Gifting complimentary memberships to fans is a great way to expand your community, thank loyal fans who aren’t yet members, entice fans to try out Patreon before committing, or thank collaborators. This feature is available for all creators who are on subscription billing.
This article covers how creators can gift complimentary memberships to fans. For resources on how fans can gift memberships to other fans, see this article.
Key things to know about gifting
- Gifting is currently available to all creators who are on subscription billing
- You can gift between 1-12 months of membership to up to 1000 people per link (or any lower cap you set). If you offer annual memberships, gifts of 1 year of membership will be at the discounted annual membership price
- You can gift published tiers with no tier limits
- Currently, only fans who don’t already have an active paid membership can redeem a gift. This includes free members and canceled members. Existing paid members (including those on a free trial) are not eligible to redeem a gift
- Fans can redeem their gift on desktop or mobile web. Mobile app redemption is not yet available
How gifting works
As a creator, you can gift between 1-12 months of complimentary membership to fans who aren’t active members. This includes new fans, free members, or canceled members. Each gift link can be redeemed by up to 1000 fans or fewer, depending on the limit you set.
Who can create a gift?
- You are using subscription billing. Visit your Billing settings to check your billing type
- If you create 18+ content, you’ll have to complete Age Verification. Learn more about the Age Verification process here
- You have a published paid tier that doesn’t have limited spots
Creating a gift
Follow these steps on your creator profile while using desktop or mobile web. You can check which profile you’re on by clicking your profile picture in the bottom left corner and selecting your creator profile
- Click on the Promotions page from the left menu
- Click on the Gifts tab from the top menu
- Click on the Add a gift button if it’s the first time you’re creating a gift, or click on the +Add button at the top right of the page if you have existing gifts
- Enter the following fields:
- Title: Name your campaign for your own reference. This isn’t shown publicly
- Tier: Decide which tier you’d like to gift. (Note unpublished tiers and tiers with limited spots are currently unavailable to gift)
- Length: Choose between 1 – 12 months
- Redemption limits: Up to 1000 people can claim a gift for each link
- Start/end date: You must have a start date, which can be scheduled in the future. The end date is optional. If you choose to set one, the gift can no longer be redeemed after your specified date
- After you create the gift link, you can share it by selecting the copy icon in the table view of all gifts or clicking on the three dots … and selecting Share gift link
Managing gifts
Editing gifts
You can edit existing gifts at any time by navigating to your Gifts tab, clicking on the three dots ... and selecting Edit.
If your gift link has not gone live yet, you can edit the following fields:
- Title
- Personalized message
- Promotion end date
If your gift link is already active, you can edit the following fields:
- Title
- Length
- How many people can claim
- Personalized message
- Promotion start and end date
- To immediately end a gift redemption period, just edit the end date to a date in the past.
Seeing fans who have redeemed a gift
Under the Gift tab in your Promotions page, you can see who redeemed a gift, and when their gift period expires.
You can find more information in your Audience Relationship manager, where you can see the following details:
- Which members have redeemed a gift and are actively in their gifted membership period. To see this, select the Gifted by you filter. Members who are actively in a gifted membership will also have a gift box icon next to their Current Tier.
- A member’s history of gift redemption even if they’ve upgraded to a paid membership or have canceled. To see this, click on their profile from your Relationship manager
Insights about gift redemption
You can find insights about gift redemption under the Gift tab in your Promotions page. Click on a gift link to see the number of redemptions, and the number of gifted members who stayed on as paying members after their gift period ended.
In your Insights section, gifted members will be counted as paid members for the duration of their gift period.
How fans can redeem your gift
Fans can follow the gift link you share to redeem your gift. If they don’t have an account yet, they’ll be prompted to sign up before redeeming their gift. At redemption, they can opt out of staying connected as a free member after their gift period ends.
Fans who are redeeming a gift from creators of 18+ content must confirm they are over 18 years of age to access the page.
Fans can convert their gift into a paid membership
Fans can continue to receive access to paid benefits by converting their gift into a paid membership. They can do this any time during the gifted period by visiting Memberships, selecting Extend membership, and adding their payment information to opt into a paid membership. They won’t be charged until their gifted membership ends.
FAQ
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Currently gifts can only be redeemed by fans who don’t already have an active paid membership (including free or churned members). This means existing paid members can’t redeem a gift. The best way to give them free access would be to have them create a new account with a new email address, or to have them cancel their existing membership and redeem a gift once their access has expired.
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When creating a gift, you can customize the following fields:
- Title: This helps you keep track of the gift internally, and isn’t shown publicly.
- Tier: Decide which tier you want to gift. (Note: tiers with limited members are currently unavailable to gift).
- Length: Choose a time period between 1 month to 1 year.
- Cap claims: You can give up to 1000 gifts per link.
- Personalized message
- Promotion start and end date: Your promotion must have a start date (which can be scheduled in the future). The end date is optional, and if it has passed, then the gift can no longer be redeemed.
- For gift links that are scheduled but not yet live: You can edit everything except the tier
- For gift links that are live: You can edit the personalized message
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You can end a gift period early by editing the promotion end date to today or a date in the past.
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Currently, creator-gifted memberships are only redeemable by new paid members of your Patreon or previous members whose paid membership access has expired. This means fans with an active paid membership cannot redeem a gifted membership (including those who are currently on a free trial). Fans must create or log in to their Patreon account in order to redeem the gift.
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You can set an expiration date so that gifts cannot be redeemed past that date.
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You can view redemptions and insights at:
- Promotions > Gifts: Click on each gift link and view the sidebar to see number of redemptions, number of fans who have continued on as paid members after the gift ends (coming soon), and a list of fans who have redeemed.
- Audience > Relationship Manager: See a list of gifted fans by sorting the Current Tier column, and looking for the gift icon, or by filtering using the Gifted by you filter.
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Currently, gifting a membership to a tier with Discord and Spotify benefits will grant access to these integrations. We are working on being able to expand these offerings in the future.