Need to make adjustments to your membership? We're here to help – in this article, we'll guide you through editing your membership tier, adjusting your payment amount, or cancelling a membership.
Feel free to skip ahead using the links below, or read through the article from start to finish:
- Switching your membership tier
- Increasing your payment amount (not joining a higher tier)
- Cancelling a membership
- What happens when you make changes to a membership?
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Review your checkout summary! Changes to your membership will be reflected on your Active memberships page immediately. If you’ve paid up front, you’ll retain access to content for your paid tier for the remainder of the month.
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Switching your membership tier
You can change your membership tier whenever you’d like. To switch your membership tier with a creator, follow the steps below:
- Hover over your profile photo from the top right to open the “User menu.”
- Click the “Manage memberships” link from the menu, which will take you to your Active memberships page. Follow this link to be taken to your Active memberships page directly.
- Click the “Edit” link in the membership details for the membership you’re changing.
- Click the “Edit” button in the summary section of the payment page.
- Click the “Join” button for the tier you’d like to switch to.
- Review your new tier and payment details and click the “Update” button to confirm. If your creator requests your address for potential physical benefits, you can add or remove your address after the updated page.
Here’s a quick GIF demonstrating these steps:
Switching your tier on the Patreon app
- Tap the “Account” icon from the bottom menu of the app homepage.
- Tap on your profile name, where it lists your number of memberships.
- Select the pencil icon to open the edit patronage page.
- Scroll down and select the “Edit” button under your current tier description in the “Summary” section of the page.
- Scroll through the creator’s tiers and tap the “Join” button for the tier you’d like to switch to.
- Tap the “Update” button to confirm your changes.
Here’s a quick GIF demonstrating these steps:
Increasing payment amount (not upgrading tier)
If you are feeling generous and would like to increase your membership payment amount without changing to a higher tier (with higher benefits), you can adjust the payment amount you are billed.
To increase your payment amount without upgrading tier level:
- Hover over your profile photo from the top right to open the “User menu.”
- Click the “Manage memberships” link from the menu, which will take you to your Active memberships page. Follow this link to be take to your Active memberships page directly.
- Click the “Edit” link in the membership details for the membership you’re changing.
- Click into the “Choose what you pay” text box.
- Enter your new payment amount – your new payment amount must be equal to or higher than the minimum price of your current tier. If you want to downgrade to a lower tier, follow the steps in the switching your membership tier section above.
- Click the “Update” button.
Increasing payment amount on the Patreon app
- Tap the “Account” icon from the bottom menu of the app homepage.
- Tap on your profile name, where it lists your number of memberships.
- Select the pencil icon to open the edit patronage page.
- Tap into the “Choose what you pay” text box and enter your new payment amount. Please note that increasing your payment amount without upgrading your tier level will not result in you being placed in a new tier. Instead you’ll be in the same tier paying a higher amount than the minimum price to join.
Cancelling a membership
You can cancel your membership at any point. If you have any declined or pending bills on your account, cancelling your recurring membership will not remove these bills. We recommend that you review your Billing History page before cancelling to see if we’ll process any payments for you upon cancelling.
Here are the steps to cancel a membership on Patreon on Desktop:
- Hover over your profile photo from the top right to open the “User menu.”
- Click the “Manage memberships” link from the user menu, which will take you to your Active memberships page. Follow this link to be take to your Active memberships page directly.
- Click the “Edit” link in the membership details for the membership you’re changing.
- Click the “Edit or Cancel Membership” button.
- Select he option to cancel and click the “Cancel your membership” button to cancel.
Cancelling a membership on the app
You can cancel any membership straight from the Patreon app, just follow the steps below:
- Tap the “Account” icon from the bottom menu of the app homepage.
- Tap on your profile name, where it lists your number of memberships.
- Select the pencil icon to open the edit patronage page.
- Tap the “Edit or Cancel Membership” link on the checkout page.
- Select the option to cancel and tap “Cancel your membership” to confirm.
What happens when I change my membership?
The first thing to note is that whether you’re increasing or decreasing your membership amount, you won't be charged more than your new membership in a given month. Here’s how it works when you change your membership:
Increasing your membership
| Creator billing | Summary | Example |
| Charge up front billing: | You'll be charged the difference between what you've already paid for the month and your new membership amount. | If you paid $5 this month and increase to $10 this month, you'll be charged the difference of $5 immediately (for a monthly total of $10 for the month). Once your payment increase processes, you'll have access to your new tier content immediately. |
| Monthly billing: | You won't be charged immediately. Once you confirm the change, you'll instantly unlock access to your new tier and you'll be charged for that access on the upcoming 1st of the month. | If you paid $5 on the 1st on October and increase to the creator's $10 tier in the 7th of October, you'll be charged $10 on the upcoming 1st of November for the switch. |
| Per creation billing: | Pending bills on your account will remain at your previous post amount. You're billed your new membership amount for any paid posts the creator publishes after you upgrade. We’ll never charge you more than your monthly max, so you may want to consider increasing your monthly max if you want to make sure the creator gets a higher amount for the month you upgrade. | You had a membership of $5 and a monthly max of 2 posts ($10 max payment for the month). Your creator has already made a paid post, so you have a pending bill of $5 on your account. If you upgrade to $15 with a monthly max of 2 posts, your new monthly max for the month becomes $30. Say your creator makes another paid post. You’ll be billed your new membership amount of $15, and your pending bill total is now $20. If the creator were to make another paid post, you would not be billed $15 for it, as it would make your total over your $30 max for the month. |
| Annual billing: |
A pro-rated credit from your initial charge will be applied to the new amount and then you’ll be charged the difference between the two tiers.
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Example A: If you paid for a $120 tier and upgrade in the same month to a $140 tier, you pay $20 for the difference between the two. |
Decreasing your membership
| Creator billing | Summary | Example |
| Charge up front billing: | You won’t see any charges when you downgrade to a charge up front creator. You’ll see “credit” listed on the checkout page, however this is not a refund or funds that can be used on another membership – the credit is simply showing what you have already paid the creator for the current month. | You paid your creator $25 on October 1st. On October 12th you decide you’d rather be in the creator’s $10 tier for the next billing cycle and you downgrade to their $10 tier. On the checkout page you see “$25 credit” indicating that you’ve already paid $25 for October, so if you change your mind and increase back to $25 you’ll see no charge. You have access to $25 posts until November 1st when you’re billed $10 for the month of November and you now have access to $10 posts and benefits. Although you’ll see your new tier listed in your Active Memberships page immediately, you’ll retain access to the creator’s posts for your tier level for the remainder of the month. |
| Monthly billing: | You will not be charged your new membership amount until the 1st of the month. | If you paid $10 this month and decrease to $5 this month, you will not be charged $5 until the 1st of next month. Once your downgrade processes, you'll have access to your new tier content immediately. |
| Per creation billing: |
When you decrease your membership, your new membership immediately takes affect, however it does not change any already created bills for the month. |
You had a membership of $5 and a monthly max of 2 posts ($10 max payment for the month). Your creator has already made a paid post, so you have a pending bill of $5 on your account. If you downgrade to $2 with a monthly max of 2 posts (monthly max of $4), you’ll still be charged the $5 pending on your account, however you won’t be billed for any additional posts the creator makes. |
| Annual billing: | When changing to a lower tier amount, you will not be charged until the end of the 12-month billing period. |
If you paid $50 in April 2020 for your annual membership and decreased to $25 in May 2020, you will be charged $25 on May 1st, 2021. |
What does “credit” mean?
If you are a patron to a creator who charges up front, you may see a “credit” line item if you make adjustments to your membership. This credit is referencing the amount you’ve already paid that creator for the current month. So if you upgrade, that amount will be credited to your upgraded amount.
For example: If you’ve paid $40 to be in a charge up front creator’s tier, and later upgrade to their $60, you’ll see $40 “credit” leaving a total of $20 to be charged in order to upgrade.
Credit cannot be used for payments to other creators and is not refunded if you downgrade after paying.