons

How refunds work at Patreon

• Patreon won’t refund patrons on a creator’s behalf. That said, there are exceptional circumstances that may warrant a Patreon-initiated refund. This includes the rare occasion of a refund for fraud, or billing system errors. 
• 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, within 3 months of their process date.
• If you don’t have funds available in your Patreon balance to cover the refund request, the refund will need to be processed outside of Patreon — there’s currently not a way to fund or add money to your creator balance to complete refunds.
• 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 their 3 recent bills, or 3-month mark, you'll need to do so outside of Patreon. 

How to issue refunds on Patreon

1. Log in to your Patreon creator account 
2. Click on Patrons from the creator menu
3. Select Relationship Manager from the menu list  
4. Search for individual patrons by name, or use the filters to create lists of patrons you’d like to refund
5. Select the patron to refund and scroll down to their payment history at the bottom, right-hand side of the page 
6. Click the Refund button next to the bill you’d like to refund
7. Review the date, or supported post before confirming your refund with the Refund button. Please note that refunds are not reversible

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 10 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.

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. 

Refunding annual patrons

If you offer Annual memberships you can issue a full or partial refund of a patron’s payment to you. 

To refund an annual patron:

1. Log in to your creator account 
2. Click on Patrons from the creator menu and then select Relationship Manager
3. Locate the annual patron requesting a refund
4. Click on their name in your patron list view. Your patron’s information will populate on the right-hand side
5. Click the More button and then click 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 patron’s pledge amount
7. Confirm by clicking the Refund button

Once issued, it can take 10 business days for the refund to go back to the patron’s original payment method.

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 full refund will lose access to your patron-only content and benefits as soon as they are refunded. By being refunded, a patron is essentially ending their membership term
• 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 issue the refund)
• Once a patron is refunded, they can rejoin, and they will be charged their new membership amount and terms immediately to unlock access