This article is a general guide to joining and using our Autopilot feature. You can also check our Autopilot FAQ for additional information.
Autopilot overview
Autopilot is an easy and automatic way to give your fans promotional offerings to drive your growth on Patreon. The feature currently includes:
- Free member upgrade offer: Encourage free members to become paid members by offering them a one-time discount on their first month of membership
- Paid membership teaser campaign: Share a selection of your paid posts with free members to showcase what they’re missing out on
We plan to add more growth and promotional features to Autopilot over the coming months.
Free member upgrade offer
Availability
To enable free member upgrade offer, the following requirement must be met:
- Creators must be on Subscription billing
Autopilot gives you the option to set up upgrade offers to select free members and encourage them to become paid members. Patreon will send a one-time discount to your free members who seem likely to upgrade to a paid membership. Subsequent months will be at full price.
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot tab
- Select Set up to turn on free member upgrade offer
- In the Discount amount, you can either let Patreon optimize the offer for you by selecting Smart Discount, or you can Choose the discount amount
- Discount amount must be between 5% - 90%
- If you select Smart Discount, you can also check the Maximum Discount option to set a manual cap on the highest discount amount you want to offer
- Select which tiers you want to include in the discount offer
- Click Save
What free members see
Free members who receive an Autopilot offer will get the following email indicating how much of a discount they are receiving and how long until the offer expires.
Details on offers:
- Only free members who we think are likely to upgrade will receive a discount
- Discount will only apply to their first month of membership
- Free members will have 7 days since receiving the email to claim it
- Discounts can only be claimed once and are unique to the recipient
Paid membership teaser campaign (Beta testing)
With paid membership teaser campaign, you can give free members a preview of your paid content by sharing a selection of your paid posts. It’s an effective way to showcase the value of upgrading without creating new content.
Availability
To enable the paid membership teaser campaign, the following requirements must be met:
- Creators must have their work categorized as All Audiences
- Creators must be on Subscription billing
How to set up
Follow the instructions below on desktop or mobile web:
- From the Promotions tab, locate the Autopilot tab
- Select Set up to turn on Paid membership teaser campaign
- Click on Add posts to choose up to 5 posts to include
- Posts will be unlocked on different days to keep free members engaged
- Select the posts you want to offer and click on Update
- You can search for any posts you want by typing in the Search or by using the Filters
- You can search for any posts you want by typing in the Search or by using the Filters
- Click on Save
What your free members see
Once Paid membership teaser campaign is set up, free members who join after activation will receive teaser emails:
- The first email will be sent 24 hours after they join as a free member
- They will receive one email per day showcasing a different paid post from your selected content
Track Autopilot conversions
On the Autopilot tab, you’ll see a View Insights button at the top of the page. Clicking this will show you more metrics on how your offers are performing.
You will also be able to see which members have redeemed an Autopilot discount in their payment history. First, head to the Audience tab, click on a member, and anyone who has redeemed will have an “Autopilot discount applied” tag next to them. If the payment history extends beyond 3 months, you may have to click See all payment history.