Creators are now required to combine profiles
As part of Patreon's Network Discovery updates, creators and members will gradually see a more unified experience across Patreon. That means some steps in this article may look different depending on whether your accounts are already combined.
If you created your Patreon account recently, you may already have a single profile. If you don't see a prompt to combine, this doesn't apply to you.
Who does this apply to
- Creators (including creators who are also members and support other creators): Combining accounts creates a single identity for both creating and membership activities. You can combine your accounts now through July 6, 2026 (previously June 30, 2026). Starting on July 6, 2026, combining will be required
- Members-only (no creator page): You may notice navigation updates as these changes roll out. Once the creators you support join the network, you'll also get access to a new feed. No action is needed from your side
What may look different for creators after combining profiles
- One identity: Your name and profile image are the same everywhere, whether you're creating or interacting as a member
- One inbox: Notifications and messages are unified in a single place
- Updated navigation on desktop and mobile: You may see updated labels and entry points that reflect a single, combined experience, including fewer profile-switching steps
Learn what's changing and how to get started in our article about combining your creator and member profiles into a single identity.
Patreon is now a space for you to connect directly with your full community, whether they pay or not. Welcoming fans for free fosters organic community growth, gives guaranteed reach to more of your fans, and helps you retain members who stay connected as free members rather than canceling.
Fans can seamlessly join for free without needing to create or remember yet another password, receive posts you publish for everyone, and can easily upgrade to paid options at any time. You’ll see free members’ information in Audience Relationship manager and Insights, so you can track your community growth and conversion, and can message these members outside of Patreon.
You can determine how prominently this option is shown on your page and how much access free members get to your community with comment controls.
Keep reading to learn everything you need to know.
How does free work?
Your most engaged fans get to be a part of your community, even if they aren’t ready to commit to a paid membership. Fans will see the option to Join for free when they visit your Patreon. If fans don’t have an account, they only need to enter their name and email address to sign up, and existing users will be prompted to sign in. And that’s it — they’re in; there’s no need to create or remember another password!
To engage with free members, you can create posts for Free members only, make Public posts, or post for All members. Creators have shared everything from monthly newsletters to episode transcripts, livestreams, and freebies. You’ll see free members’ details in your Audience Relationship manager and get a view of your overall community growth in Insights.
What do members get when they join for free?
- Access to posts made for 'All members', Free members only', and 'Public' delivered to their email inboxes and the Patreon desktop and mobile web app, so they can stay updated on your work
- Notifications via email, desktop, and mobile app when new posts they have access to are published
- Members can easily upgrade to a paid membership whenever they view your Patreon and posts
- Comment access to posts any posts they have access to (if enabled in your settings)
Benefits of welcoming fans for free
Community growth
More engaged fans connecting on Patreon means you can more easily convert them to paying members over time. Creators have seen a nearly 3x increase in the growth of their communities without a decrease in earnings.
Guaranteed reach to more of your fans
When you share something on Patreon, you know members will see it in their inboxes, the app, and on the web. Your work isn’t blocked or buried by an algorithm.
Better member retention
Paid members who cancel will see the option to stay connected as free members, so you can maintain these relationships. 80% of paid members who cancel opt to stay connected as free members, making it easy to win them back in the future.
Seamless sign-up for fans
If fans aren’t already logged in, they’ll be prompted to log in or sign up. Fans who don’t have an account yet can create an account with passwordless sign-up by simply entering their name and email address. Whenever they log in, we’ll send them an email with a code to access their account.
Learn more about passwordless login.
Want to convert free members into paid? Check out “Turn Free Members Into Paying Fans” on Patreon for Creators. Currently, Patreon for Creators is only available in English.
You can decide how your free option appears to visitors to your Patreon
Free and paid offerings displayed
Creators whose Patreon is for all audiences will have free and paid options shown to fans by default. When free and paid options are enabled, people will see the button to Join for free directly under your header, with your paid options listed below. We’ll continue experimenting with the layout and copy of the join button to see how we can improve overall membership growth.
You can decide whether you’d like your free option prominently placed on your Patreon or subtly placed in the menu “…” from your Page settings.
Paid options are prominently displayed
The following creators will have only their paid options prominently displayed on their Patreon by default:
- Creators who haven’t set up paid membership tiers, but are earning through custom payments: People who visit your Patreon will see the button to Become a member, and will be directed to the checkout page
- Creators whose Patreon is categorized as 18+: For most creators whose Patreon is categorized as 18+, fans will see the "Become a member" button prominently displayed on your page, along with your paid offerings listed below. You can check your Page settings to see if the option to display your free offerings instead is available
If your Patreon is suitable for all audiences, you can change your Page settings to show paid options only.
When only paid options are prominently placed on your Patreon, fans can still join for free if they click the more actions “…” menu.
Comment settings
You can control which members get comment access and control the degree of comment filtering applied to comments added by free members (if enabled).
Comment access
You can adjust comment access for your posts from your Page settings to one of the following:
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Allow comments: Members can comment on posts they can see. This means that if you post for Paid members only, only paid members can comment on that post. If you post for Free members only, only free members can comment. And if you post for All members, all your members, free and paid, will be able to comment
- Public posts toggle: Enabling this option restricts comments to paid members only on your public posts (Public). Free members and non-members won't be able to comment on those posts.
- Don’t allow comments: Hides the comment section for all your existing and new posts. Both free and paid members will see a message letting them know that comments have been disabled
If you allow comments on your posts, you can choose to disable comments on a post-by-post basis from the post editor.
Learn more about comment access.
Comment filtering
You can automatically hide comments made by free members that don’t meet our Community Guidelines or are potentially harmful to your community.
Comment filtering is enabled by default for creators who select Allow Comments, and you can adjust the level of filtering you’d like for your post comments from your Page settings to one of the following:
- Off: All comments made by members will be shown
- Low: We will filter out harmful and spammy comments for you, but you may still see some on your posts
- Default: We will filter out harmful and spammy comments for you, and there is a chance that some comments are mistakenly hidden or left up
Hidden comments are visible to the commenter and can be accessed by the creator; however, other members will not see the comment.
Learn more about comment filtering.
If a member’s comment violates Patreon’s Community Guidelines, you can report them by clicking the “...” button and selecting Report this content. Please include in the report as much evidence as possible (e.g. screenshots, URLs, etc.). Thank you for helping to keep our community safe.
Powerful insights to power your growth
Free members are included in your Insights dashboards. You can filter by free and paid members for detailed information about your member growth over the past 30 days, past 6 months, past year, and all time. You can analyze all active free members, new free members, and recently canceled members who had joined for free.
- Timeline graph: Review active, new, and canceled free members over the past 30 days, the past year, and all-time
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Tier changes: Analyze which paid tiers members are upgrading to and which paid tiers members are leaving
- Members who stay connected as free members instead of canceling will appear as “downgrades” in the tier change numbers
- Membership summary: this summary includes your total members count, including free and paid members
- Members by charge frequency: this count is specific to paid members
The Insights dashboard is updated every 4 hours.
Followers are migrated to free members
Your existing followers will become free members and be included in your free member count. If you had a large follower count, you might see a one-time spike in free members when you gained access to the feature (for many, October 2023).
Since followers weren’t asked to share their email addresses when they first followed you, their email addresses will not be available in the Audience Relationship manager when we convert them to free members.
FAQ
- We believe creators deserve full ownership of the relationships they’ve built with their fans. This means being able to directly and reliably reach the people you want to share your work with, at all times–which just isn’t possible on ad-supported platforms. Creators could previously only do that on Patreon with paying fans, but now they’re able to connect with any fan.
- Creators saw a nearly 3x increase in the growth of their communities, without a decrease in new paid member growth. So the data indicates that your new free members are almost all people who otherwise would have left your page without joining a paid tier. Now you have the opportunity to stay connected with them, and perhaps upsell them to paid over time.
- Community growth: More engaged fans connecting on Patreon means you can more easily convert them to paying members. Creators have seen a nearly 3x increase in the growth of their communities, without a decrease in earnings
- Guaranteed reach to more of your fans: When you share something on Patreon, you know members will see it in their inboxes, the app, and on the web
- Better member retention: Paid members who cancel will see the option to stay connected as free members, so you can maintain these relationships. 80% of paid members who cancel opt to stay connected as free members
- Build your mailing list: When fans join for free, they share their email address with you so you will always own that relationship, even outside of Patreon
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We’re constantly exploring ways to help creators grow their communities. We’ve seen the free option give creators access to a larger engaged audience that they can turn into paying members over time. Creators have seen a nearly 3x increase in the growth of their communities, without a decrease in earnings. And 80% of paid members who cancel choose to stay connected for free. We want all creators to benefit from this growth and improved retention, and we’ll be continuing to test and improve how new visitors navigate and join creators’ communities.
However, we know not every creator is the same. If you don’t want to feature the free option on your page, we’ve given creators control over that visibility in page settings.
- Unlike with followers, you see your free members’ details in your Audience Relationship manager. You get powerful insights into your free member growth in your insights dashboard. Nothing is changing for followers who become free members — Free members get email updates straight to their inbox, so they can stay up-to-date with your announcements and content.
- To get a list of your current Free members, click on Audience from the left navigation. If you’re not seeing the Audience link, you can click on your profile image in the bottom left corner and select your creator profile. You’ll land on your Relationship manager, where you can click on the Free member quick filter to get a list of current free members.
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You can enable Show paid options only, which will de-emphasize the Join for free button from your Patreon. Fans will instead see a button to Become a member, which will lead to your paid options.
Fans can still access the option to join for free from the more options “…” button on your Patreon. Paid members will also see the option to become a free member if they go through the cancellation flow.