How to pause billing for your members

This article is intended for creators who offer paid tiers. Whether you’re taking a well-deserved break or had an unexpected delay in delivering benefits, you can put a pause on billing your members for a month at a time. Keep reading to learn more about how to pause and what your paid members can expect.

How do I pause membership billing?

• While logged in, click on the Settings link from the left navigation
• Click on the Billing and payouts tab
  • If you’re not seeing this option, click on your profile name in the bottom left corner > click on your creator profile > start at step 1
• Click the Pause billing cycle button
• Click the Confirm button to pause the current billing cycle

We’ll display a yellow banner on your account settings page, letting you know that we have paused your billing. A similar message will let members know that they won’t get billed.

Enjoy your break — when you’re ready to come back, we’ll be here!

Considerations for pausing membership billing

• For creators using Upfront Billing:
  • New paid members who join a tier will still be charged when they sign up, even if billing is paused. Their first payment grants access to your backlog
  • Members upgrading their tier will also be charged immediately to unlock upgraded membership benefits
• For creators using Subscription Billing:

  • New members who join while your page is paused will be charged upfront. This allows creators to continue earning from new members during a billing pause while granting them immediate access to posts, work, and community

    • Example: If you pause billing in December, new members who join during that month will still be charged upfront and gain full access to your content

  • New members are only charged when they first join. They won’t be charged again unless billing is resumed. The pause only stops renewals for existing members

• Impact on billing dates and charges:

  • Pausing billing prevents members from being charged but does not change their billing date

  • Once a billing cycle has been paused, you cannot retroactively charge members for any paused period

• For Creators with Digital Shops (Commerce):
  • Pausing membership billing does not affect your Shop. Customers can still access and purchase digital products
• Member Access During a Pause:
  • Members retain access to your Patreon and all posts while billing is paused. Your Patreon remains live, but existing paid members are not billed for the pause month
• Pausing Multiple Months:
  • To pause multiple consecutive months, you’ll need to log in after the current pause month ends and request to pause again
  • For subscription billing creators, this depends on your pause date. Example: If you pause on March 10, you’ll need to log in after April 10 to pause again
  • For monthly billing, you can log in after the pause ends (after the 1st of the next month) to request another pause
• Resuming Billing:
  • You can choose to resume billing at any time before your pause month ends

How do I resume membership billing?

If you are charging monthly (non-upfront) or upfront, automatic billing resumes after 1 billing cycle (i.e., the 2nd of the following month).

If you are on a subscription billing model, existing members will not be charged for 1 month starting from the day you pause. Billing automatically resumes on/around the same calendar day the following month. (i.e., if you pause on the 5th of July, billing will resume on the 5th of August).

If you paused but decide to un-pause it within the same month, here’s how you can do that:

1. While logged in, click on the Settings link from the left navigation
2. Click on the Billing and payouts tab
   • If you’re not seeing this option, click on your profile name in the bottom left corner > click on your creator profile > start at step 1
3. Click the Resume (this month) Billing button
4. Click the Confirm button

We recommend letting members know that you’ll be pausing billing for one month. You can do this with a post or by sending a bulk direct message through your Relationship manager.

Frequently asked questions

• If you resume billing before your scheduled pause end date, there’s a chance that billing for some members may still be skipped. This edge case may apply to members who joined using iOS in-app purchases.

  Here’s how it works:

  • Three days before a member’s billing date, we notify Apple to pause the upcoming payment
  • If you resume billing (unpause) within this three-day window, Apple cannot reverse the pause request, and the member’s payment will still be skipped
  • This edge case may result in billing still being skipped for members who’s billing dates falls within the three days following the date you resume billing early

  Example Scenario:

  • You pause billing on October 15, with the pause set to end on November 15
  • On November 5, you decide to resume billing early
  • For a member whose billing date is November 6 and who signed up with iOS in-app purchases, their next payment will be skipped. Their billing will resume on December 6 instead

  To avoid skipped payments for members who signed up with iOS in-app purchases, we recommend letting the pause expire naturally or planning your unpause date to avoid overlap with the three-day pre-billing window.
  
  For additional questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to Patreon Product Support.

• We won’t process payments for existing paid members when you pause your membership billing.

  If you are on the subscription billing model, new members who join while your page is paused will still be charged upfront, giving them immediate access to your content. However, they won’t be charged again until billing resumes. You can learn more about this in the Subscription billing FAQ.

  For charge upfront billing model, new members will also pay when they join for access to your catalog of work, and members upgrading their membership will be charged immediately to unlock upgraded benefits.

  If you’d like to prevent any earnings or membership changes from happening while you’re paused, you can also set a cap on the number of members you’ll allow in each tier and set the limit to the current member count in each tier. Alternatively, you can unpublish your tiers until you’re ready to accept new members in that tier again. While prospective members could still join with the “No tier/Custom” option, you won’t be obligated to fulfill benefits related to your tiers.

  Here’s how to unpublish a tier:

  1. Navigate to your Membership tiers page, and click the Edit button for the tier you’d like to unpublish
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click the Show more tier options "..." button
  3. Click the Unpublish tier button. Your tier will still be editable, but it won’t populate on your page for fans to choose from

• Patreon’s pausing feature allows you to skip 1 billing cycle. You can continue to enable our pause feature; however, you’ll need to log in each month to re-enable it.

• Once you’ve paused billing, we’re unable to charge your members retroactively.

• If you are taking an indefinite break, you have 2 options:

  1. You can manually pause billing after each billing cycle has been skipped
  2. Or, you can unpublish your creator page. Unpublishing lets you take a break without the worry of needing to re-pause or billing new members if you charge upfront
     • Members who joined using iOS in-app purchsases will have their membership automatically canceled if you unpublish your page. This occurs due to limitations in how iOS handles subscriptions, as it does not support extended or indefinite paused billing periods

  Important: If you unpublish your creator page and later republish it, you’ll be subject to Patreon’s current pricing at the time you republish.

  Learn more about publishing your page here: Unpublish my creator page

• Starting from the day you pause your membership billing, existing paid members will not be charged for one month. Billing will automatically resume on/around the same calendar day the following month.

  Billing pauses will only prevent members from being charged. Charge dates are not affected by pausing. When the pause ends, members’ normal billing schedule resumes.

  When new members join while your page is paused, they’ll be charged upfront for immediate access to your content. They won’t be charged again until billing resumes.

  If you resume billing within a month of when you paused, you won’t be able to go back and charge members whose billing date was skipped while you were paused.

• Our pause feature works nearly the same; you can pause 1 billing cycle/month at a time. Billing will automatically resume for the next billing cycle. The difference with non-charge upfront billing is that you won’t need to worry about new members getting charged when they join your Patreon signup since new members aren’t charged when they join.

• If you are on the subscription billing model and you pause billing, annual members’ memberships extend by one month.

  For example, say a member has an annual subscription set to end on November 1st, 2025. If you pause your billing cycle in August 2025, their membership will extend by one month and will now ends on December 1st, 2025.

  If you are on a Legacy billing model (monthly and/or charge upfront) and manually resumed billing during a paused month, the extension is retroactively removed.

  For example, say a member has an annual subscription set to end on November 1st, 2025. If you pause your billing cycle in August 2025, their membership will not extend by 1 month and ends on November 1st, 2025 as expected.

• Our pause feature isn’t available with our per creation billing option because per creation creators can simply stop publishing paid posts to put a pause on their membership billing.

• Yes! You can still post content even if you’ve paused billing. Members can still access your page and posts during a paused billing cycle. Additionally, you and your members can still interact via comments and direct messages.