This article will cover possible reasons why the amount you earned is less than you anticipated or why the amount you withdrew is more or less than what you earned.
Fees may be missing from your estimation
There are a few different fees that are deducted from successful payments we process. You can find a breakdown of fees from your overall monthly earnings in your Earnings Insights. You can download a CSV of a per transaction fee breakdown by visiting the Documents tab of your payouts page. Below are the fees that you can expect to see when we process your payments:
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Platform fee: The platform fee covers the use of Patreon and our products. Your platform fee is a percentage of successfully processed sales. We calculate your platform fee based on the payment amount
- Commerce: 5% of successfully processed payments
- Membership: 5%, 8%, or 12%, depending on your platform plan. Learn more about Patreon pricing
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Payment processing fees: This is the cost of processing members’ payments and customers’ purchases through your Shop
- Membership payments processing fees: Your membership payment processing rate depends on your platform plan, any applicable currency conversion fees, and applicable sales tax or VAT
- Commerce payment processing fees: Processing rates on product sales through Commerce depend on the customer’s currency. Visit our Commerce processing fees guide to learn more
- Currency conversion fee: We apply a currency conversion fee of 2.5% on the total amount processed (including sales tax) on all patron payments made in a currency other than your payout currency
- Taxes on fees: 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. Learn more about taxes on fees
- Sales tax/VAT: Patreon is required by law to add sales tax/VAT to some member payments this amount is added on top of your tier or digital item price, so it does not impact your estimated earnings
- Payout fee: Patreon deducts a payout transaction fee when your balance is transferred from your Patreon creator balance
Pending balance
If you sell digital products, your payments will be pending for up to 7 days before they will be available to withdraw. If a member uses SoFi direct deposit to pay you, the transaction may appear as pending for up to 7 days until the funds are successfully debited to your account.
Declined membership payments
Another cause is if some of your members’ payments declined. These are payments that Patreon attempted to process, but failed. In your Relationship manager, you can check if any member’s payments were declined. Visit our declined payments resource to learn more about failed payments
Your Merch cost has been deducted from your balance
If you use Patreon for Merch fulfillment, the cost of the merchandise itself (based on the quantity and SKUs of the associated items) and shipping will usually be deducted from your balance on the 4th of each month. This may impact your balance if you are enrolled in automatic 5th-of-the-month payouts, so you may see a decrease in the amount you receive from the amount that was available to withdraw
You may have memberships with other creators
If you have a paid membership to other creators, we'll subtract your pledge from your creator payout. This prevents unnecessary additional fees, and your card or PayPal account will be billed less or not at all.
Also, the number listed on your public page is an estimate and is not an accurate representation of what you may actually earn. You can learn more about this here: Understand the numbers listed on my creator page
