This article answers frequently asked questions about Community Chats. If you're ready to start your first chat space, visit our Community Chats page for step-by-step guides on managing your chats.
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You can create up to 10 chat spaces, customizing them by name, topic, emoji, and they can even be locked by different membership options (tiers).
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When you create a chat, you can control which members can access it. Choose between giving access to All members (free and paid), all paying members, or Selecting a specific membership(s).
If a member switches to a different membership option than the one they are currently in, this might mean losing access/gaining access to some or all chats, depending on what chats are part of their new membership — Access to chats is based on the membership options you select for each chat.
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You can share photos directly from your device by tapping/clicking the photo icon
when sending a message.
At this moment, it is not possible to share videos directly from your device through chats, but you can share video links with members instead. If the link is from a Patreon post, the message will generate a preview of the content.
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Here is how you can see a list of members that are active in a chat:
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Tap the chat name, which will take you to that chat’s settings — You’ll find a list of members who joined that chat. Tapping on a member’s picture will take you to that member's profile.
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Tap View details below the chat name. You’ll find a list of members who joined that chat on the right-hand side. Clicking on a member’s picture will take you to that member's profile.
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If members cancel their membership, they will lose access to any chats they joined. When they lose access will depend on the billing model you chose for your Patreon:
- If they cancel a monthly (non-charge upfront) or per-creation membership, members will immediately lose access to the chats
- If they cancel a charge upfront or subscription billing membership, access to chats will be revoked at the end of the member’s final billing cycle
- When they cancel an annual membership, access to chats will be revoked when the member’s yearly membership ends
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The only way to remove a member from a chat is to block them. Blocking a member will remove their membership from you and, consequently, remove them from any chats they have access to as part of their membership.
If you don’t want to block a member from the chat and your Patreon, you can temporarily mute them for 24 hours at a time. Both creators and designated moderators can mute a member if they need a warning period before they can reenter the conversation.
Learn more about muting members.
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Patreon’s Community Guidelines act as the guardrails detailing the sorts of behaviors that are permitted and prohibited on Patreon. There are also guidelines specifically designed for community chats, which members are presented with any time they choose to join a chat. We encourage you to review, uphold, and enforce both sets of guidelines to keep your community safe.
Your members can report messages that they believe are violating these guidelines. Once you create a chat space, you can access a Moderation Hub that allows you to choose whether you would like to keep or delete these reported messages. You’ll also be able to temporarily mute members if you want to issue a warning about chat behavior without blocking the member.
Learn more about your Moderation Hub in this Help Center article.
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If you are on the Premium Plan and have a team account, your teammates can help you moderate your chats by
- Sending messages as the creator
- Sending reactions as the creator
- Deleting messages, as needed
We recommend adding trusted teammates as moderators to help maintain the intention and safety of your community space by taking action on your behalf and being a consistent presence to guide the conversation.
Once you add a teammate as a trusted moderator, they will automatically be able to access the Moderation Hub, and they will show up with a moderator tag on their profile. They will have all the access and capabilities of a moderator. You can find more detailed information about moderator capabilities here.
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Fans are currently notified when the creator sends a message to the chat.
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We will continue to support Discord and believe creators should have the flexibility and control to decide what works best for them.
We have found that some creators use both Discord and Patreon chats as part of their offerings in various ways. For example, some creators offer Discord to all users and Patreon community chats to fans of a higher tier. Other creators offer both equally, knowing that some fans prefer all that Discord offers while others prefer the simplicity and easy access of Patreon community chats.
We’ve also seen creators move their community from Discord over to Patreon community chats completely.
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Yes! When you create a new chat space, access to the chat will default to All Members, which includes both free and paid members. You can also edit the access for an existing chat to include free members by
editing the chat settings to make it accessible to All members.
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We are currently testing this with participating creators and will be working on expanding access over the next few months. Learn more about media stickers in this blog post.
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18+ creators who have gone through ID Verification can create and use community chats with their fans.
Certain features will not be available to 18+ creators, including:
- the ability to add free members to chat
- media stickers which are currently in testing
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Video Stickers with chats is a feature we are currently testing with a small group of Android users and will roll out to more creators throughout the year.
Creators with access to Video Stickers can now react to member chat messages by recording a short video and attaching it directly as a reply to the original message.
If you have access to this feature, here’s where you can learn more about Video Stickers.
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Yes! If you need to warn a chat member and want to avoid outright blocking them from your Patreon, you may temporarily mute a member for 24 hours. During this time, a muted member will see a message saying that they’ve been muted along with the time left until they can message again. During the muted period, a muted member won’t be able to message, or thread within the chat or emoji react to existing messages.