Commerce pricing, fees, and taxes

This article explains the price, fees, and taxes that may apply to your Commerce sales, depending on your jurisdiction.

Platform fee

We are currently testing a new feature with a select group of creators, allowing them to sell posts and collections as one-time purchases to anyone. This feature is part of your platform plan for memberships. For early access creators, when you sell a post or collection, a platform fee matching your platform plan (Founders, Pro, Premium) is applied to all successfully processed sales. For more information, visit our Selling Posts and Collections (Early Access) article.

The platform fee covers the use of Commerce and is a percentage of successfully processed sales. We calculate your platform fee based on the payment amount.

The platform fee on Commerce digital sales is 5% of successfully processed sales.

Processing fee

Payment processing fees cover the cost of using our payment infrastructure, and are applied to sales made on the web and Android app. This infrastructure includes:

• 24/7 fraud monitoring: Fraud gets caught before it hits your balance, so you never have to worry about it
• Recovering failed payments: Declined payments get chased down with smart retries and reminders for expired card
• Global currency conversion: Your pricing is automatically converted to your customers’ local currencies to facilitate international payments
• Streamlined checkout: A simple checkout experience and quick authorization process make it easy for you to earn directly from fan
• Multiple payment methods: A wide range of payment methods are accepted on Patreon, including PayPal, major credit cards, and Venmo
• Trusted payments provider: Patreon continuously meets the highest global certification and compliance standards to ensure your payments are secure

The table below shows the processing rates per successful transaction in our supported currencies:

Creator-to-creator membership payments

When a creator’s Patreon balance is used to cover a membership payment to another creator, Patreon’s payment processing fee is not applied. If a creator’s Patreon balance doesn’t cover the full amount of their membership payment, we’ll charge their payment method, and payment processing fees will apply. 

App Store fee

iOS in-app purchases for Commerce are currently accessible to fans in select countries and currencies. Visit our iOS in-app purchases: country & currency page for more information about where iOS in-app purchases are currently supported. Fans who are not located in a country where iOS in-app purchases for Commerce are available can still view products on the iOS app but are unable to purchase products on that platform.

Apple charges the App Store fee for processing product purchases on the Patreon iOS app through their in-app payment system. Apple takes 30% of the iOS sale price for products fans purchase on the iOS app. Patreon does not charge a payment processing fee on iOS transactions. Learn more about how iOS in-app purchases work and your options for pricing iOS products.

Currency conversion fee

Patreon applies a 2.5% currency conversion fee on all payments made in a currency other than your payout currency. This fee will be reversed on any payments that are refunded to customers. All fees will be reflected in your payout currency. Currency conversion fees and processing fees are both reflected in your Earnings dashboard under the Payment fees column. You can Export data for a breakdown of the currency conversion fee.

You will receive your portion of sales in your payout currency based on the average exchange rate from the day before the payment was successfully processed. This calculation is sometimes referred to as a “spot rate.”

Please note that if a customer pays you in your payout currency, then there is no currency conversion fee applied.

Taxes on fees

Patreon may have sales tax and VAT obligations related to the service fees it charges to its creators. This obligation usually depends on the local tax laws applicable to a creator’s jurisdiction.

With the launch of Commerce on the platform in June 2023, Patreon will start collecting applicable VAT/GST/Sales taxes on services provided to creators on a tax-exclusive basis; meaning, on the total transaction. The application of taxes on top of the creator fees will take place in phases, to allow Patreon and creators to ensure the best possible tax compliance.

Which fees are subject to tax?

As a general rule, where applicable, all fees will be subject to tax, unless an exemption or exception is found to be relevant in a particular location, for a particular fee, and/or for a particular scenario.

What information should be provided by creators to Patreon?

Application of tax and related tax compliance obligations will depend on your location and, often, in non-US locations, on your business status. For the best application of tax, we encourage you to add:

• Your location in your Patreon Page settings
• Your relevant VAT ID in the available box of the W8 form included in the Tax settings page

For information on how to add your VAT ID to your tax form and a list of relevant VAT IDs, please refer to our Help Center article Providing your VAT ID number. When you provide your VAT ID we suggest you review and confirm your business legal address in the same form, which will be our first point of reference for location details in the application of tax. Note also that we expect the VAT ID you share will match the location details provided.

Without a valid VAT ID, Patreon may need to charge VAT/GST to a non-US creator. VAT/GST thus charged may not be recoverable for a creator; please consult with your local tax advisor in this regard.

Visit our Taxes on creator fees article to learn more about where Patreon will apply taxes on fees and how it may affect you.

Payout fee

Your account balance reflects your earnings after platform fees, payment processing fees, currency conversion fees, and taxes on fees are deducted. Patreon deducts a payout transaction fee when your balance is transferred from your Patreon creator balance.

Pending funds

Funds from products purchased from Web and Android will appear as pending for up to 7 days before they can be withdrawn from your balance. Funds from product sales from iOS in-app purchases will remain pending for up to 75 days before they will be available for payout to account for the time Apple requires to process and confirm the funds.

As soon as funds are available in your balance, you may pay them out immediately, wait for an automatic 5th-of-the-month payout (if enabled), or leave funds in your account balance

Your payout fee is not listed in the breakdown of fees within your creator earnings dashboard; however, you may find the payout fee for your payout method and currency of choice in the tables below.

Payout fees for creators paying out in US Dollars ($):

* Payoneer global bank transfer is a legacy feature only available to creators that connected a Payoneer account prior to December 19, 2018. If your Payoneer account is currently using global bank transfer and you would like to update to the Payoneer account or prepaid MasterCard to take advantage of the lower payout fees and flexibility, click Manage Payoneer Account under Payout Method on the Payout settings. 

Payout fees for creators by currency (non-USD):

The payout fees listed above do not include any fees charged by the payment processor associated with converting USD to your native currency. Payment processors may also change their fees at any time without notice.

FAQ

• We are required by law to apply sales tax to purchases made in certain jurisdictions. You can see a breakdown of where we’re collecting sales tax from customers and what those tax rates are here.

• In some locations, you may be exempt from paying indirect taxes on fees if you have a registered VAT ID. Learn more about whether this applies to you and how to provide your VAT ID in the section above.

• To help protect creators and customers from potential fraud, payments from Commerce sales will appear as pending. We work to get funds processed to creators as quickly as possible while also ensuring that they aren’t faced with higher-than-usual rates of potentially fraudulent sales.

• You can see a monthly breakdown of fees and taxes applied to your product transactions in your Earnings dashboard.

  Your Earnings dashboard will default to a view of all your membership payments and Commerce sales combined. Click on the All earnings dropdown and select Shop from the menu to view earnings specific to Commerce. Payment processing fees and taxes on fees will be included under the Payment Fees column.

  You can also access this information by downloading the Earnings breakdown by month report on your Payouts documents tab.