How to direct message members

As a creator, you can easily send welcome notes, deliver benefits, and communicate essential updates directly to paid members, from your Relationship manager and the Patreon mobile app.

Conversations with paid members live in message threads — one thread for each member you message directly. Direct messages include member details, including the length of their membership, current membership amount, and lifetime paid.

Please note that member-to-member messaging isn’t currently possible — refer to our guide on How to message a creator if you’re a member.

How to direct message a paid member

• From your Relationships manager

  1. On Desktop, select Creator studio in the left-side navigation menu
  2. Click on Audience from the sub-menu
  3. You’ll land on your Relationship manager, where you can search for a paid member’s name or use the filters to pinpoint a particular member
     • It’s not currently possible to direct message free members from your Patreon
  4. Click the checkbox next to the member’s name to select them, then click the Message button at the top of the page. You can also click on the member’s name to bring up their member details and message them
  5. Type up your message and hit Enter or click the Send button
     • While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
  6. When you send a direct message, it creates a message thread where you can find your conversation with that member

  From your inbox

  1. Click Chats in the left navigation menu 
  2. You'll land on the Chats tab for Your Patreon, then click on New chat
  3. Select New direct messages
  4. You can search for an existing conversation or search for a paid member by their name to start a message thread
  5. Type your message and hit Enter or click the Send button
     • While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
• Please ensure your mobile app is updated to the latest version before following these steps:
  1. Tap Chat from the bottom menu
  2. You'll land on the Chats tab for Your Patreon, then tap on New chat
  3. Select New direct messages
  4. You can search for a paid member by their name to start a message thread
  5. When you're happy with your message, tap on Send

How to directly message multiple members

Instead of one message thread for your bulk message, you’ll see a thread created for each member who received the message. So, responses will be kept private. You can search by member name to easily find the right conversations.

Here’s how to send a message to multiple paid members:

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio in the left-side navigation menu
2. Click on Audience from the sub-menu
3. You'll land in your Relationship manager
4. You can use the statuses and filters at the top of your manager to generate a list of members you'd like to direct messages to
5. Type your message in the text field and click the Send button when you're happy with your message

Here are some examples of how you can use filters to communicate with large audiences strategically:

Direct message all active members in a tier: Leave the default Active status selected, then click Filters > select a specific Tier(s). You can message an entire tier to deliver benefits.

Direct message declined members: Click on the Declined button to get a list of all declined members. You can adjust the filters to set a specific date range for declined members

Direct messaging Commerce customers

If you are selling digital products with Patreon's Commerce, you can direct message customers on the Desktop by following these steps:

1. On Desktop, select Creator studio in the left-side navigation menu
2. Click on Audience from the sub-menu
3. Select the Sales tab from the top menu
4. Click the name of the customer you want to message, and this will open an Order details side panel
5. Select the Message button in front of the customer's name
6. Type your message and hit Enter or click the Send button
   • While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter

Managing your direct messages

All of your direct messages with members live in Your Patreon inbox. There you’ll find responses from your members and any new direct messages from fans who have reached out to you.

If you are also a member of other creators, you can access Your memberships inbox by clicking on Chats from the left-side navigation menu and selecting the appropriate tab. Then choose Direct messages to view any threads you've started with the other creator.

FAQ

• Not at the moment. You can share links with users, which is an option for sharing image sets with members. You can, however, send pictures in a Chat space. Learn more about Building Community with Chats.
• Yes, read the section above on bulk messaging to learn how.
• It isn't currently possible to delete direct messages.
• You can only directly message existing or former paid members on Patreon. So you can't send direct messages to free members directly through your Chats or Relationship manager. If you want to send a quick message to all of your fans, we recommend making a public post so everyone can see it.
• You can manually select members from your Relationship manager to direct message. Once you've selected the members, click the Message button.
• In 2021, we updated our messaging system to bring a better experience for creators and members. As part of that update, we stored users' messages dating back to 2019. Any messages dated before January 2019 were not migrated to our updated messaging system.